Agains the Death Penalty

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The Death Penalty The death penalty, or capital punishment is punishment for committing a "capital offense", such as murder or treason, where the government having jurisdiction over the crime and the criminal puts the person convicted of the crime to death. The question is, is this a justifiable form of punishment? In this paper we will dissect what the death penalty really is and what it does. The method used in most jurisdictions today is that of lethal injection, where a number of drugs are injected into the person to sedate and then cause death. Many states have abolished it, believing it to be cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, even though the US Supreme Court has ruled that it is not provided that it is administered effectively with as little pain as possible and not in any racially discriminatory manner. Over the years in the US there have been many methods of imposing the death penalty from the firing squad to the hangman's noose to the electric chair to the gas chamber to lethal injection. It makes a person wonder why, if the death penalty is not cruel, do we keep looking for ways to make it easier on the person being executed. The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white. But not only is it expensive for the accused to defend themselves, death by execution is excessively expensive to taxpayers. Most people who support the death penalty believe it is more cost effective than life ... ... middle of paper ... ...evenge and is doing much more harm than good. So what justifies us to murder a murderer? That in itself makes us a murderer. Looking into how our law works, if you steal a diamond out of greed, you are committing theft, if you steal food because you're starving, you are still committing theft. If you murder someone out of anger, you are a murderer, if you murder someone out of revenge you are still a murder, and no law should justify taking away the right to live. The contradiction of the death penalty baffles me especially because it is supported most by right wing conservative republicans. They state that we are a Christian nation, but America has never taught me to turn the other cheek, they say abortion is a sin, its taking away another person’s life and only god should have judgment of that, yet they are completely fine with taking away a grown man’s life.

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