The Death Penalty Should Not be Legal in the America?

2042 Words5 Pages

What are the two things in America that absolutely everyone has an opinion on: Two things, abortion and the death penalty. There have been multiple cases where death row inmates have been found innocent before being put to death, and then there are few that have ended unfortunately. Cases like Carlos DeLuna, where they have been put to death then found innocent after the deed had been done. For this exact reason, the death penalty should not be legal in the America. The death penalty has been around from the earliest known civilizations to present day America. The first recorded use of the death penalty was by the king of Babylon, Hammurabi in the early 18th century B.C. (“Penalty” 2). The Babylonian king had as many as 25 different crimes that would result in the penalty of death (Staff 1). There were many different types of death in the Babylonian age that ranged from crucifixion, drowning, and burying alive, beatings, and being stoned to death (Staff 1). The death penalty hung around even after the Babylonian empire had fallen. It is found in the Draconian code of the Athenians (Staff 1). It went dormant for a while until it turned back up again in the history books of the European continents. As history has shown, the penalty was extremely popular in England (Rust 1). The English king Henry the VIII was a big supporter of the death penalty. He may have ordered as many as 72,000 deaths (staff 1). There is no telling exactly how many people were put to death. It seems Henry found great joy in torturing his death row prisoners. Some of his favorite executions were beheading, burning at the stake and boiling alive (Staff 1). Just like most English kings, Henry’s favorite execution was by hanging (Staff 1... ... middle of paper ... ...hereas countries like Greece, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, Columbia and Mexico have outlawed it (“Penalty” 6). As proven how must the United States be looked at as an equal to some of the world most powerful countries when it is still being looked at along with some of the worst and most disturbing countries on the globe? The death Penalty should be illegal in America for many reasons, including the history of it in the very beginnings of civilizations to the new age. There are many good points of why is should be kept how if a person kills they should be killed in return, that is an understandable argument. But none as good as how there is no way of being 100% sure that the human being killed could be an innocent. And that should be a viable reason for the United states to be rid of the awful Punishment just as all its ancestors before have done.

Open Document