Persuasive Essay On Capital Punishment

Imagine being sentenced to death for actions that you commit without your full consent due to a mental disability or illness? Capital punishment has been a controversial issue for hundreds of years in the United States. Each state has established its own laws towards capital punishment. There are federal laws and state laws that create conflict with federal, state, and county courts when it comes to sentencing criminals. Currently, thirty-one out of fifty states have legalized the execution of criminals. Some methods that are used to execute criminals are lethal injections, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad. Most criminals who have been executed have murdered multiple people, have been accused of committing first or

Michael L. Perlin, professor and director of New York Law School, wrote his book The Shame Of The States: Mental Disability And The Death Penalty and it was published in 2013. He argues that justice is not being served when it comes to sentencing mentally ill criminals to the death penalty; He supports his claim by first explaining the issue of the death penalty in the U.S., then by illustrating court cases in which mentally ill criminals have been executed, and finally by informing his audience of the rights that people have as U.S. citizens that serve as our protection. Perlin himself writes, “Those mentally retarded persons who meet the law’s requirements for criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes” (49). In other words, Perlin believes that the execution of mentally disabled inmates is the solution. By focusing on executing criminals, Perlin overlooks the deeper problem of analyzing inmates’ mental health and providing them with treatment in order to insure public safety and reduce the budget for capital punishment. State and federal courts can save money by providing proper treatment instead of execution. The cost of executing a mentally ill criminal can instead be used for someone who deserves it. Jails are overflowing with inmates and the mentally ill are using up those jail cells. Mentally ill criminals should receive treatment or they can be sent to separate facilities that will provide the proper treatment to them that they need in order to reduce the costs capital punishment and avoid overflowing jail