Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment is a controversial issue discussed in today's society. There is a heated debate on whether states should be able to kill other humans or not. People that are in favor of the death penalty say that it saves money by not paying for housing in a maximum prison. Those opposed say that it is against the constitution, and is cruel and unusual punishment for humans to be put to his or her death. I believe that the death penalty is against the constitution and is cruel and unusual punishment. It is an unusual punishment because it does not happen very often and it should not happen at all. Therefore, capital punishment should be abolished.

Capital punishment is the death penalty, and has been legal in most states for many years. The death penalty did not begin reporting executions until 1930, although legal executions have been preformed before then. From 1930 to 1992, there have been 4,002 executions in the United States (Foster, Jacobs, Siegel 54). From the 1930s to the 1960s, there was a steep drop in the total number of executions in the United States until the mid 1960s. The drop in executions was due to the lack of public support and legal challenges. Then a ten-year suspension began in order to determine a constitutionally acceptable way to carry out the death penalty (Foster, Jacobs, Siegel 54). The suspension stopped in 1976. Since then, there have only been 525 executions. Currently, there are about 3,000-3,500 inmates on death row (Wekesser 139), waiting for their death to come by either hanging, lethal injection, or even shot by a firing squad. The number is constantly changing due to the release of inmates on death row.

America's laws are based on the Constitution. They are considered to be justifiable, on what should be right; and are supposed to be the foreground for future laws. It is unconstitutional, though, for an American to be sentenced to his or her death. The eighth amendment states, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" (US Constitution). It would be against the Constitution for an American to be put to death because it can be considered cruel and unusual punishment. It is also stated in the Constitution under the fifth and fourteenth amendments: "[No person shall be] deprived of life, liberty, or property" (US Constitution). Once a criminal is put in jail, his or her liberty and property is taken away. However, when a murderer is put to death, then his or her life is taken away along with his or her liberty and property. It is unjust to violate the constitution in such a way.

Although capital punishment is unjust, there are still people who believe the United States should enforce it. A few reasons that capital punishment is still legal are because government officials believe that it discourages future crimes and murders, and that it is a safeguard for society. By eliminating murderers, society would be considered safer because there would not be a possibility that murderers could roam the streets of America. The states believe that it is a last resort for the United States to take the life of another human being. However, by putting murderers in jail, it would be the same as taking them out of society. There are two ways to take murderers out of society. One way is to execute them and another is to keep those murderers in jail for their entire life. Seventy-five percent of Americans

support capital punishment and only seventeen percent oppose it (Foster, Jacobs, Siegel 80). With the overwhelming number of people that support capital punishment, there must be other reasons why people prefer to keep it. The only other possibility that I can come up with is that people like to see others suffer greatly for crimes they have committed. They may think that if the people who commit horrible crimes are executed, there will never be a risk that they will ever be free to commit those crimes again. This may be true, but it does not give a relevant excuse to kill yet another human being.

Capital punishment by no means discourages any future murders or crimes from being committed (Hood 3). It is because of a human's own free will and freedom of choice that propels him or her to commit a crime. If a criminal commits a crime, he or she is usually deliberately choosing to commit that crime. Hate and murder are not naturally born in humans. It has to be learned and contemplated. There are many ways that people learn hatred and anger, common feelings related with murderers. One place it can come from is their family. Anger from family members is passed down from generation to generation, not necessarily by teaching them hatred, but through observations of hatred. For example, if a father beats his wife, then his children see it as being okay. With anger and violence, children are usually the victims of watching hatred and anger in the family. Although children learn hatred and violence, they will not learn from the death penalty because they cannot understand the death penalty as where it is easier to understand hate.

When we look at the death penalty, another issue is presented, which is that the value of life is lessened. When a person is put to his or her death, it shows that the human life is not worth living. As humans, we should be concerned with the

penalty inflicted on society when a life is sentenced to die by a jury of people. Being put to death by a jury of people sounds exactly like a common murder committed by a murderer. A murder is still a murder even if a jury sentences it. Society has learned to accept killing a human because that human has murdered another person. With all of the media reporting executions, Americans see the death penalty as the correct way to take care of murderers. People in America have become desensitized to what killings really mean. They might see the government legally murder a person and accept it as what is right to do. Taking one more life or adding one more victim to the death count gains nothing. The act of premeditated execution is no better than the accused murderer and is a denial of the holiness of life. By punishing a person with death, society