This little girl unwittingly stumbled into one of the most controversial topics in the world, capital punishment. In this speech I will give some background about capital punishment then using statistics and facts I will share why I believe that the death penalty is wrong.

I realize that some of you may disagree with me, and that's understandable, all I ask is that you listen to the facts before you decide to side with me or not.

Before hearing the arguments about capital punishment one must understand some of the history and basic information. Capital Punishment according to webster is imposition of a penalty of death by the state.

The earliest recorded capital punishment was 1750 B.C. From the fall of Rome to the beginnings of the modern era, capital punishment was practiced throughout Western Europe. The modern movement f

In order to determine whether or not the death penalty should exist, we must determine if it is fulfilling its intended purpose. The death penalty is used for two main reasons: to deter crime and to bring criminals to justice. Whether or not it brings the criminals to justice is debatable, but I won't go into that in this speech. Many people believe that the threat of death also deters people from committing violent crimes such as murder, but the statistics tell a different story: let's take a closer look.

To see if capital punishment actually does deter crime, authors John Sorenson, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, and James Marquart examined executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997. They speculated that if a deterrent effect were to exist, it would be found in Texas because of the high number of death sentences and executions within the state. But the authors found absolutely no evidence of a deterrent effect.

Since the 1970s, almost all capital sentences in the United States have been imposed for homicide. There has been intense debate among Americans regarding the constitutionality of capital punishment. Critics charge that executions are violations of the "cruel and unusual punishment" provision of the Eighth Amendment; supporters of the death penalty counter that this clause was not intended to prohibit legal executions. Many people fail to realize that in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was no longer legal. It abolished the Federal and state death penalty laws of the time, but it left the way open for Congress or state legislatures to enact new capital punishment laws in the future. A number of states enacted new capital punishment laws soon after the ruling.

-Florida averaged about 3.2 million dollars per execution from 1973-1988. That's 57 million dollars for 18 executions.

With all of these facts about the ineffectiveness of the death penalty, lets take another look at the logic behind the death penalty. Killing is wrong. Killing is so wrong that if you kill someone else, the Government will kill you. No one is allowed to kill anyone else, except f

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Approximate Word count = 1430
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)