The Death Penalty 6
A man sits on death row trying to keep death off his mind. He knows he is innocent but no one will believe him. He sits in his cell and prays with the hope that God will not let him get electrocuted. Just the everyday fear of thinking about his death that he knows will come soon takes its toll on him. This is a true story of Jay C. Smith a former high school principal in Pennsylvania. He was convicted for the murder of 3 people and sentenced to death. He was released in 1992 when it became known that the prosecution withheld crucial information that could have kept him from being convicted. The death sentence should not be legal in the United States because it is unjust, immoral and cruel. Sentencing someone to death does not give him or her a chance to learn from his or her mistakes, and give them a second chance. The death penalty is used in many states today to punish the worst criminals. The death penalty is reserved for the worst criminals; murderers, spies, rapists, and other types of sex offenders. There are many people who defend the use of the death penalty and say it saves money, gets rid of the worst criminals and deters others from committing serious crimes. Many people think people should get done to the
No one deserves to die no matter what crime he or she committed. J. Edgar Hoover remarked "Nothing is so precious in our country as the life of a human being, whether he is a criminal or not, and on the other side of the scales must be placed all of the legal safeguards which our society demands"(Wood 464). If someone is a murderer and cannot be rehabilitated he or she should be given a life sentence and forced to do some kind of work to help pay for the cost of imprisonment. In some cases it is very hard to not want the death penalty enforced for example, if your child was sexually attacked and killed, you would probably want the offender to die a horrible death. It is hard to forgive in many cases but we need to learn how to live together and be able to trust and forgive one another. The execution is not right even if it is not painful. No one deserves to have their life taken away because they made a mistake. Life is a precious thing and, cannot be given to someone and it should not be taken either. Even if the death penalty might save taxpayers money it is not right. No one can put a price on someone's life. Alternative forms of punishment need to be instituted to deter criminals such as corporal punishment, where the offender is punished with pain of some kind. This would shorten the prison sentence of the offenders, but also deter others from doing the same type of crime. Capital punishment does not deter criminals from committing crimes because while they are committing the crimes they do not realize that they might get the death sentence for what the
Some common words found in the essay are:
Edgar Hoover, Jay Smith, , death penalty, worst criminals, capital punishment, committing serious crimes, pay cost imprisonment, help pay cost, learn mistakes, death sentence, help pay, criminals committing, pay cost, taxpayers money, life sentence,
Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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