The Death Penalty: An American Tradition
Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, 802 people have been executed nationwide (DPIC). Among those executed have been minors, the mentally retarded, and the innocent. Capital punishment is fallible, irrevocable, expensive, and filled with racial and class bias. The death penalty violates our most basic human rights, and I strongly believe it should be abolished. "An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."- Albert Camus (1957) It is written in the United States Bill of Rights that punishmen
The discriminatory nature of the death penalty is also apparent in statistics concerning women and wealth. Since 1976, only 9 women have been executed in the United States (DPIC). Even when women are sentenced to death, their sentence is usually commuted to life imprisonment. Concerning wealth, many people on trial can't afford to hire their own attorneys, and they are appointed one by the state. However, defendants represented by court appointed attorneys are more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death than people with private attorneys (Williams, 63). Court appointed attorneys are often inexperienced and poorly trained. I believe it is unjust that rich people have a better chance at life imprisonment than poor people. Execution of the Mentally Challenged
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Approximate Word count = 1522
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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