Death Penalty: Why It Is Against the Law

Twenty-nine states in the United States have legalized the death penalty. That means that twenty-one of our states are smart enough to keep it banned for the sense of our society now-a-days. Statistically, there has been over fifteen thousand killings with the death penalty since it has been originated. Most executions, in the olden days, were from over-siding racially or dislike onto another family/person. No one wants to be sent to death row. There are plenty arguments against death penalty and in this essay introduction and body parts are about why death penalty it is by far the most cruel and inhuman punishment anyone could ever receive.

In this world, there are eight different types of execution still being used. The United States being able to use three of these methods: Lethal injection, Electrocution, and Gas inhalation. Other Countries around the world still use the processes of Hanging, Shooting, Beheading, Stoning, and Crucifixion. Most of these areas have some kind of legal government utilizing which methods to use, if multiple is available. Hanging was abandoned in the United States when a hanging went in the wrong direction and instead of the spinal cord being severed, it was either a decapitation or slowly strangling to death. Alternatives towards the hanging process was a share of electric through one’s body and inhaling gas. Most of which had their own problems as well, but still being more reliable. “More than 4,000 people were put to death by electrocution. Approximately 2 percent of them were botched, some of them when the condemned caught on fire and filled the death chamber with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. The gas chamber, first used in 1922, proved to be even less reliable. More than 5 percent of executions in the gas chamber were botched when the gas did not produce rapid loss of consciousness and witnesses watched as the condemned suffered an agonizingly slow asphyxiation'.

Along side all of the horrifying types of dehumanizing one, most people don’t agree with any of these methods because they are so unfair, and society is more pro life today. Back in the 1600’s, people were less pro life because no one lived longer than thirty to thirty-five years of age. In today’s society, most of the population has the objective to live and to have friends and family around them for a lifetime. We also considered that the average age for men and women are both around seventy-four to seventy-eight years of life. Being pro-life is a huge part of this age’s society. We have a lot more people who think about what they do and decide they want to live over dying any day. I believe we have potential and we deserve the choice to live, because “a society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings'.

The cost of the death penalty is more money than the cost of incarceration. “The death penalty was eventually reintroduced in New York and then found unconstitutional and not reintroduced again, in part because of cost'. Most states that chose to make it illegal look over all the viewpoints, including how much it would cost, knowing that quite a few people on average would end up being executed. Even if it didn’t cost what it does, is it actually helping the nation or are we just making excuses up to be able to hurt people and get revenge?

As a reaction to capital punishment, there are families out there who suffer from losses of children, loved ones, and family members. Some might even be innocent, but most wouldn’t know due to most people not getting their fair trial. Not letting those who are on death row have an equal trial is in violation of amendment 14 and 6 of the Constitution. Amendment 14; section 1 states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. A brief simplified version stating that everyone deserves an equal protection of the law. Amendment 6 states, in brief words, that everyone is guaranteed a fair trial before sentencing or coming up with a solution. Most adults who wants capital punishment doesn’t realize that it is against the Constitution of the United States of America. It is wrong and unfair, not to mention the most unusual and cruel punishment that the world has ever had. In the opinion of most people, capital punishment should be legal because someone people just deserve to die from doing morbidly horrific things. Me as a human with choices, I decided to be on that lower sided percentage and refuse to let people just murder anyone they want on death row, whether innocent or not. Whatever happened to the phrase, “…a defendant is innocent until proven guilty…?”. This phrase should mean in all criminal cases that someone objected to law deserves and receives a trial to be proven guilty or innocent.

In a final look at this argument between right and wrong, it seems to be capital punishment is also a way to keep population at good standards. So many people being on death row every year are killed and left behind which cuts the population down and makes it easier for the new and upcoming generations to change things. While most adults on death row are between 20 to 50, give or take few in different locations. The authorities believes that capital punishment is going to keep the population at a decent level so the world doesn’t began to over populate but in most occasions the death penalty is only used about 15 times a year. The death penalty isn’t used enough consistently for it to be an effective solution. “A punishment can be an effective deterrent only if it is consistently and promptly employed. Capital punishment cannot be administered to meet these conditions'.

On the opposite side of the argument, its understanding is that capital punishment does have a deterrent against any crime one wishes or happened to commit. This is not possible because it doesn’t happen enough in the United States for it to have an effective deterrent. Another side would be that lethal injection is used most because it has been said to be the easiest and less painful way to kill a criminal. That being known it is used the most on people but there has recently been killings that are interrupted because the dosage was gave to them wrong or it was the wrong medicine, making it a not-so-easy way of killing these people and making it an aggressive or slow way to die.

In conclusion, Capital Punishment is wrong. Everyone deserves to have a fair trial whether innocent or guilty. If only one person tries to help an innocent criminal on death row, it could take up to fifteen years just for them to get everyone else to switch sides. No one deserves to be thrown into death row without a fair trial and someone actually helping them. Even then, it’s still wrong and against the laws and the United States Constitution from the 1970’s. No one deserves to be killed. Everyone has a path and it never ends on death row.

Works Cited

• “Death Penalty.” Amnesty International USA, https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/. 26 November 2019
• Bedau, Hugo Adam. “The Case Against the Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, 1973, http://www.aclu.org/other/case-against-death-penalty.
• Sarat, Austin. “The Overwhelming Evidence Against the Death Penalty.” The New Republic, 1 May 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/142413/overwhelming-evidence-death-penalty.
• “14th Amendment.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv.