Good morning my name is Billy . This morning I will be speaking about a very serious topic Capital Punishment. For a long time this topic has been a very controversial subject, because there many different opinions about it. There are the people who completely disagree with the idea of such punishment, then there are the people who are in favor of certain crimes punishable by death.
             Some of the earliest historical records of capital punishment have dated all the way back to 1750 B.C. in the Code of Hammurabi. The Bible prescribed death for more than 30 different crimes, ranging from murder to fornication. The ancient Greek Draconian Code imposed Capital punishment for every crime. Imagine that getting caught speeding and being put to death for it. Today, however, we are much more lenient with our criminal justice system. I feel that if we were more strict about the punishment for harsh violent offenders, they would think harder about the crime that they were going to commit. There are also many people who believe that public executions would lead to a higher increase in effectiveness. There is also good economic reasons for the death penalty. Capital punishment is more cost effective than keeping a violent offender imprisoned for life. For example ,take Charles Manson, who was convicted of the Sharon Tate murders back in the late sixties, !
             and remains in prison to date on death row. The reason being that experts cannot prove that he is mentally competent enough to realize the severity of his crimes. Now this is a man who publicly states that if given the opportunity to be released into society he would do the same thing again. Why should we as tax payers be forced to support the imprisonment of a man who cannot be reformed to live in society as a normal human being? Charles Manson is just one of many in prison that is hopelessly lost to any type of functional reform. On the other hand in many cases involvi...