Death Penalty, Why It's Bad

             The Death Penalty. A heated debate? A pressing issue? Only in America. The United States of America is the only industrialized democratic nation in the world that still uses the death penalty. There are several primary reasons why the death penalty should be exonerated.
             Reason one: The Death Penalty is unfairly applied throughout the country. In Furman v. Georgia, the death penalty was banned because it was being sentenced without standards or order. Even though that Supreme Court case was overturn four years later, the problem still exists. A man who is convicted of murder in Texas (a state with over 250 executions and 450 more on Death Row last year) is more likely to be sentenced to death than a man who is convicted of murder in Connecticut (a state where the death penalty has been legal for over 7 years and there has not been one execution.) It is also unfairly distributed among minorities and the impoverished. 'Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 158 black defendants have been executed for the murder of a white victim, while only 11 white defendants have been executed for the murder of a black victim. ' And, as O.J. Simpson's lawyer once said: "Money doesn't buy justice, lack of money buys injustice." People who are able to pay for their own attorneys, as well as those who are able to afford bail, are more likely not to be sentenced to death.
             Reason Two: The Death Penalty does not deter crime. Some people, such as the President of the United States, believe that the death penalty deters crime. They are wrong; states that do not have the death penalty have lower murder rates than those who do. Furthermore, the U.S. has higher murder rates than those of Canada and Europe, which do not have the death penalty. 'A survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies found that 84% of these experts rejected the notion t
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Death Penalty, Why It's Bad. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 10:17, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/77927.html