Capital punishment
The death penalty has been around for thousands of years. Punishment by death which was common among all ancient civilizations was made a public spectacle. Crowds would gather to observe executions by boiling in oil, flaying alive, stoning, or impaling. In the 1700s, England had over two hundred offenses that could have been punishable by death. However, since the 1800s most death sentences have been a result of a conviction of murder. The United States Supreme Court, in 1972, decided the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment and concluded that capital punishment violated the eighth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution. This decision did leave open the possibility, however, that execution may be constitutional for certain crimes, such as murder or rape. Many states have passed laws that limit the death penalty to those who commit murder and other specific crimes. Unlike the methods of ancient societies, today's methods of execution are relatively quick and painless. The most common forms of execution today are the electric chair, lethal injection, and the gas chamber. Although in some cases capital punishment does deter crime, it should be illegal because the consequences of
Executing a person does not make the crime that person committed right it simply lowers society to the level of the convicted felon, which is not where society needs to be if it is trying to deter crime. 'Closure' is merely a term made up by man. ' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. With even the slightest bit of a chance of killing the innocent, capital punishment is too great a risk to legalize. The New Testament never says that society must, or should, execute evil doers, especially these who have been imprisoned. A common passage used to defend capital punishment is Deuteronomy 19:21: "And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. " When a person is convicted of a capital offense society is not permitted to retaliate with committing an act of cruelty and viciousness in return. When a person is accused wrongfully and sentenced to death, society commits a crime just as heinous as the crime that person was wrongfully convicted of, because an innocent person has been killed. ask yourself this; if your son, daughter or closest loved one made one mistake and committed a capital offense, would you accept for your precious loved one to be carried off and put to death? Or, would you suddenly realize that capital punishment is murder and needs to be abolished? Punishment by death is not the only way to protect society from a murderer; alternative forms do exist. It is not necessarily to protect society from those who have murdered, but from potential murderers who may follow. That is two and a half times the cost keeping a person in prison for life without parole. In order to keep a convicted felon in jail for life there are many expenses factored into the total cost.
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Acceptance Essays
