Is the death penalty a good punishment?

Question

I am personally pro-death penalty. I believe that some people just need to die, and I don't pretend to be all righteous about it.
But I am also righting an editorial for my English class, and I need to see the opposite view. Unfortunately, most of the people in my class are pro-death, so I came here. What are your opinions on the death penalty?
Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You don't have to sympathize with criminals or want them to avoid a terrible punishment to ask if the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and to think about the risks of executing innocent people. Your question is much too important to settle without having answers to these questions.

124 people on death rows have been released with proof that they were wrongfully convicted. DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and isn’t a guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

We have a good alternative. Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.

The death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 2

I too support the death penalty, but the biggest concern that I see with it is the fact that it is final, and if a mistake is turned up later on, it is too late.

Every once in a while, you hear about a story where someone who was sentanced to a long term in prison was cleared using DNA technology or something like that. No doubt, there have been mistakes made (remember judges andjuries are human after all) and it would be a terrible tragedy if an innocent person was killed.

For me, the solution would be to require DNA or other biological evidence that is inconclusive before the death penalty can be considered. I would, however, speed up the process in these cases since there is no longer any doubty about the guilt of the convicted. Others, however, that a better solution is just to abolish the death penalty all together.

The other arguement often made is that it is actually more expensive on average to put someone to death than to have them serve life in prison. This is actually true (because of appeals, and the years a person can spend on death row), but again, there are ways of adressing this issue from both sides of the spectrum.

Answer 3

I support the death penalty as well as do the majority of the answers to this question

It is my belief that some criminals end up with a conviction record that read like a demon's resume and there needs to be something more to correct that

Incarceration for life without parole is obviously not working as most paroled violent inmates end up back behind bars within 3-5 years upon release so therefore I believe the death penalty is a nessecary evil

and Jew Boy was incorrect when it came to the comedian it was George Carlin not Robin Williams who used the bit about swabbing the arm with rubbing alcohol on lethal injection

Answer 4

As a retired police officer I see the death penalty as a necessary form of justice although it does not deter capital crimes from still being committed . The sociopath could care less about losing their lives to obtain their means.The mentally ill defense is bull because you have to be nuts to do the things some people do. The world would be a better place if it were used more often !! Life in prison punishes the taxpayer !

Answer 5

Sometimes. But I think it's used too much.

There are people whose continued existence -- even in prison -- is a significant threat to the public, and this is where the death penalty should be used. Mass murders, serial killers and terrorists often fall into this category.

There are people on death row for murderous crimes of passion. While I think these crimes should be dealt with seriously, I don't think that a man who murdered his wife is necessarily as big a threat to the public as the class of people I mentioned earlier.

Answer 6

I don't feel that the death penalty accomplishes anything. Personally, if I were to go to jail for murder, and be faced with dying early or sitting in a jail cell for the rest of my life, I'd choose death. I think it's an easy way out for convicted murderers. I also think its a little contradictory - killing someone for killing someone? Isn't that a bit "an eye for an eye" mentality, that was adopted thousands of years ago, before the idea of Christianity and human rights? I know that by killing people for especially heinous crimes seems appropriate to many, and I can honestly see their point, but by locking them up in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives, I feel that the same would be accomplished, because that certainly sounds like hell to me. No other industrialized country in the world adopts capital punishment as its ultimate sentence . . . we condemn certain third world countries, or Middle Eastern countries, for killing criminals, but we do the same thing? It just doesn't make sense to me . . .

Answer 7

I don' think the death penalty is actually punishment as much as I think life in prison is. How can a dead man learn a lesson?

Answer 8

I have answered this question at length before and to sum it up. The death penalty is implemented when a person has committed a crime so Hannis, that their life here on earth is such a threat to all human beings, that they must pay the ultimate sacrifice and that is death. there is no rehab. in the world, that will make them safe for a civilized community. Would we keep a rabid animal in a cage until they died, or would we put them down?

Answer 9

The only problem with the death penalty is the long wait between sentence and death for those trash in human form.

Answer 10

yea, if the Jury has the option to send him to the death place where they kill you, don't know what that's called, don't remember, then you must have done something pretty bad in order for the Jury to even THINK about it. something like Rape should be under the Death Penalty, i don't know if it is but if it isn't than it should be! But anyway, back to the answer, the Death Penalty is a "reasonable" thing for the Jury to concider because if you kill someone, by god we should kill you back, an Eye for and Eye! that's what i live for. but i dont get why they rub the alcohol on you, like Robin Williams said, "We don't want you to get the last second Infection!"