2.1 Death Penalty rogerian

How do you tell someone that in X amount of years, they will die? When he/she ask why they are going to die, what would you say? You could give them a long explanation about what they did and what effect it had on many people in a society, or you could just tell them it was a crime that they were committed. Either way, this is the basics of the death penalty. The death penalty, also known as Capital Punishment, is the verdict of death to a person who is proven to have committed a serious crime or crimes. These crimes tend to be murders of different degrees. What makes the death penalty so controversial is what makes our individual values all so different from each other. Everyone values different things and/or values things over other issues. Some people will value life over anything in the world. This could be coupled with people that value justice and fairness in our society. Either way, we can see that the death penalty is an issue is not just a split decision in the United States, but also an issue in many other nations around the world.

A majority of states do support the death penalty to be a possible verdict given to criminals in their state. The reasons why these states support the death penalty is because they believe in a judicial system that will mirror the severity of the crimes committed. A state that supports the death penalty will also favor the protection of people in the community and the fairness and justice towards the criminals. This does not mean that states who don’t the support the death penalty don’t care for the protection of the people and the fairness towards criminals, it is just they favor different methods and believe in different ways to carry out sentencing towards criminals and their committed crimes.

I feel I am a person who is stuck in the middle of all arguing and disagreement about the death penalty. If you were to ask me right now whether I was for or against the use of the death penalty, I would be stuck in between both sides. I feel my answer towards the question at hand would not be single side. Rather, my answer would have to be a combination of both current solutions. I feel that with the problems that can be coupled with the death penalty, which can be people being given the death penalty off non credible information, racial profiling, carelessness of life, etc, and the negatives of not having the death penalty, which can be increased crime rates and increase funding for more jails, the answer must come with a mixture of the two current solutions that deal with criminals that have committed serious crimes.

The people who support the death penalty, which is a majority of the states, feel the positives of keeping the death penalty out weights the issues that people against the death penalty make public. The main issues that people against the death penalty state are that the death penalty is unethical, cruel, expensive and not necessary. This doesn’t mean that people who are supporting the death penalty are cruel monsters who have a lot of money. It could be the complete opposite. People who support the death penalty believe in the semi opposites of these claims. They believe that the death penalty process is a fair process that is sufficient in allowing a person to be killed by the government because of his/her actions and any method of execution should be allowed varying from state to state.

There are many reasons for people to be on the other side of the fence of the death penalty. I feel people who are against the death penalty value life and the emotions of many parties related to the people involved with the crime (victims, criminals and their family). Quoted from the webpage balanced politics, which is a website that tries to explain the controversial issues of today’s government and society, “It is barbaric and violates the cruel and usual clause in the Bill of Rights”? People against the death penalty will believe that the government is murdering criminals for serious crimes by the main method of 3 injections or could use the less common method of the electric chair. Either way, the same results are the same. These methods could be called barbaric because if you could realize and feel the pain that the criminal would go through, you would basically be dead. The reason why the electric chair is considered to be a less common method is because the shear thought to execute a human being with the use of volts and electricity plans into the stereotype of torture, which is always a negative though in the United States. The more common 3 injection is a system that was created to make the person receiving the lethal injection feels no pain throughout the whole process. The problem and idea of receiving no pain throughout the whole process is we could never know if the human being will feel pain or not. From the Death Penalty Information Center, the lethal injections consist of 3 liquids that are injected into the person. The first is sodium pentothal which basically puts a person into a claim state of mind. The second is a pancuronium bromide that will cause the body to be paralyzed and will result in the person feeling no pain with the third liquid is injected. And the third liquid is potassium chloride which is the thing that will cause death by stopping the heart. Some experts believe that the pancuronium bromide will not be enough to cause a painless death. These are just two explanations of why people believe the death penalty is considered barbaric and cruel.

What is so wrong about killing a person who killed another person? If this is to be a true fact, why isn’t everyone who has committed murder to another human being killed through the government? This is another reason why people argue about the death penalty. How do you determine the extent of whether a person should receive the death penalty? People who don’t support the death penalty say that no one should receive the death penalty for any crimes they committed, even if it the murder could have been extreme and cruel to the victim and their family. On the other hand, people who support the death penalty believe that a jury of people who have been screened and been considered qualified are able to determine whether a person should receive the death penalty or just jail time for a murder committed. Either way you decide to look at it, there will be more issues and more complaints that cover either choice.

Like I stated earlier, I sit on the fence. I know most people think you have to be one way or the other, but I still feel stuck. To make a solution for myself, I should try to compromise between both sides and make a whole new system that satisfies everyone. But I see no possible way to combine both of these solutions. Either way, the end result is someone will die or someone will stay in jail. If you decide to keep the death penalty, there will probably never be a way to ensure a person die a painless death. If you decide to remove the death penalty, you could be seen as a nation who does not have a fair system and a nation that treats criminals very nicely.

This topic will constantly be argued and the possibility of finding a compromise between both sides will probably never be found, but overtime this issue will naturally come to a settlement.






http://www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/lethal-injection-moratorium-executions-ends-after-supreme-court-decision

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/01/10/1171076/death-penalty-system-irretrievably.html <--- Opinion


http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty