Well, I'm doing a history project on this, so I thought I might as well blog about my opinions on the death penalty.
I think the death penalty is a very poor way of punishing someone for a heinous crime. People need to get rid of the mentality that you should take 'an eye for an eye'. Life in prison without parole seems to be a better punishment to me. If you kill someone, then their punishment is ended, but if they have to live for their whole life in a prison, doesn't that seem like a greater punishment?; Waking up every morning of your life to the same dreary gray walls and the cement bed...
The process of lethal injection involves injecting someone with a 'cocktail' of chemicals. These chemicals are supposed to first, knock you unconscious, paralyze your muscles, and then cause cardiac arrest. If there isn't enough anesthesia in the cocktail, then the person may experience an incredibly painful death. ((
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/washington/26lethal.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)). People can argue that death by lethal injection is a more humane way of death, but it doesn't seem that way to me. I believe that lethal injection violates the 8th Amendment of the Bill of Rights which states that "no cruel nor unusual punishment shall be inflicted". To me, being injected with a needle that kills you kind-of seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Currently, there are probably dozens of innocent people on the death row who have been falsely accused of capital crimes. They don't deserve to be executed for something that they didn't do. Unlike other punishments, the death penalty is irreversible and after the person is dead, then there's no bringing him back. Nowadays, with all the DNA examination, more and more people are being proven innocent of their crimes.
The United States is part of the handful of countries who still punish people with the death penalty ((
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty)). If the United States is so interested in improving world policies, then they should ban the death penalty. Like I said before, life in prison without parole seems to me like a better punishment. If you fight fire with fire, all you get is a bigger fire!
What is your stance on the death penalty?
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