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Austin Palmer

Aughenbaugh

English 12

3 February 2017

The Disadvantages of Capital Punishment

Taking a persons life as punishment for crimes they have committed, also known as

capital punishment. (Capital Punishment) Capital Punishment is the most serious and unethical

form of punishment used when somebody has committed a capital crime. It deprives the

sentenced of their most basic human right and costs more than keeping someone in prison for the

rest of their life. Capital punishment is taking away the most basic rights from the one being

executed because strangers who do not know anything except what the accused had done believe

it is the right thing to do. It is legalized murder and there needs to be an end to it.

Capital punishment has a bad history behind it in the United States and other places

around the world. In the eighteen-hundreds, anyone convicted of murder and other serious

crimes were executed. This caused jurors to find a defendant not guilty if they felt the death

penalty was not needed. This caused states to allow juries between a life sentence and death by

the early nineteen-hundreds. (Michael Reggio) There is still a law on the records that gives the

death penalty to a crime not that serious. In Pennsylvania, if you steal a horse and are caught,

you can be sentenced to death by being hung. In Nigeria, a woman was stoned to death for

committing adultery. (Capital Punishment Around the World)

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The death penalty dates to as far back as ancient China and sixteenth century BC Egypt.

Egypt is where the first historically recorded execution was and where the one who was being

executed had to end their own life.In the 1500s, someone could have been boiled to death and

would be. Ways someone would be executed in the dark ages were very violent and inhumane as

well, they could be burned alive, drowned, and quartered. Upper class civilians would usually get

beheaded due to it being a little cleaner and not as painful. Pressing was usually an interrogation

method, the one adding all the weight would add more weight slowly causing more pressure in

the interrogated persons chest and if someone refused to tell them what they want to know

weather they know what it is or not, the weight would crush their chest and kill them. In 1608,

the first recorded English-American execution took place, in 1846 Michigan was the first state to

abolish the death penalty, and in 1888 New York had the first electric chair made which first saw

use in 1890. (Michael Reggio)

Most countries have made the execution of of juveniles illegal. The United States has

found use of capital punishment against the mentally retarded, insane and juveniles

unconstitutional. Since 1990, most countries made the legal age to be eligible for execution 18.

In 2007 one million seven-hundred thousand arrests were minors. (Juvenile Crime)

United Nations have been trying to stop capital punishment with their influence as well.

In 1997, the United Nations had adopted a moratorium and hope to eventually end all capital

punishment. In 2000, a petition signed by over three-million people from about one-hundred

thirty countries got to the secretary of the U.N. They did nothing with it as their power is limited

on telling countries what they can and cannot do but, they have asked countries not to use the

death penalty on non-violent crimes. ( Capital Punishment Around the World)

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There have been cases of death row inmates who fill out documentation to speed up their

execution date. Inmates who fill out this documentation have had no presence to the outside

world and are not psychologically evaluated after filling this documentation out. This has caused

their mental competency to be debated. (Death Penalty Laws: State, Federal, and United States

Military)

Support for the death penalty has been decreasing throughout the years. With the United

States being the only western country to use the death penalty it is easy to see why. Between

1994 and 2007 about seventy percent of people who were asked about the death penalty said they

were for it. In 2005 support for the death penalty dropped to fifty-six percent and a study showed

thirty-eight percent were for the death penalty for mass shootings and serial killings. A Gallop

poll had shown a whopping sixty-two percent had said the death penalty will not help crime rate.

(Public Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment)

Countries have refused to give the United States criminals and Germany has even sued

the U.S. Germany and Lebanon have refused to extradite Mohammed Ali Hamadi in fear he

would get the death penalty. Mohammed served nineteen years of a life sentence in german

prison and was deported to Lebanon where he currently resides. As of September 2011 he has

been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted terrorists.Germany has sued the

United States for executing two brothers who were german citizens. Germany stated that the

United States broke international law by failing to inform them about the two and went on to win

the lawsuit. (Capital Punishment Around the World)

There are many people who are for the death penalty and say that it is a positive thing.

Some say the death penalty honors the victim or victims for an eye for an eye, it will help
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console grieving families, and will make sure the perpetrator will never commit another crime.

(Public Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment) There are ways to do all those things without

execution. It would not only be best but would cost less to give them life without parole, lock

them in solitary confinement until they go insane and have to be admitted into an insane asylum,

or they go to prison and learn that what they did was very wrong and decide to live a normal

happy life if they are eligible to get out on parole.

It is no surprise that in the world today capital punishment is not brought up as often as it

use to be. There are still people fighting on both sides but nothing is being done. Capital

punishment is not a topic to be put aside, it is a serious issue and should be talked about more

and more needs to be done to stop it. Putting somebody in prison for their crimes should be

enough to stop them from committing heinous acts. What could end up happening to them in

prison is a whole lot worse than execution and keeping them in prison costs a lot less.
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Works Cited

Aaron, Taylor May. "Capital Punishment and Public Safety." Ethika Politika. N.p., 11 Nov.

2014. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

Capital Punishment." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.

Evans, Kim Masters. "Capital Punishment around the World." Capital Punishment: Cruel

and Unusual? 2008 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

Evans, Kim Masters. "Capital Punishment around the World." Capital Punishment: Cruel

and Unusual? 2012 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context. Web. 13 Jan. 2017.

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Evans, Kim Masters. "Death Penalty Laws: State, Federal, and U.S. Military." Capital

Punishment: Cruel and Unusual? 2012 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Information Plus

Reference Series. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2017.

Evans, Kim Masters. "Juvenile Crime." Crime, Prisons, and Jails. 2009 ed. Detroit: Gale,

2010. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Jan.

2017.

Reggio, Michael H. "History of the Death Penalty." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2017.

Weier, John W. "Public Attitudes toward Capital Punishment." Capital Punishment: Cruel

and Unusual? 2006 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

"Death Penalty ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. ProCon.org, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.dsd

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