Tre’Jen Weber

1st Hour
Brit Lit

The death penalty can be seen as a reasonable way to punish a person who has committed

a heinous crime. Whether the crime is for murder, treason, or any other type of crime, some see it

as a legitimate way to punish a convict. But when actually it's a despicable way of dealing with a

convict who has committed a terrible crime. Some see the death penalty as too unethical and

don’t believe that ending a human life is a good way to punish someone. The death penalty

should be abolished and does not serve as a reasonable, sufficient, or fair consequence to our

countries criminals.

Whenever someone is sentenced to death, it takes long appeals and time to get the

execution to actually happen. In some cases it may take years or decades to go through with it.

So that begs the question. Why won’t they just commute the convict to life in prison? They do it

on some occasions but on most they just wait for the appeals to come through. Also, if you’re

looking to give a criminal the highest punishment in the judicial system, life in prison is actually

worse than being sentenced to death. Spending the rest of your life in a cell and knowing you

cannot leave is just a nightmare just by itself.

 The death penalty is seen as an unethical way of punishing a convict. Ending a human

life in such a official and organized manner is disturbing. Many states has already gone through

with abolishing the death penalty because of these reasons. Commuting someone to life in prison

is a more efficient way of putting a convict away for good. Having to stay in prison for the rest

of your life knowing that you’re never going to be able to live in the free world can discomfort

and sadden a criminal. Life in prison is becoming more common in our country and as more

states abolish the death penalty, more and more criminals will certainly encounter this sentence.

Something that always concerns citizens and politicians of the United States is taxes.

Taxes are always a hot topic in politics and having the death penalty makes the taxpayers pay

more than they have to. Cases where the death penalty is a possible sentence can cost over $1.26

million dollars and cost taxpayers $90,000 dollars more per year than the average prisoner.

While cases where the death penalty isn’t involved costs around $740,000 dollars. Paying extra

money just to end someone's life does not help our country prosper and become more wealthy.

Taxpayers already pay for a lot of things they feel are unnecessary and paying for this is just

more out of citizens pockets.

To be convicted and have a possible chance of getting sentenced, the jurors and the judge must

be certain that you’ve actually committed the crime you’re being tried for. Unfortunately in some

situations people get convicted even though they did not convict the crime. Since 1973, over 150

people have been sentenced to death and were innocent and freed from death row. Other
innocent people were not so lucky. People are actually executed and afterwards or even before

they were executed, new evidence appears that shows that the death row inmate might be

innocent of the crime. Recently, John Thompson, who was freed after 14 years on death row, just

passed away and was an advocate for helping convicts get their lives back on track after being

incarcerated. “Cruel and unusual punishment starts there –to watch a man that claimed to be

innocent, walk away, claiming he’s innocent all the way, and then you know he don’t return

because he’d been executed,” John Thompson said in a WUNC interview.

During a trial it is important that the jury is unbiased and honest about their choice of whether or

not the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Past trials show that times when there is a lack of

evidence they will still come to a guilty verdict due to the magnitude of the defendant or

defendants crimes. The race of the defendant is sometimes an issue to jurors because it leads the

jurors to making decisions based on their beliefs or disdain towards the defendant. This has

happened a lot in the past including the O.J. Simpson trial. Although this is not strictly just a

problem for trials that the death penalty is a possible conviction, it worries people that a person

can be sentenced to death even if the evidence against them is not sufficient.

The death penalty is very unethical and does not serve a reasonable purpose in our country's

judicial system anymore. It's too much of a risk and many people’s lives and families have been

torn apart due to the consequences of the death penalty. America should just leave the death

penalty in the past. It was understandable in our country’s beginning stages because we were still

trying to figure out our country’s laws and identity. The inadequate and complicated process of
the death penalty is unnecessary and is a over the top way to punish our country’s convicts, and

it should just be abolished in all states.