Death Penalty Essay

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What if people were executed for a crime they did not commit? It is a very sad but realistic scenario. Innocent lives that are lost are a necessary risk to the government to allow the death penalty to be sought. People put their faith in a government that can one day find them guilty of a crime they may or may not have committed and execute them for it. This is one of the many problems that arise with allowing the death penalty to be used as a form of punishment. Executions have changed drastically over the years by making it non constitutional to execute minors and the mentally disabled, yet many mentally challenged people are still executed today. It is also not a solution to the problem people face with the unjust criminal justice system and the problem with crime people continue to face. The death penalty is far from beneficial to society as it is inhumane and ineffective.
The death penalty is unjust and risks outweigh any of the benefits. Many people believe the death penalty is an effective system and the punishment fits the crime yet so many innocent people have been put to death for crimes they did not commit. Reports show Gary Graham was executed in 2000 solely off the testimony of a witness who claimed to get a quick view of the defendant from 40 feet away through a windshield. The evidence is circumstantial but was enough not only to get a conviction but capital punishment. Troy Davis was executed in 2011 even though witnesses recanted their testimonies. The witnesses that were used in his case to further prove his guilt recanted their testimonies, therefore doing the exact opposite, mores proving him not guilty, but a death penalty sentence was still imposed. Cameron Willington was executed in 2004 for killing his ch...

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...nes.” The government should not have the right to decide who lives and who dies as no human being is of a higher power over another. The death penalty places the focus on the legal consequences, not the human consequences. Attention is directed on the crime and the accused, instead of where it belongs, on the family and loved ones of the victim and on the community. Life without parole punishes the criminal without putting him or her in the headlines. Eighty eight percent of the country’s top criminologists don’t believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime. Also studies show murder rates in states that don’t have the death penalty are consistently lower in states that do have the death penalty. In the south which carries out over 80 percent of the executions in the U.S has the highest murder rate of all four regions.

To conclude, the death penalty

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