Death Penalty Ineffective

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The death penalty is an issue that has the United States quite divided. When it comes to the topic of capital punishment of the death penalty, most of us will without hesitation agree that the death penalty is used to execute people who had commit a murderous crime. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of whether the death penalty is effective or ineffective. Whereas some are convinced that the death penalty is very effective and is a good way to make the criminal fear the consequences of his or her actions, others may agree that the death penalty has its’ flaws and is very ineffective to performing these task as well as it violates our 8th amendment of the US constitution. I consider the death penalty to be ineffective, expensive, and outdated. Coretta Scott King once said, “Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.” The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteen Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, which was used for 25 different crimes. In the Century B.C’s Draconian Code of Athens, which made the death penalty the only punishment for all crimes. Death sentences consisted of burning alive, crucifixion, beating to death, drowning, and impalement. Great Britain was said to be the influence on America’s use of the death penalty. The first ever recorded execution in the America’s was that of Captain George Kendall. In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for killing his three young children by arson at his home in Corsicana, Texas back on December 23, 1991. Willingham had tried to plea that he was innocent in many different appeals but the judges were not buying it. After he was executed in 2004 by l... ... middle of paper ... ... [they have] already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims”. The death penalty has been present as long as mankind has; however, if we opt to become a civilized society we must dispense it in its entirety. For example, in the past, many people vigorously opposed the idea of slavery because they finally realized that there not very many positive advantages slavery and keeping slavery will not be an advantage down the road of the future. They realized that all people were born equal and they took it into their own hands to abolition slavery, which was prosperously achieved in 1865. Furthermore, there are many more reasons of negative of the death penalty. Millions and millions of tax dollars are spent annually on these court cases, inadequate evidence to deter if they had caught the victim, and ultimately the mistakes that are made are permanent.

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