Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

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"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted." This is what is stated in the 14th amendment of the Bill of Rights. So why is there still a death penalty in the United States? The first laws created towards the death penalty go as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which allowed the death penalty to be carried out for 25 different crimes. In these early times death sentences were done in ways such as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. Newer ways to go about the death penalty, more nineteenth century, include hanging, electric chair, gas chamber, and lethal injection. What do all these methods …show more content…

The problem with this is that, once done, there’s no going back. Since the death penalty was reinstated, 144 men and women has been released from death row. That is 144 people who were wrongly convicted of a crime and released, sometimes moments before execution. One study says that 1 out of 25 (4.1 percent) sentenced to death did not commit the crime accounted for. Regarding the 144 men and women previously mentioned, “As a percentage of all death sentences, that 's just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed” (Levy). The study puts into play a number of factors, but the statement still stands. Yet another aspect that affects those on death row, is …show more content…

There are tens of thousands of homicides in this country every year, and only a tiny fraction of these criminals are sentenced to death. What makes a crime so unacceptable that the result is capital punishment? Well it seems that rather than based on the crime, the decision is based on politics, the jurisdiction, and the quality of the legal counsel. “The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 22,000 homicides committed every year approximately 100 people or less are sentenced to death” (working for an alternative to the death penalty). The statistics speak for themselves. Random or not, probably the most important factor in deciding if a defendant should get the death penalty is the

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