Pro Death Penalty

In recent years, the death penalty, also referred to as capital punishment, has been a hotly debated topic in the United States. Some people argue that death is the ultimate punishment that should be served to those who commit the most atrocious crimes, while others insist that it does more harm than good. As of 2018, 31 American states still allow the death penalty, while the remaining 19 have outlawed it. Each state has made its own individual laws regarding the death penalty. Whenever the death penalty is considered a viable consequence for a convicted person, there are a variety of factors that must be taken into consideration, such as whether the person is actually guilty of the crime, which execution method should be used, etc. Capital

punishment should be completely legalized and utilized in the United States because it is efficient from a moral standpoint, it provides justice and closure to victims and their families, and serves as a deterrent for future criminals.
The death penalty is usually only administered to offenders of extremely serious crimes, such as homocide, rape, or kidnapping.

Victims of these crimes, if not killed, are often left with severe physical and/or mental trauma. After a criminal is put to death, victims and their families are served justice and may find closure and healing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two men involved in the The Boston Marathon terrorist attack, was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Adrianne Haslet-Davis, one of the many surviving victims of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, explained to Time magazine that “I feel like there’s a bit of closure for me. I’m never going to have to see him [the terrorist who executed the bombing] again” (Davis 1). Haslet-Davis testified against Tsarnaev in court. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the event. Many other survivors of serious crimes find comfort and safety in the fact that their offender can never repeat their crime after facing death penalty. Some argue that instead of death, criminals should face a life sentence. However, a life sentence often comes with the chance of

parole.
Capital punishment acts as a deterrent for more crimes.

Throughout all of history, death has been regarded as the ultimate justice for abhorrent behavior. The majority of murderers are not suicidal, so being put to death as a result of their actions is undesirable. By nature, humans tend to resist temptation if they are aware of an unpleasant consequence that may follow. One example of a criminal who avoided capital punishment is the case of Dmitry Smirnov. Smirnov was 21 years old at the time that he murdered his ex-girlfriend in Chicago, only after learning that Illinois had abolished death penalty. Shortly after he committed the crime, Smirnov sent an e-mail to a friend describing the murder, and admitted that “‘Illinois doesn’t have the death penalty, so I’ll just spend the rest of my life in prison,’” (When Murder is Punished With Death 2). California Supreme Court Justice Marshall McComb used files from the Los Angeles Police Department to exemplify the repelling effect of the death penalty on people who committed violent crimes and considered homocide. One file revealed that a woman named Margaret Elizabeth Daly assaulted Pete Gibbons with a knife, but did not take his life. During an investigation, Daly told the inquiring officers that “[she] would have killed him but [she] didn’t want to go to the gas chamber”, referencing lethal gas, one of the few methods of execution that are still utilized (When Murder is Punished With Death). McComb also used the case of

Orelius Matthew Steward, who was arrested for robbing a bank. Steward was armed with a handgun, and allegedly intended to use his weapon against a police officer arresting him. However, he pleaded that he “changed [his] mind when [he] thought of the gas chamber” (When Murder is Punished With Death). Focusing on less individual case-by-case statistics, “recent research shows that each execution carried out is correlated with about 74 fewer murders the following year” (Capital Punishment Works).