Revenge Is Not Justice

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Revenge is not Justice

“With God as my witness, I have been falsely accused of these crimes. I did not commit them. I am an innocent man, and I just pray in the name of Jesus Christ that all this will be brought out. The truth will eventually be brought out.” That is a direct quote from Calvin C. Johnson Jr. that he said in 1983, at his sentence hearing (Hamikian). The death penalty is slowly depleting from countries and more than two-thirds of countries have stopped using is it as a form of punishment (Dying Out). Thirty five percent of Americans oppose the death penalty, which is the highest number in forty years. That percentage needs to be higher and the death penalty should be eliminated. (Strauss). It should not even be an option as a form of punishment. More citizens should see that having the death penalty has a more negative than positive outcome (Douthat). The death penalty should be done away with; many innocent people are on death row, states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate, and it is a more expensive alternative.

Numerous innocent people are on death row and have to await their fate of being executed while desperately trying to prove their innocence. Calvin Johnson Jr. he was an innocent man whom was sentenced to death as a result of a rape charge. After many agonizing years he eventually had his sentenced reduce and was not executed (Hampikian). Court systems in the United States are buried in unsolved cases, meaning many of the wrong people could be behind bars or out on the streets. In research done by the Innocence Project it has been proven that approximately twenty-two percent of people charged guilty were influenced by false-confessions. Also up to seventy-three percent of jury members will...

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... Death Penalty in the USA).

Work Cited

“Death Penalty Cost.” Amnesty International, USA. 2011. Web. 5 October 2011.

Douthat, Ross. Justice After Troy Davis. New York Times. 25 September 2011: 16. TOPICsearch. EBSCO. Web. 19 October 2011.

Dwyer, Jim. Neufeld, Peter. Scheck, Barry. Actual Innocence. New York; Signet, 2000-2001. Print.

“Dying Out.” The Economist. 24 September 2011. 73-74. Print.

Hampikian, Greg. Exit to Freedom. Athens, Georgia; University of Georgia Press, 2003. Print.

Prejean, Helen. The Death of Innocents. New York: Random House, 2005. Print.

Strauss, Gary. USA Today. “Poll: 35% Oppose Death Penalty.” USA Today n.d: Middle Search Plus. EBSCO. Web. 19 October 2011.

“The Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty in the USA.” Capital Punishment.org. 20 August 2011. Web 5 October 2011.

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