Analysis of Searching for Kinder Executions In his essay, Continuing the Search for Kinder Executions, published in The New York Times 2003, Mark Essig gradually reveals his opinions on the brutality of capital punishment. Even though prisoners may have committed acts that may be classified as wrong with the law, Essig believes that they should not endure any sufferance during capital punishment because it is inhumane. This action does not mean they will be able to get away with the crimes; they should just not be able to be brutally punished. While the author acknowledges logical arguments that favor capital punishment, he counters with carefully worded emotionally- laded examples that oppose the practice of executing felons because he is …show more content…
the death penalty for humans/criminals. “Because the drug paralyzes muscles but does not affect nerves, it may leave its victims wide awake but immobilized as they painfully suffocate.” (Essig, 2003, p.1). Here he is reflecting on how victims may be wide awake during their punishments. Therefore, they can feel every ounce of pain but meanwhile are incapable of making any movement. He compares the prisoners to the animals although one committed a crime and the other one did not. This comparison shows that when talking about capital punishment the author does not believe that crime determines how you should be punished. Essig mentions bringing euthanasia protocols in line with those for domestic animals. As a result, prisoners’ advocates and medical experts are now trying to persuade Tennessee, and an estimate of about thirty other states that use this drug, to choose alternate methods or different poisons for lethal injection. This is where the statement about bringing euthanasia protocols in the same line as those for domestic animals …show more content…
For example, he talks about how the hanging of a man can be found with the use of a formula. This formula can be found when using the rope length as a function of the prisoner’s weight. Also, the use of harsh words describes the death penalty is a recurrence throughout this essay. For example, words such as paralyze, immobilize, painfully, suffocate, cruelty, suffered, and strangled all have a common degrading effect on one's thoughts of the death penalty. These words portray a dark, horrid image of this particular punishment. In addition to the repetition of vicious words, Essig also redundantly refers back to the word barbaric. This repetition is significant because the author is trying to make the reader gain the same sense that he has about capital punishment. In the last sentence of his essay, Essig states, “Now death penalty opponents are realizing that scientific execution methods, ceaselessly refined, simply mask the barbarity of killing”(2003,p. 2). Here, he is using the word barbaric to attract the reader’s focus to the killings that are being masked. He wants the reader to acknowledge that the death penalty covers up the disturbance of what is really
Throughout the ages, death penalty has always been a controversial topic and triggered numerous insightful discussion. In Kroll’s Unquiet Death of Robert Harris, the writer employs pathos as an appeal throughout the whole article in order to convince the audiences that death penalty is “something indescribably ugly” and “nakedly barbaric”. While Mencken makes use of ethos and logos and builds his arguments in a more constructive and effective way to prove that death penalty is necessary and should exist in the social system.
In George Orwell’s essay, “A Hanging,” and Michael Lake’s article, “Michael Lake Describes What The Executioner Actually Faces,” a hardened truth about capital punishment is exposed through influence drawn from both authors’ firsthand encounters with government- supported execution. After witnessing the execution of Walter James Bolton, Lake describes leaving with a lingering, “sense of loss and corruption that [he has] never quite shed” (Lake. Paragraph 16). Lake’s use of this line as a conclusion to his article solidifies the article’s tone regarding the mental turmoil that capital execution can have on those involved. Likewise, Orwell describes a disturbed state of mind present even in the moments leading up to the execution, where the thought, “oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” crossed his mind (Orwell.
In “The Death Penalty” (1985), David Bruck argues that the death penalty is injustice and that it is fury rather than justice that compels others to “demand that murderers be punished” by death. Bruck relies on varies cases of death row inmates to persuade the readers against capital punishment. His purpose is to persuade readers against the death penalty in order for them to realize that it is inhuman, irrational, and that “neither justice nor self-preservation demands that we kill men whom we have already imprisoned.” Bruck does not employ an array of devices but he does employ some such as juxtaposition, rhetorical questions, and appeals to strengthen his argument. He establishes an informal relationship with his audience of supporters of capital punishment such as Mayor Koch.
Marshall and Essig come to an agreement when talking about the death penalty specifically. They both believe that it is unconstitutional, unfair, and ineffective. In Essig’s article, he uses examples of prisoners who sought to have a more painful death in order to highlight the hypocrisy of “painless execution.” For example John Byrd, who was a convicted murder in Ohio, specifically requested to be electrocuted rather than the needle itself. The legislature abolished electrocution and forced him to die by lethal injection. Another example is a prisoner named Earl Bramblett who declared: “ I am not going to lay down on a gurney and have them stick a needle in my arm and make it look like antiseptic execution”(Essig, 2003, p. 2). The author mentions both of these prisoners because he wants the reader to visualize the actual brutality of capital
One of the longest most expensive trials in American history was a very disturbing one and it's called the McMartin Preeschool trial. The Preschool was located in Manhattan Beach, California. This trial was based on accusations of over 360 acts of sexual assault, satanic acts, and killing animals. More than half of the faculty sodomized the young children that attended McMartin. Ray Buckey was one of the first ones convicted and later on more and more of the faculty were discovered in taking part in this. In the McMartin Preschool trial justice was not served because most of the workers at the preschool got convicted of their crime, but not all of them.
Andre, Claire, and Manuel Velasquez. “Capital Punishment.” Our Duty or Our Doom. 12 May 2010. 30 May 2010 .
Throughout America’s history, capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been used to punish criminals for murder and other capital crimes. In the early 20th century, numerous people would gather for public executions. The media described these events gruesome and barbaric (“Infobase Learning”). People began to wonder if the capital punishment was really constitutional.
The Death Penalty practice has always been a topic of major debate and ethical concern among citizens in society. The death penalty can be defined as the authorization to legally kill a person as punishment for committing a crime, this practice is also known as Capital Punishment. The purpose of creating a harsher punishment for criminals was to deter other people from committing atrocious crimes and it was also intended to serve as a way of incapacitation and retribution. In fact, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are some of the basic concepts in the justice system, which explain the intentions of creating punishments as a consequence for illegal conduct. In the United States, the Congress approved the federal death penalty on June 25, 1790 and according to the Death Penalty Focus (DPF, 2011) organization website “there have been 343 executions, two of which were women”.
Van Den Haag, Ernest and John Conrad. The Death Penalty: A Debate. New York: Plenum Press, 1983.
He persuades the audience by using verbal irony and statistics. When he first mentions prison, he uses verbal irony towards the subject to express his true attitude towards imprisonment by saying that locking people in cages is more humane than punishing them physically (197). This statement is ironic because he actually believes that imprisonment is a worse punishment than corporal punishment but says that it is more humane to ridicule the opposing argument. This irony serves its purpose of telling the audience that prison is
George Orwell’s essay called, A Hanging, describes how he sees capital punishment inhumane to all parties. The essay is structured like a story to convey his point clearly in a way a regular essay cannot. The story follows the narrator as he finally sees a prisoner that he describes in an inhumane to be someone that still has a will to live.
When someone is legally convicted of a capital crime, it is possible for their punishment to be execution. The Death Penalty has been a controversial topic for many years. Some believe the act of punishing a criminal by execution is completely inhumane, while others believe it is a necessary practice needed to keep our society safe. In this annotated bibliography, there are six articles that each argue on whether or not the death penalty should be illegalized. Some authors argue that the death penalty should be illegal because it does not act as a deterrent, and it negatively effects the victim’s families. Other scholar’s state that the death penalty should stay legalized because there is an overcrowding in prisons and it saves innocent’s lives. Whether or not the death penalty should be
Not only will the use of capital punishment help provide the families of victims with a feeling of security and reduce the ever-rising population in our prisons, but it will also act as a deterring factor. Again, my goal in arguing for the moral justifiability of capital punishment is to reduce the use of this practice to a minimum. This means that capital punishment will not become an everyday practice, but rather would be used in extreme situations where benefits such as deterrence, closure, and a population decrease can arise.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is how the saying goes. Coined by the infamous Hammurabi’s Code around 1700 BC, this ancient expression has become the basis of a great political debate over the past several decades – the death penalty. While the conflict can be whittled down to a matter of morals, a more pragmatic approach shows defendable points that are far more evidence backed. Supporters of the death penalty advocate that it deters crime, provides closure, and is a just punishment for those who choose to take a human life. Those against the death penalty argue that execution is a betrayal of basic human rights, an ineffective crime deterrent, an economically wasteful option, and an outdated method. The debate has experienced varying levels of attention over the years, but has always kept in the eye of the public. While many still advocate for the continued use of capital punishment, the process is not the most cost effective, efficient, consistent, or up-to-date means of punishment that America could be using today.
Capital punishment has been a controversial topic in association to any person condemned to a serious committed crime. Capital punishment has been a historical punishment for any cruel crime. Issues associated to things such as the different methods used for execution in most states, waste of taxpayers’ money by performing execution, and how it does not serve as any form of justice have been a big argument that raise many eyebrows. Capital punishment is still an active form of deterrence in the United States. The history of the death penalty explains the different statistics about capital punishment and provides credible information as to why the form of punishment should be abolished by every state. It is believed