Speech Against Capital Punishment

Speech Against Capital Punishment

Good Afternoon, I am honored to be here, and I thank you for having me.

Today I would like to speak to you about a very controversial issue-

capital punishment. What do those two words mean to you? To most

people they mean a murder victims family receiving justice for their

deceased. Let me see a show of hands. How many people in the audience

believe in the death penalty? I conducted a weeklong survey of two

hundred people of all ages. The purpose was to see how many people

believed in the death penalty and how many opposed it. My results are

shown on this overhead.

As you can clearly see, 98% believe in the death penalty. 57% believe

that the death penalty is a deterrent for murder. A high of 97% of the

people favor capital punishment, where 1% think that our justice system

should not be more lenient on death row inmates. Only 89% think that

once convicted of murder, an inmate should be sentenced to death

immediately.

I would like to take this time to tell you a story. On August 15,

1997, the Reverend John Miller preached a sermon at the Martha Vineyards

Tabernacle in New Hampshire. He told his congregation, which included

the vacationing President Clinton and his wife, that capital punishment

is wrong. I invite you to look at a picture of Timothy McVeigh and to

forgive him, said Miller. If we profess to be Christians, then we are

called to love and forgive. Once the sermon ended, Rev. Miller,

Clinton, and their wives got together for brunch at the Sweet Life Cafi.

What the Rev. did not know was that 24-year-old Jeremy T Charron; an

Epsom New Hampshire police officer was gunned down in cold blood just

hours before Millers sermon on forgiving mur...

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...uman beings is to treat them like human beings.

Gilligan acknowledges that some violent criminals are so severely

damaged and dangerous they simply can never live out in society again.

But the emphasis, he said, must be on restraining and quarantining,

rather than punishment. Over time, even the most deeply damaged people

can recover a great deal of the humanity that they have lost; even the

deadest could be restored to some semblance of humanity if given a

humane enough environment, said Gilligan.

I now leave the decision up to you. I have given you both the pros and

cons on the issue of capital punishment. If you choose to remember only

one point of my speech tonight let it be this quote of human beings by

Henry Ford. None are good but all are scared. Even the most

horrendous criminal is a human being with a soul, and that soul is

scared.