AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

Protecting the Innocent

4.9 of 5.0 (196 reviews)

Contains
674 words
Category
Politics

Protecting the Innocent Page 1
Protecting the Innocent Page 2
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Protecting the Innocent


By: Amy York

E-mail: york3107@yahoo.com



Amy York April 24, 2000 Protecting the Innocent Capital punishment should be abolished in the United States. There may have been a time when capital punishment was needed and acceptable, but that time is far behind us. The concepts and beliefs supporting capital punishment are outdated and have no place in our modern society. There is no longer a need to perform executions to maintain a safe society. There are two opposing viewpoints on the issue of capital punishment, and both present strong arguments with valid points. One side maintains that capital punishment is an ethical response to crime, and the opposing side believes capital punishment is not an ethical legal action. Undeniably capital punishment does offer some advantages to our society, such as deterrence and incapacitation. However both of these can be gained without the death penalty. There is no proof that the death penalty is a deterrent to criminals, and incapacitation can be achieved by sentencing offenders to life in prison. A common misconception is that executing an offender costs less than life long imprisonment. The cost of apparatus and maintenance of the procedures attending the death penalty, including death row and the endless appeals and legal machinery, far outweighs the expense of maintaining in prison the tiny fraction of criminals who would otherwise be slain (Draper 46). A report issued in1998 by the Judicial Conference of the United States found the cost of sentencing a defendant to the death penalty is higher than imprisoning the accused for life. This is due to the high cost of providing representation in federal death penalty cases (www.uscourts.gov/dpenalty.htm). Cases involving the death penalty take longer to prosecute and therefore have higher costs than other cases. The state is usually responsible for paying the accused legal fees, as most cannot afford a lawyer. Some legal firms do handle capital punishment cases pro bono but the majority of defendants are unable to obtain legal representation on their own. The death penalty was abolished in the United States from 1972 to 1976 after the Supreme Court ruled it cruel and unusual punishment and therefore violated the 8'th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. When new execution methods were introduced the decision was reversed (www.brittanica.com). However even if the death penalty is no longer considered cruel and unusual, it is still unethical. Our legal system is not infallible, mistakes occur daily within this system. When errors are made regarding capital punishment, the risk of ending innocent lives becomes a very real possibility. During the past century many innocent persons have been given the death penalty. Many of these people spend years on death row only to later be exonerated. The House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights issued a report in October of 1993 listing 48 persons who had been released from death row between 1973 and 1993 due to new evidence that proved their innocence (www.un.org). However recently President Clinton has signed a law that limits death row prisoners to one habeas corpus appeal within one year of conviction (www.whitehouse.gov). Many of the innocent people released from death row during the last decade would have been executed were this law in effect. When you read facts and figures concerning death penalty convictions it is easy to disassociate yourself from the convicted. When faces go along with the written name it becomes harder not too feel something for these people. The majority of society will never know anyone sentenced to death row. This makes it safe to be a supporter of capital punishment. I believe that if these same supporters were to watch an execution it would become harder to support. I know that just thinking of the innocent people who have had years of their lives stolen away from them is enough to make me oppose the death penalty. Many of the supporters of capital punishment believe that murderers and sex offenders have nothing to offer society and ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 674 words of 1348.

Keywords: protecting the innocent bible verse, protecting the innocent quotes, protecting the innocent third party purchaser, protecting the innocent studio c, protecting the innocent facebook, protect the innocent meaning, protect the innocent hearthstone, protect the innocent patreon

Similar essays


To Clone or not to clone

By: Ana E-mail: ana79@mail.com To Clone Or Not To Clone Cloning is an issue that has been evolving during time. At the begining, cloning was been researched and was described as something that was hard to reach. Even science fiction movies, such as Multiplicity, were produced about cloning. As the time went through, cloning became a reali...

105 reviews
Download
Trying Juviniles as Adults

By: Lori Slaght E-mail: LASLaght Trying Juveniles as Adults and Placing them into Adult Institutions Juveniles being tried as adults, who is to blame? In today''s society it is not who or whom it is what. Juvenile offenders are now facing a double-edged sword. Not only can they be tried in a Juvenile court for a crime committed. They are...

212 reviews
Download
Sexual Abstinence

By: Anonymous E-mail: starr@imtoosexy.com Today's world is full of worries and problems which did not affect teens a generation ago. New problems keep appearing in today's world, such as STDs, increased pregnancy rates, and other factors facing teens who choose to have sex. Emotionally and physically teens and getting less developed befor...

90 reviews
Download
Hippies

By: Diana Perris E-mail: Pekkle2000 The 1950's gave to America certain ideals and values that were strongly followed and enforced, some of the people in the following generation took those ideals and attempted to destroy them. Most of them were just teenagers or young adults, but they all agreed that the lifestyle and beliefs that their...

133 reviews
Download
A Different Sort of Segregatio

By: Anonymous Segregation of a Different Sort "If we [adults between 18 and 21] can still be trusted enough to fight in wars, if we can be trusted enough to vote for our leaders, if we can be trusted enough to have sex, then why the hell can't we be trusted with a glass of wine?" Shamed Dogan By law, anyone 18 years and older will be trie...

47 reviews
Download
Abortion Pro Choice Views

Abortion - Pro-Choice Views Introduction From 1973 to 1987, over 22 million abortions have been performed. Pro-lifers would call that a terrible waste of human life. True, 22 million lives were taken, but I believe that we are better off without those. Please let me explain in the following report. What is abortion? Webster's dictionary...

73 reviews
Download
Talk Shows

Do It Publicly With talk shows ruling day-time television, people are left with little choice but to watch this humiliating form of entertainment. Turn the television on in the afternoon and you will find a large variety of talk shows to choose from. "Maybe we have become a nation addicted to hearing our neighbors' seamy personal problems"(...

35 reviews
Download
Development of Communist Theory

If neither Marx or Engels never lived and written the books they did, former Soviet Union and China would probably be conducting their governmental systems in a different manner. Defined by Marx and Engels, the communist theory can be summed up in the single phrase: abolition of private property (Engels, Marx 80). Communists are...

132 reviews
Download
Juvenile Delinquency

There is no doubt that various experts can give us many theories as to the causes of juvenile delinquency, including one's economic background, substance abuse, delinquent peer groups, repeated exposure to violence, increased availability of firearms and media violence, however, I feel that the number one cause of juvenile delinquency is the br...

32 reviews
Download
Communications in Observation

Women are more noticeably shy then men. Non-verbally, their "body language" seems to communicate feelings of great uncertainty and self-consciousness. For example, I observed a woman in a bus en route to the Cherry Hill Mall. Her and a young man sitting directly across from her were engaged in what was apparently a mutual flirt. But the man see...

184 reviews
Download
La Cosa Nostra

By: Natalie Ann E-mail: CampYomeca@aol.com Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film 'The Godfather' when Don Vito Corleone's son Michael takes over his father's position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horses's head lies bloody in a man's bed. It is this traditio...

118 reviews
Download
Conflicts and relationships

By: james carvill E-mail: tuf123guy@aol Conflicts in Relationships by James Carvill In Othello, the Moor of Venice by Shakespeare, A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, and The Glass Managerie by Tennessee Williams involve relationships and the development of the characters through conflicts in their relationships. For O...

174 reviews
Download
Gambling Casinos

By: Anonymous : A Plague on Society Gamblers no longer need to trek to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to find the action they so badly crave. It is available today in their own hometowns. Legalized gambling is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Gambling's tremendous popularity is evident in the recent increase in the...

133 reviews
Download
India

By: ca E-mail: camaral@rsad.edu Hindu life styles and beliefs are focused mainly on one single worldview that everyone accepts and worships. Samsara is a continued cycle of ongoing rebirths, ones ultimate goal throughout each life is to attain the state of Moksha. Moksha is achieved when one realizes the true nature of surrounding life. O...

99 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą