Ever since the death penalty has been declared constitutional in 1976,
thousands of people have been placed on death row and 314 of them have been
executed.( Yaffe,1) Thirty-eight states now allow the death penalty, with New
York being the last to adapt this legislation last March. Massachusetts and
Iowa have been trying to pass a law that would to allow the death penalty to be
used in their states. Capital punishment is most often saved for murder and
sometimes arson, treason, burglary, and forcible rape of a 14 year old or under
from a 18 year old or older, but it varies within each state. There are many
politicians who are trying to pass laws banning the death penalty. There are
around 3000 people on death row across the country right now and if these
politicians get their way, then 3000 lives will be spared.(Matthews,1) The rage
of this issue continues to persist with many people questioning if capital
punishment is really the answer to solving the problem of crime. The death
penalty sh ould beallowed because it is not inhumane but rather fair and it's
continued use will end up helping out society in many ways.
Many people who oppose the death penalty say it is inhumane and unfair.
These people who oppose it say that all human life has the right to be respected.
All human life does have the right to be respected but there is a point when
that right can be lost, if someone takes the life of another human being then
they have given up that right. Another claim the opposers to the death penalty
make is that the death penalty encourages more murders because if people see the
authority taking someone's life, then they will think they can do it too. This
is not true, if criminals see that more and more people are getting the death
penalty, this will cause them to think their actions over. The United Kingdom
abolished the death penalty in 1965 and since then, violent crime has more than
doubled.(Matthews,2) The death penalty is not inhumane because it can be done
painlessly and quickly. In most cases when the execution was performed the
process that was most often used was lethal injection. Out of the 314
executions that have taken place since 1976 the majority of them, 179 have been
done by means of lethal injection. The electric chair has been used 123 times,
the gas chamber: 9 times, a firing squad: twice, and hanging: once.(Rodriquez,
4) Lethal injection is a quick, non-suffering way to execute the death row
prisoners. Opposers to the death penalty don't even realize that these inmates
are being done a favor. By being executed, they are being put out of their
misery. There are not that many people who want to be stuck in a small cell for
the rest of their life where prison rape has become more common. By executing
these prisoners, they won't have to suffer. Another reason the people who
oppose the death penalty feel that it is unfair is that it denies the person the
privilege to be retried if any new evidence comes up. On the average, an inmate
in kept in prison 8 years before their death sentence is carried out.(Yaffe,2)
If no evidence is found by then to prove their true innocence, chances are no
evidence will ever be found. Besides anyone who is on death row has already
gone through a trial so they had their chance to prove their innocence. The
jury obviously found them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt ...