Use Of Death Penalty example essay topic

Death Penalty "McVeigh, whose attack on the building was the most deadly act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, became the first federal prisoner to be executed in the United States in 38 years. He has been convicted of murder, conspiracy and mass weapons charges for the April 19 1995, blast that destroyed the Alfred P. Murray Federal Building and left 700 people wounded in addition to those killed" (Gor in 1). This is one example why people are put to death row or executed. Since ancient times people have been executed either by hanging, electric chair, injection or any other way, but in past few years there has been a debate going on about should we still, in our modern times, put people to death penalty. It has been reported that many mistakes, which are now being discovered by use of DNA testing, have been made and that death -sentencing had overall reversal rates that exceeded 68% in past 23 years (Weinstein 1). Also these have been shown that use of death penalty didn't decrease murder rates in US and neither did it lower the criminilism.

There fore use of death penalty should be abolished. The use of death penalty dates back to a long time. It is said that the first known execution goes back to 1622 in the Colony of Virginia for the crime of theft. The nation started to make notes and keep records of and about death penalty in 1930. Since then until 1999, 4459 persons were executed. 2125 were white race and 2279 were black and 55 of other races.

The year with most executions was 1935 with tremendous 199 executions (Justice Center 1). Between 1930 and 1967 there has been an average 130 persons executed per year. In 1967 last Zekan 2 Execution happened. Few years after in 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decided that death penalty was a. ".. cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eight Amendment to the US Constitution and the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment " (Justice Center 1). In this example we can see that even 30 years ago people and Nations government had doubts about use of death penalty. Few years after this law were changed again.

It had two types: guided desecration and mandatory death penalty for specific crimes. First execution under new law was in 1977. This same year 20 inmates were removed from their death penalty sentencing, because the Supreme Court decided that their crimes were not appropriate for this type of punishment. If this hasn't been done these 20 lives would be put to death for something that they should not be executed for. After something like this happens it would not be possible to go back and fix mistakes since these people are already dead. This example given represents one of big reasons why use of deathlessly should be stopped.

In 1984 number of people executed increased dramatically reaching 21 and that is a fast increase considering that 1983 had only 5 cases. Since than until today it has been steadily increasing. There are 12 states that do not use death penalty and those are: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin and the DC (Justice Center). People are mostly sentenced to death for the crime of murder. The states with the highest murder rates are Louisiana with 17.5 murders per 100 000 people than its Mississippi with 11.1 per 100 000, Alabama has 10.4 and so on. The fact is that even though these states sentence people to death their murder rate is the highest in the country (Jet 40).

China plans to increase use of lethal injection for executing criminals. But even with this in last decade homicide rate rose by more than 50% around the world (Bu vinic, Ma ison 58). Many mistakes have been made during past few years Zekan 3 and sometimes the court has been sentencing people to death even though they are not guilty for that crime". If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed", said Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her speech in summer of 2001 (Weinstein 1).

A death row inmate Lonnie Weeks wrote " They are killing us like it's a sport " (Mintz 1 A). Another important reason for discontinuing use of death penalty is that it is expensive. The millions of dollars spent on capital punishment cuts into resources for other community interests, such as schools, hospitals, public safety and jobs (NCADP 1). For example each execution in state of NY costs about $2 million, which is about $118 millions each year. And this results in budget shortfalls and makes cuts in funding for education. In 1991 state of New Jersey, which uses death penalty spent about $16 million on their cases of execution and the next year they laid off 500 police officers because they could not afford to pay them (NCADP 1).

There were 98 executions in 1999 and last one the most known to us today is the case of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing. His case made some people changed the way ther used to think about the capital punishment and brought the number of those in favor up (Willing 1 A-2 A). US as modern civilized country should not base its status and I opinion of capital punishment on one case. NCADP will try to work with church and join attorneys in challenging the constitutionality of the death row in US criminal justice system.

All of these examples show that use of death penalty, or also called capital punishment is not right and it should be abolished. Mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death row also, it does not show that it had lowered the crime rate in US and its very costly. If capital punishment is not abolished who knows how many more innocent people would be executed.