I am glad i chose to write

Iam hoping that now that you have read my paper you will take all points intoconsideration and possibly have a change of mind. I did not realize when Istarted writing this paper all the negative the death penalty has.

I am glad Ichose to write about this topic it really brought a lot of things into thelight for me.             The last point I am going to pointout for my essay is that the death penalty violates human rights. All peoplehave the right to life, and we all have the right to be free from harsh, inhuman, and degrading punishment. These are human rights that people have, nomatter what they have done or the kind of crimes they have committed. A lot oftime the people facing death row end up getting there by the system not givingthem their whole process.

The U. S. death penalty system has also failed toprotect the innocent, from 1973 through December 2014, 150 innocent people wereexecuted from death row. ( Angelos, 2018) I just don’t think this is a chance worth taking, because once someoneis killed there is no coming back if later down the road the courts find outthey were wrongfully accused. Sometimesjury members have trouble convicting someone if they know they are going to beone of the reasons that a human being is sentenced to their death. Many statesrequire any jury members to be questioned during the pre-trial phase to be surethey have the stomach to sentence someone to death before they’re allowed toattend. Even if they’re against the death penalty, they still could lie to geton the board to try and help the person on trial not receive the death penalty. Most of the time judges will take a less harmful approach and sentence them toa life behind bars.

This to some people may seem like justice has not beenserved for the victims’ families, but most of the time they are just happy tobe done with this tragic event in their life and be able to move past it. Ifa person is sent to death row it is a very long drug out process for both sidesand this can make it even harder for families to be able to move past thistragic event. The U. S.

court system goes to huge measures before allowing adeath sentence to be agreed on. All the appeals, motions, hearings, briefs, etc. control much of the time of judges, attorneys, and other court employeesas well as use up courtrooms & facilities. The murderer’s family has tosuffer from seeing their loved one put to death by the state, as well as goingthrough the emotionally-draining court process. The victim’s innocent family isapparently suffering already from losing their loved one and then they have tobe in court multiple times to convict the murderer. By administering a deathsentence, you force another family to suffer.

“ Why double the suffering when wedon’t have to”? ( Messerli, 2012).            I think the death penalty also sends the wrong message. Its like why kill people who kill people to show that killing is wrong? Yes, we want to make sure there is accountability for the crime; however, the deathpenalty has a message of “ You killed one of us, so we’ll kill you”. The state is using a murder to punish someone who committed a murder. Does thatmake sense?  To me that just sends aconfusing message especially to our younger society.

We as a nation must moveaway from the “ eye for an eye” revenge approach if civilization is todevelop. It is vital to send a message to the world that striking back at yourenemy strictly for vengeance will always make matters worse. It also serveszero purpose for the victim or their families. It does not bring the person whowas murdered back to life. So, what are we achieving by killing someone? Theonly thing it does is cause more pain to the families of both the victim andthe murderer. These families are having a hard-enough time accepting what hashappened.

The family of the murderer must wonder why they did it, where theywent wrong, and how did they not see the signs something was wrong. On theother hand, the families of the victim are dealing with why this happened totheir loved one and why did they not protect them better. In addition, believeit or not both families are dealing with the loss of their loved one; one bydeath and the other by life in prison.

People also like to think that having the death penaltyin their state will help to lower crime rates. The reason they think this islogical they think it scares people into not wanting to commit crimes thatcould possibly lead them to their death. As much as we all wish this was trueit is actually quite the opposite.

The Times reports that 10 of the 12 stateswithout the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average, whilehalf of the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above. Throughoutthe last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been48% – 101% higher than in states without the death penalty. (Konrad, 2016). Whencomparing states with the death penalty and states without, most of the stateswho have the death penalty show murder rates higher than states that do nothave the death penalty. The average of murder rates between death penaltystates was 5. 5, while the average of murder rates among non-death penaltystates was only 3.

6. These numbers seem as though they are backwards and shouldbe flipped around, but the sad truth is people murder regardless of theconsequence they are going to receive. That’s another reason why I feel lettingthem sit in jail the rest of their lives and think about what they did is morebeneficial than just executing them.

Does the death penalty cause closure for the victim’sfamilies? This is a question that many people ask, and some believe to be true. They think a life for a life is fair, right? Well that couldn’t be further fromthe truth according to recent studies that were done on families of the victimsthey say there is no such thing as closure no matter if the person is dead oralive. A 2012 study decided families were able to move on sooner; because theirloved ones’ killers were sentenced to life without parole, rather than thedeath penalty.

The families were not retraumatized in the numerous appeals thatoften come along with an execution. (Santhanam, 2017).                 The first reason I am against the death penalty isbecause it actually cost more to have someone put on death row and executedthan it does to just let them rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Accordingto the Huffington post the price of execution drugs is now 15 times higher thanit was a year ago. (Safdar, 2012).

Another article I read from the Marshallproject stated that the cost of housing an inmate who is on death row costs $49, 380per year vs an inmate who is a general population prisoner which cost $ 24, 690a year. (Chamma, 2014).             The death penalty is a law that people are 100 percentfor or despise 100 percent, there is no in between. People who get the deathpenalty in the states that it is legalized in are the ones who do somethinghorribly wrong, for example murder someone, or rape another adult or child.  I personally am against the death penalty fora number of reasons.  Ichose to write my argumentative essay on making the death penalty illegal inevery state no matter what the circumstance. When I first set out to write thispaper my views on this topic were 100 percent different.

But I honestly feelthat them spending the rest of their life rotting in jail is much morerewarding then getting the easy quick way out of the horrible thing they havedone.