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Against The Death Penalty Essay

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Against the Death Penalty “Murder is wrong” (“Capital Punishment”). We’ve been taught this indisputable truth since childhood. The death penalty is defined as one human taking the life of another. Coincidentally, that is a classification of murder. There are as many as thirty-six states with the death penalty, and it’s essential that they change it. The United States needs the death penalty abolished because it is filled with flaws, cruel and immoral, and is an ineffective means of deterrent for crime. I understand why you would want to have the death penalty in effect. You probably think that it will be cheaper to execute people instead of paying taxes for them in jail. There is also a probability that you think that you will …show more content…

Another flaw is it is morally wrong. No matter how people sugar-coat it, murder is murder, in the name of justice or in vengeance it is morally wrong. Everyone deserves to live, no matter their circumstances are. Federal states should not be allowed to decide who lives and who dies, especially in a country such as the United States, which prides its self on freedom (“Top Ten”). Moreover, the death penalty is applied at random (“Facts”). “The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 15,000 to 17,000 homicides committed every year in the United States, approximately 120 people are sentenced to death, less than 1%” (“Facts”). Many criminals have committed the same crimes, but few have been sentenced to death for their crimes. In Addition, there is a chance mentally ill citizens could be convicted to death (“Facts”). According to Amnesty International and the National Association on Mental Illness, One out of every ten persons who has been executed in the United States since 1977 is mentally ill. “Many mentally ill defendants are unable to participate in their trials in any meaningful way and appear unengaged, cold, and unfeeling before the jury” (“Facts”). Many mentally ill defendants have been drugged against their will in order for them to be competent enough to be executed (“Facts”). Some states still haven’t put a ban on executing mentally ill people such as Organ, although the United States Supreme Court has declared that

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