Death Penalty: Politically Correct or Morally Wrong? If you ask 10 different countries if the death penalty should be banned as a form of punishment, in a nutshell the chances are you will get an equal split vote. There is a lot of scrutiny surrounding the local and national government’s choice of using capital punishment, known commonly as the death penalty, as a way of convicting criminals who have committed the most heinous and horrendous crimes in the country. Those crimes usually consist of murder cases and other serious crimes such as rape and/or terrorism. In Authoritarian or Totalitarian such as North Korea and Soviet Era Russia, the death penalty is administered for much smaller crimes such as theft, possession and distribution of
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The most apparent and obvious danger of having a death penalty in place is the hazard of having an innocent killed. It has been widely known of an individual wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced to death row. One example was of Carlos DeLuna. DeLuna was convicted and executed in 1989 for the murder of a 24-year-old gas attendant 5 years prior to DeLuna’s conviction. In 2012, further research suggests that DeLuna was NOT the killer of the gas attendant. The actual murderer was Carlos Hernandez, a similar looking man who resided in one of the neighboring communities from the gas station. This evidence was discovered 23 years too late. The cost difference is also a large con for the government. It is estimated that the cost of having an inmate on death row executed costs about 2-3 times more than having a perpetrator serve the rest of his/her life in prison. This is due to the endless court hearings and duration of the trials before a criminal is actually convicted as it is not unusual for death row inmates to wait around 15-20 years to be executed. This is an added stress to taxpayer’s pocket books and a waste of valuable resources from the government. Now, regarding public relations, having a death penalty gives us an ill-image from countries who have already done away with capital punishment. Countries in Europe would have a more favorable image of America if we didn’t have a death penalty in place. America already has an unfavorable reputation in history when The United States practiced slavery, long after any country in Europe had already banned it. It is no surprise many countries practice anti-Americanism around the world. The fourth reason that having a death penalty is detrimental is the abundance of stress it causes to families of the convicted. There is no
The most apparent and obvious danger of having a death penalty in place is the hazard of having an innocent killed. It has been widely known of an individual wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced to death row. One example was of Carlos DeLuna. DeLuna was convicted and executed in 1989 for the murder of a 24-year-old gas attendant 5 years prior to DeLuna’s conviction. In 2012, further research suggests that DeLuna was NOT the killer of the gas attendant. The actual murderer was Carlos Hernandez, a similar looking man who resided in one of the neighboring communities from the gas station. This evidence was discovered 23 years too late. The cost difference is also a large con for the government. It is estimated that the cost of having an inmate on death row executed costs about 2-3 times more than having a perpetrator serve the rest of his/her life in prison. This is due to the endless court hearings and duration of the trials before a criminal is actually convicted as it is not unusual for death row inmates to wait around 15-20 years to be executed. This is an added stress to taxpayer’s pocket books and a waste of valuable resources from the government. Now, regarding public relations, having a death penalty gives us an ill-image from countries who have already done away with capital punishment. Countries in Europe would have a more favorable image of America if we didn’t have a death penalty in place. America already has an unfavorable reputation in history when The United States practiced slavery, long after any country in Europe had already banned it. It is no surprise many countries practice anti-Americanism around the world. The fourth reason that having a death penalty is detrimental is the abundance of stress it causes to families of the convicted. There is no