The Case Against the Death Penalty
Current Event by Tamara Killorin
The title of the article I chose for this assignment was The Case Against the Death Penalty. It was written by Hugo Adam Bedau in 1973 as a pamphlet. The version posted up on the American Civil Liberties Union website was most recently revised in 2012 with added content contributed by Bedau.
The death penalty or capital punishment has been a popular method of dealing with crime throughout mankind’s existence as far back as history can take us. However, today it can no longer be considered an acceptable method of punishment because the truth is that state sanctioned murder is not only deeply morally repugnant but it’s no longer in any sense even necessary. There are several reasons why the death penalty is an obsolete practice and they need to be known.
The death penalty is too expensive and wasteful of limited resources such as courtrooms, judges, juries, security, litigation fees, and public …show more content…
You would think that the threat of death by the state would be a reason enough to not commit a crime, but this is not the case. Studies have shown that states that implement the death penalty have higher criminal homicide rates than those of states with no death penalty. The only way for this sort of government action to be effective in preventing crime would be for it to be consistent, which it is not and could never be because mandatory death sentencing is unconstitutional. Normally, the death penalty is given to people who have committed murder. However, not all murder cases meet the same criteria. Often when people are killed by other people, it’s not premeditated. Therefore, if we decided that all people who kill people are to be killed themselves, the world would be a disaster. Life imprisonment without any chance of parole has proven to be a severe enough punishment to discourage people from committing crimes of such violent
Current Event by Tamara Killorin
The title of the article I chose for this assignment was The Case Against the Death Penalty. It was written by Hugo Adam Bedau in 1973 as a pamphlet. The version posted up on the American Civil Liberties Union website was most recently revised in 2012 with added content contributed by Bedau.
The death penalty or capital punishment has been a popular method of dealing with crime throughout mankind’s existence as far back as history can take us. However, today it can no longer be considered an acceptable method of punishment because the truth is that state sanctioned murder is not only deeply morally repugnant but it’s no longer in any sense even necessary. There are several reasons why the death penalty is an obsolete practice and they need to be known.
The death penalty is too expensive and wasteful of limited resources such as courtrooms, judges, juries, security, litigation fees, and public …show more content…
You would think that the threat of death by the state would be a reason enough to not commit a crime, but this is not the case. Studies have shown that states that implement the death penalty have higher criminal homicide rates than those of states with no death penalty. The only way for this sort of government action to be effective in preventing crime would be for it to be consistent, which it is not and could never be because mandatory death sentencing is unconstitutional. Normally, the death penalty is given to people who have committed murder. However, not all murder cases meet the same criteria. Often when people are killed by other people, it’s not premeditated. Therefore, if we decided that all people who kill people are to be killed themselves, the world would be a disaster. Life imprisonment without any chance of parole has proven to be a severe enough punishment to discourage people from committing crimes of such violent