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Argumentative Essay: Pro-Death Penalty

582 Words3 Pages

I am, in theory, pro-death penalty. I truly feel that there are crimes of such a heinous nature that the guilty party deserves nothing less than to die for his/her crimes. That being said, I am against the death penalty as it exists in its current state. The two points of contention that force me to change my opinion from pro-death penalty to against are: the rate of error in convictions and the disparity of time between sentencing and execution. According to the Huffington Post “more than 4% of inmates sentenced to death in the United States are probably innocent” (McLaughlin, 2014). While that doesn’t seem like an impressive amount, of the 7,482 inmates sentenced to death between 1973 and 2004, 117 of them have been exonerated as of …show more content…

One would think that I would be in favor of delaying executions while confirming guilt. However, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the average amount of time that an inmate spends on death row is roughly 10 years (Center, 2016). During that time the prisoner lives in what amounts to an extended period of solitary confinement, living each day with the threat of death over their head, awaiting the execution date. Then as the execution date nears anxiety builds, only to have a rush of relief when, at the last moment, yet another stay of execution is ordered. An issue coming before the court recently is whether or not extended periods of time on death row constitute cruel and unusual punishment. While the Supreme Court has not accepted any cases for review based on this, 3 Justices wrote about their concerns when, in 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Thompson v. McNeil (Center, 2016). Yes, while the state does play a part in the delays, one would have to wonder how it can be considered cruel and unusual punishment when a portion of the delays are at the hands of the criminal themselves? Have we, as a society, created this issue in our never-ending quest for fairness? I feel this is an issue we are going to be seeing more of in the

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