First Degree Murder Argumentative Essay

719 Words3 Pages

April 3, 2003, Scott Allen Hain is strapped into a gurney in McAlester, Oklahoma. After proper sanitary measures are taken, an IV is inserted into each of his arms. Sodium thiopental inserted first to render him unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide follows to paralyze his muscles and stop his breathing, and last potassium chloride is injected to stop his heart. This was the procedure of the last execution of a minor who had committed murder in the United States. Since the Supreme Court ruling of Roper v. Simmons, it is illegal to execute anyone for a crime committed under the age of 18. Suitable punishments consist of life with or without parole, which I believe is counter intuitive. If a minor is convicted of first degree murder, they should be tried as an adult and sentenced to death, but in any other murder situations they should be given a reasonable amount of jail time depending of the severity of their crimes. First degree murder is defined as “any intentional murder that is willful and premeditated with malice aforethought.”. This type of murder should be …show more content…

In the novel, the murder of Simon is the result of over excitement from the boys while participating in Jack’s dance and chant. Simon emerges from the forest with news that the beast isn’t real and in the heat of the moment the boys attack him and do not realize they’ve killed Simon until it is done. Piggy’s death however is caused by Roger dislodging a large boulder and hitting Piggy in the head. Due to a lack of any form of government or a judiciary department, these crimes go unaccounted for as far as we know. Simon’s death warrants that the boys deserve to serve a minimal amount of time in jail because they believed it was a beast not a man. Roger however deserves the death penalty because we saw early on when he threw stones at Henry that Roger is evil and the deliberate murder of Piggy only solidifies that