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Persuasive Essay On Capital Punishment

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Capital Punishment has been around for many years dating back to the Romans.
Around the world many people feel that capital punishment is inhumane. For many years now people have petitioned to the federal courts to have the death penalty thrown out in all states and not just a few of them. There are possibly millions of people on death row today when there are better ways to go about the punishment. Capital Punishment should be outlawed because it puts innocent lives at risk, bad representation, and there are other alternatives. The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, more than 150 men and women have been released from Death Row nationally, and some …show more content…

Once a person is placed on death row they are seen as guilty and their innocence is hard to believe in court.
Perhaps the most important factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty is the quality of the representation he or she is provided. A study at Columbia
University found that 68% of all death penalty cases were reversed on appeal, with inadequate defense as one of the main reasons requiring reversal. Almost all defendants who are given the death penalty sentence could not afford a lawyer, so they were appointed one by the courts. These lawyers are usually ranked the lowest in their class, or can be loaded down with many other cases. There have even been instances in which lawyers appointed to a death case were so inexperienced that they were completely unprepared for the sentencing phase of the trial. In 2001, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg commented:

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"People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. Quality representation should be mandatory not matter the defendants financial status because the level to which a defendant is represented makes a huge impact on the sentencing for a

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