The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

Death Penalty

Is the death penalty acceptable in the United States? While many countries have outlawed it, some countries, like the United States, practice capital punishment at the state level. Each state has the right to decide whether to perform the death penalty or use life imprisonment. The death penalty is a highly controversial practice in today’s society. Throughout the history of the United States, there have been many different tactics for execution. For the worst crimes, life without parole is better, for many reasons. Many people are against the death penalty not because of sympathy for criminals, but because it doesn’t reduce crime, prolongs the pain of families of murder victims, costs a whole lot more than life in prison, and,

Vengeance is seen by many as another reason people are in favor of the death penalty. It is also felt by many families that have had a love one murdered to watch the execution of the murder be executed as it provides closure for the family, in states that allow people to watch executions. “Anti capital punishment campaigners are fond of mis-quoting Ghandi’s saying "an eye for an eye makes the world go blind". This is nonsense because it wrongly presumes that we all commit murder, whereas only a tiny proportion of people do. Given a population of around 306 million and a homicide rate of around 15,200 per annum less than 0.4% of the population actually commits a homicide in any given year. Or conversely 99.6% of us do not kill.” (Clark,

They first have to have the district Attorney charge them with first-degree murder to seek the death penalty, which is not something they do lightly. It is due to the far greater cost of the death penalty cases. Another option for them is that they may offer a plea deal where they will plead guilty in return for the District Attorney not leaning toward the death penalty. If they don’t offer a plea deal then they have to go on trial, the jury then has to find the person guilty in the first degree. “In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Ring versus Arizona that a jury must recommend a death sentence and it not be left up to the trial judge to decide. Therefore after the first phase of the trial, when a defendant is found guilty in a capital murder case there has to be a second penalty phase where the prosecution can put forward aggravating factors and the defense can show mitigating factors. To recommend the death penalty jurors have to be sure that sufficient aggravating factors have been proved. In most states the jury has to unanimously agree on the death penalty and if just one juror objects to it then it cannot be given. Juries can and often do decide to go for life without parole instead, if they don’t feel that the aggravating factors are sufficient or if they are outweighed by mitigating factors.” (Clark,