- Thesis Statement: The death penalty is too quick of a death and needs to be abolished to allow prisoners to waste away in prison.
- Background Evidence:
- It costs US citizens thousands of dollars to kill just one inmate on death row each time.
- Having 737 prisoners on death row, just in California, will cost America millions to kill.
- Tons of US citizens are homeless, poor, and on the streets while the government pays thousands to hurt just one.
- Their money can be used to help the innocent and good people instead of ending one’s life early.
- By allowing death row prisoners to be killed quickly, as a nation we are shortening their deserved suffering.
- The victims and their families could feel cheated if the death penalty is used on their perpetrator because they are not suffering.
- Keeping inmates on death row locked up will lengthen their suffering and force them to live the rest of their lives in much more pain than a quick death can allow.
- The death penalty should not be decided on whether it is “cruel and unusual punishment,” any longer.
- If the inmates find themselves on death row during their lives, they have committed such a harsh crime that they belong there.
- They are on death row because they deserve it.
- If the inmates find themselves on death row during their lives, they have committed such a harsh crime that they belong there.
- We cannot show other criminals that we take “an eye for an eye.”
- If the nation continues to use the death penalty, the criminals will see this as trying to get even with them.
- This will not make a large enough scene to prevent them from committing the death penalty crimes, like allowing prisoners to stay in a cell for life.
- If the nation continues to use the death penalty, the criminals will see this as trying to get even with them.
- The United States Government is throwing innocent people on death row and eventually killing them.
- According to California’s statistics, 50 of the 737 inmates on their death row end up innocent.
- By the time they are found innocent, they have usually already been put to death.
- According to California’s statistics, 50 of the 737 inmates on their death row end up innocent.
- It costs US citizens thousands of dollars to kill just one inmate on death row each time.
- Sources I Have Found :
- California decides whether we need to keep or abolish the death penalty.
- The Governor of California believes that we should not kill to send a message to the rest of America stating that, “we are better than this.” He believes that we should not take, “an eye for an eye,” because it will only show that we are the same as the criminals sitting on death row.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/learning/should-we-abolish-the-death-penalty.html?searchResultPosition=2
- Hamm was an inmate who was about to be executed when they realized that they were unable to find any workable veins to administer the poison. Later, they let him walk out of the chair alive.
- The governor of California is putting a pause on using the death penalty while he is in the position because he very strongly disagrees with executing prisoners because it will show that they are the same as the prisoners.
- California decides whether we need to keep or abolish the death penalty.
- Sources I have Not Found Yet:
- I would like to find an article on an inmate who was put on death row, but was later found innocent either right before or after they were executed. Retrieving such an article will strengthen my claim that the US government is killing the innocent with the help of the death penalty.
- Counter Arguments:
- Many people will disagree with abolishing the death penalty all together because they will discuss how in some situations, they believe that execution is more than necessary for some select prisoners.
- Other US citizens will disagree with me on my claim about how the US government is killing innocent people. Most believe that if they are in prison or on death row, they are automatically guilty of something.
- Most anti-death penalty believers will argue how execution is always, “cruel and unusual punishment,” no matter what crimes they have committed.
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David Hodges
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I like to be called David, but “Mister Hodges” and “Professor” are popular choices. My ESL students’ charming alternative, “Mister David,” is my favorite by far.
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Note: Use The Innocence Project if you’re interested in test cases that demonstrate successful exonerations following long sentences and successful appeals.
https://www.innocenceproject.org/
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You have certainly found a way to annoy half of your readers, Lucbe, by suggesting that capital punishment is lenient and that your solution is to force capital criminals to serve out lifetime sentences. (I wonder if you have polled any defendants to find out whether they would PREFER an execution date to a life sentence.)
Here’s a couple of numbers that indicate capital punishment executions are anything but speedy:
Since 1976, more than 7,800 defendants have been sentenced to death. Of these, more than 1,500 have been executed. A total of 165 who were sentenced to death in the modern era were exonerated before their execution. As of April 1, 2018, 2,743 are still on death row.
[That means in 40 years or so, 2 of every three death row inmates are still appealing their convictions or wondering when there execution date will be. I don’t know what you mean by “too quick,” but the process doesn’t exactly appear to provide an “easy way out of life in prison.”]
A. Your Cost Savings argument neglects to factor the cost of housing inmates in prison for up to, say, 60 years. At $30,000 per year (in some states as much as $60,000/yr), a man convicted of capital murder at 25, who lives to 85 in prison, will cost his state $1,800,000. Are you sure it wouldn’t be cheaper to execute him at age 26, for “thousands”?
B. Certainly a life in jail is punishment, but in most societies, incarceration in prison for 20 or 30 years under a death penalty is considered “torture.”
C. I’m not sure now whether you’re arguing that a life sentence or a death sentence is harsher. I know you prefer harsher sentencing, but aren’t you suggesting here that death row is MORE painful than a life sentence? I can’t tell for sure.
D. I’m not sure of this (because your claim is not crystal clear) but I think you’re suggesting that if we execute capital criminals, other criminal types will deliberately commit capital crimes OUT OF SPITE that we’re judging them too harshly. If you can make this one stick, I’ll be VERY impressed. But I wouldn’t try it.
E. This is a logical argument against execution. The statistic is misleading though. I think you mean California ESTIMATES that (given the history of capital sentence exonerations) a certain percentage of their current population WOULD BE exonerated if they got new trials.
You have collected sources and described them well enough, Lucbe, but I don’t see how they actually apply to your thesis. Are you in favor of the California moratorium? Do you subscribe to the explanation that it’s appropriate because “We’re better than this”? You don’t indicate how you plan to use these sources to advance your case.
I don’t think I can advise you very well without understanding your project better than I do.
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