Sunday, May 2, 2010

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is not what I thought it was going to be when I looked it up on Google. I do not understand why you could not have just said death penalty but whatever. I do not personally believe in capital punishment. This is what I wrote my paper on last semester and the beginning of second semester. The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. Some people may argue that it is not considered cruel and unusual punishment because the person will be dead so they will not feel anything. I would respond to that person by saying you are so incredibly wrong. I do not know how people can sit there and with a flip of a switch electrocute someone. I believe that capital punishment is a very out dated form of punishment and should be abolished. It is understandable that in the 1700s people would get their heads chopped off but now in twenty ten I think it is about time we come up with a new method. The lethal injection option is a little more humane in my opinion; however, I think that it is still not right of the law to play “God” or whoever you believe in. It is not the choice of a judge or a jury to decide who lives and who dies. Instead of killing people, the felons should be kept on death row until they decay. The people on death row are there for a reason. Instead of getting the easy way out, death, they should be forced to spend the rest of their days in a lonely cell by themselves eating stale bread and water. That may sound a little bit harsh, but the fact that the person in question is in there means that they had to have killed someone or multiple people and deserve, in my opinion, to spend the rest of their lives thinking about it. That leads me to another point: thinking about their actions. The felon should have to sit behind cold, steel bars for around fifty or so years to think about their decisions. It is not fair that the family of the convicted felon should have to suffer the loss of their loved one either. They were not the ones involved they should not have to experience seeing or even imagining their son, brother, nephew, husband, or whatever be murdered as well. If the government convicts people of a crime for killing someone, is it not a little hypocritical of the government officials to kill someone for killing someone else? If revenge is the question at hand, in my own personal opinion, I would much, much rather know that the man or woman who killed someone I knew and loved was sitting in a cold, square, bleak cell for the rest of their days than just having them be killed. However, I also see that the family should have some say in the jurisdiction. If they choose to reciprocate the murderer’s crime then so be it.

3 comments:

  1. I agree with Madelyn's statement that we should not be "playing God" because that is not our role to play. It is ultimately not our decision whether someone lives or dies. She also makes a point about making the offender just think about what they have done in prison instead of being killed, but you might as well just get it over with. Our jails are already overflowing it would probably help clear things up a bit.

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  2. I completely agree with Madelyn’s argument against capital punishment. It is not the right of a judge or jury to decide who lives and who dies. When you think about it, a judge and jury are just people when stripped of their duties, and a criminal is still a person, although I think that many criminals are dehumanized to the point that many people think of them as nothing more than animals. The situation turns into one person, or several people in the case of a jury, killing another person. I agree with Madelyn that this is hypocritical of the government. They are killing someone to compensate for the murder of someone else. I also agree with Madelyn that the death penalty is an outdated form of punishment. It doesn’t seem to fit well into this modern time period because it is so brutal and harsh and physical. I think that punishment should be more psychological or mental in this time period. This could be achieved if a criminal has to sit in prison for the rest of their life thinking about what they did. I also agree that the family of the victim should have some say in the fate of the accused. Some people may find it more comforting to know that the person who killed or hurt their loved one is going to be killed in return and never walk this Earth again. Others may find it more comforting to know that the criminal will be tortured psychologically by having to rot in prison for life and think about the terrible situation they’ve created.

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  3. I somewhat agree with Madelyns article. The part that states that people cannot play "God" is understandable but what if there is a dangerous human being that is alive that is a potential hazard to the human race. There are always going to be bad eggs in the batch and the bad eggs most of the time need to be thrown away. If a human being starts killing and does not stop and will never stop unless police stop that person, then they should undergo the death penalty. It is the only reasonable and justifiable thing to do in a situation like that. However, less severe cases such as one time murder cases such as a person only killing one other person and not killing again should be dealt with in terms of jail time as opposed to the death penalty.

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