Elizabeth Hernandez
Professor Marker
ENG 101
April 29, 2013
Can you honestly say that any individual can justify someone else’s life regardless of the actions they have committed. Who are we to play God and take another life away? The death penalty is morally wrong and affects not only those who suffer getting killed by the government but also harms everyone else regardless of the involvement. The death penalty should be abolished because is the denial of basic human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It goes against the constitution, the 8th amendment, and most importantly the respect we have for one another.
In order to understand what the death penalty is one must describe it. The death penalty is a form of punishment in which a person who has been convicted of a serious crime is executed under the precept of the criminal justice system. The death penalty has been in existence for thousands of years and has gained wide acceptance in the United States since early colonial times. Despite the growing acceptance of the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for certain kinds of crimes such as first degree murders, there are still some people who argue against it on certain grounds. The debate as to the justification of the death penalty has raged on for a long time. On one hand, there are those who are of the opinion that the death penalty is a cruel punishment which is morally wrong and a violation of the right to life for its victims. Others defend their opposing views saying that it’s the best way to deter criminals from committing violent crimes and it achieves justice by paying killers back for their horrible crimes.
There are many factors that contribute to my beliefs that the Death Penalty should be abolished and should not be used as a method of execution in the American Criminal Justice system. First, executions are far more expensive than keeping a person for life in prison. According...