Capital Punishment
Shane Gibbs
Capital punishment raises many thoughts in our culture. I support capital punishment for several reasons, the main one being the violation of one of the Ten Commandments. If you take it upon yourself to take the life of another human or commit a heinous crime, it is appropriate to fit the punishment to the crime committed.
In most places that practice capital punishment today, the death penalty is reserved as punishment for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.(Global Distribution of Death Penalty). Changing the protocol for the death penalty and defining what warrants the death penalty is a necessary step in our society.
Listening to the NPR Podcast, and researching the death penalty, my views stay the same in that I support the death penalty. What has changed for me is the consideration of perhaps changing the method. Botched instances will only create greater chaos with sentencing the death penalty. The question raised in the podcast creates much thought for me. Is it appropriate to use Lethal Injection? After much consideration, it is my thought that execution by lethal injection has some unique problematic features which cannot be overlooked. In particular, the use of a paralytic drug serves no legitimate clinical purpose during an execution. In the medical setting, pancuronium bromide is used legitimately to relax respiratory function to facilitate intubation and to keep the...