To be or Not to be; That is the Question
The power to take another person’s life; should that even exist? No, of course, and that is why the only way to punish someone for taking a life, is to take his or hers because there is no denying the morality, constitutionality, or deterrence of the death penalty.
People like to believe that capital punishment in America is blurred by ethnic discrimination or that rich, guilty criminals are treated better than poor, innocent ones. The fact of the matter is that either way, if you’re truly guilty, you will be tried and punished based on the crime you have committed. It is not immoral to give the death penalty. The death penalty treats people like they have free will and that they have control over their life, whether it is for good or ill will, and not like an uncontrollable animal.
People also like to card the death penalty as unconstitutional. “The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats 'members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded” (Brennan para 1). The death penalty is often referred to as cruel and unusual in its pain. I would like to point out the irony in both of the previous statements; is that not the way murderers treat the people that they kill? They treat people unjustly and therefore, do not deserve to be treated with dignity and given the opportunity to live when someone they killed were not presented with that same option.
Lastly, misleading statistics cause the public to think that the death penalty does not deter crime. What do people call it when you are very scared of something? Oh yeah, deathly afraid. There is nothing people fear more than death, so in turn nothing else could cause a criminal to not want to kill someone more than death. Obviously life sentences are not as deterrent than death sentences because otherwise, criminals would not plea for a life sentence.
The death penalty is perfectly fair, committing...