Criminal Prosecution:
Capital Punishment Is Not a Solution
The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, has been around since the beginning of man. As long as there has been human beings around to commit crimes, the death penalty has been there as a form a punishment. “An eye for an eye” is a common expression in the Jewish Bible and it is a common belief among many people today. The thought behind the eye for an eye theory is that it restricts any compensation that the criminal might receive by being punished any other way. But with all beliefs come disagreements. The belief of whether the death penalty is constitutional or not has been a heated argument since the law was originally created. One of Mahatma Gandhi’s most famous quotes, “If everyone took an eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind” (Prejean), ties up all the loose ends of the argument over capital punishment in one sentence; it does not take a mastermind for one to realize that death penalty is indeed unconstitutional. There are several supporting factors to this argument such as, why the government uses capital punishment, the possibility of executing the innocent, violation of the eighth amendment, and many more. The death penalty should be erased from the United States Constitution because it is a violation of human rights and thus rendered unconstitutional.
No other major democracy uses the death penalty. Many Americans believe that this gives the United States an upper hand on other countries because a strict government will lead to a lower crime rate due to heavy consequences of individual actions. These people would be dead wrong in believing this. The United States statistically has the highest crime rate in the world each year, bar none (Palmer). “In America the murder rate climbed 122 percent between 1963 and 1980. During that same period, the murder rate in New York City increased by almost 400 percent…” (Koch). Why is it that the only major democracy to...