Death penalty

Daiana Quiceno-ENC 1101

Death Penalty

Is today’s knowledge about capital punishment rational enough to depend on when the Supreme Court decides if one shall live in prison or die whencommitting a capital crime? Throughout decades, capital punishment, better known as the death penalty has been used to execute criminals in almost every country. According to the Death penalty InformationCenter, the U.S. has thirty four states with death penalty as a statute. We are the only western country that uses the death sentence as a means of punishment. Growing up they teach us that we havehuman rights and that we are protected by our laws. I believe that we do not have the right to decide when someone dies for means of serving justice.
The Eight Amendment of the U.S. constitution reads:“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Extensive arguments have been made about this amendment but still courts rule and makethe final decision protecting themselves with provisions made of that same amendment. Usually, the common thought when an extreme crime has been committed is an eye for an eye. Why do we need thesatisfaction of the death sentence? We are using the same form of violence and this will not solve the problem. Abolitionists’ countries have opted for the life sentence instead of death sentence, givingan opportunity for reflection and redemption.
When giving a death sentence the only thing the system sees is a cold-hearted murderer. Amnesty International (AI) states that “The death penalty is theultimate denial of human rights. It is a premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human by the state in the name of justice.” AI has campaigned for decades for the death penalty to be eliminated inall parts of the world. As per their statistics only 18 countries out of 195 have made executions throughout the year of 2009, this includes the United States. Why can’t we be a country that...