Capital Punishment

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate November 2001

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

Murder is Murder Since the creation of mankind there have been crimes committed, some minor some major. Where do you draw the line between the two? How fierce should a punishment be for a mass murder/rapist? Many people suggest killing these people to take them off our hands and get them out of society's way. What I don't get is how can people even suggest this, ok sure they should be punished, but does killing really solve the problem? Killing another person is just inflicting pain on more people. If you kill a man with a family to support not only are you taking away a source of income but you are taking away a caring family's father. So in my eyes and the eyes of many others executing a man is still murder, no ifs, ands, or buts.

To make this problem even worse, it has been proven that the death penalty has been given to many more African Americans and poor people than anyone.

Some states have realized this problem and have banned the death penalty because of this. These states include: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Illinois and Wisconsin, but unfortunately the problem has yet to be solved in many places. This mainly due to the people who believe that executing criminals is "justice being served." A major problem I see in that statement is that the places where people believe this usually have their society built on Christian morals. This makes everyone who believes this a hypocrite. The proof to their hypocrisy is in the book they commonly read or have read and pull their morals out of. The Bible! In the Bible it talks about a case where Jesus and his disciples encounter a woman who has committed adultery. Many of the men demanded that they stone her for committing such a crime. Jesus tells them, "Whoever who has not sinned may throw the first rock," showing that unless you are God (only person who doesn't sin), you don't have the right to take the life of another person. All of the disciples walked away because they all know they sinned and do not have the right.

We have made laws against cruel and unusual punishment, as The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article II, §20 of the Colorado Constitution read in identical language: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Nothing is crueler than murder no matter what form it is in, and we have laws against it for that reason. However we are still executing men and women when the constitution of both the United States and Colorado says no cruel and unusual punishment. As the people, need to abolish capital punishment for good. Other states have done it, why can't we just open up our eyes, and abolish it.