Essay, Research Paper: Speech - Capital Punishment

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speech
Capital punishment

Leopold and Leob were two nineteen year olds. One day they kidnapped
and
murdered a fourteen year old boy. When asked why they had done it they
replied " we
wanted to see what it was like" Leopold and Leob were spared the death
penalty and
instead sentenced to a life sentence. During their prison life their
combined
accomplishments include: teaching illiterates to read, making
developments in the
malaria world war 2 project, and writing a grammar book. The
significance of this is that
they accomplished more alive than dead and helped their community. Today
it is my
intent to persuade to see how the death penalty is cruel, wrong and
ineffective. I have two
main points and they are: How the death penalty does not deter crime,
how it is barbaric
and wrong.

Deterrence is the act of someone being suaded not to do something. The
death penalty
does not deter crime. Its as plain and simple as that. Studies have
shown that the death
penalty does not deter crime. The majority of murders are committed out
of rage, they are
not thought out in advance, something makes the murderer want to kill
the person and he
goes berserk and kills them. In instances like this fear of the being
sentenced to death
would not make them think twice. Even if the murder was planned out the
criminal
would take steps to make sure he is not caught. So in this instance also
there would be no
deterrence. Also when a person is insane or mentally retarded fear of
being put to death
would not affect them. . There is and example of a murder case such as
this. A retarded
man named Johnny Penenry brutally murdered a woman, he did not even
think about the
consequences of his actions, He was considered retarded and sentenced to
death.
Furthermore if a person knows that he will be released on parole then he
wont be as
afraid of going to jail. The death penalty has not deterred crime,
infact the number of
people put on death row has risen by 1500 people since 1953. Whenever a
highly
publicized homicide case is covered by the media the murder rate goes
down however
when the case is over it goes back up. Infact the number of homicides
has fell since
Canada abolished the death penalty. Some people say that if we did not
have the death
penalty there would be no justice. But the way I see it is why kill
someone and end it
quickly when you can have them work their entire lives helping others
and doing
community service. Some people also say that it costs too much too feed
a criminal
every day and put a roof over his head, but if the government puts the
criminals to work
and keep the criminals pay then it would cost nothing to keep up jails
or build new ones.

Now for my second point. The death penalty is barbaric and goes against
everything that America stands for. The eighth amendment prohibits cruel
and unusual
punishment. While the death penalty is not unusual it certainly is cruel
and the supreme
court agreed with this between 1967-1976 in this period of time the
death penalty was
illegal everywhere in the USA. Many people agree that the death penalty
is cruel and
unusual punishment and have started organizations to protest. Even
people who agree
favor the death penalty agree that it is a relic of barbarianism. As an
example the word
"capital" in Latin means "having to do with the head" now I think that
all of you have the
wits to know the significance of this. Even Ben Franklin was against the
death penalty.
The constitution also says that every human has the right to life .
There are currently five
accepted forms of the death penalty. They include: Electrocution, The
Gas Chamber,
Hanging, Lethal Injection, and being shot by a firing squad. . The
death penalty is also
ineffective it has so many restrictions that it is very hard for a
person to be executed in
many instances all a person would have to do is be considered legally
insane and be
spared. Some of the restrictions are: The insane, minors, and pregnant
women may not be
sentenced to death. And even if a person is found guilty he can appeal
to a higher court
for a whole new case.

To summarize my speech my purpose was to persuade you and I told you
about
how the death penalty does not deter crime and how it is barbaric and
ineffective. And to
conclude IM going to read you some shocking statistics about the death
penalty.



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