After reading "The Death Penalty" by William Raspberry several topics surfaced in my mind. The death penalty is unjust and very ridiculous sentence for a human being . Capital punishment is not as effective as most people believe. There are alternative and beneficial solutions in place of the death penalty.

Why we have the death penalty is very puzzling question to me. Personally I believe the death penalty is a hypocritical decision. The law states that it's wrong to commit murder yet a judge or a jury has the power to put a person to death. If murder is against the law then why do the courts feel it's necessary to kill a human being? I'm not saying that what Jack Ronald Jones did was right and he doesn't deserve any punishment. I'm saying that the punishment is quite foolish. I could never buy the concept of The Code of Hammurabi: "an eye for an eye." The death penalty, much like suicide is just an easy way of dealing with a problem. As I flip the coin and look on the other side I wonder what I would do if someone I knew was murdered in the way Stephanie Ann Roper was.

One night I happened to come across a very interesting and engaging story on Dateline, a news program. A young man murdered a woman's father in his home. Instead of her asking for the killer to be put to death she fought to keep the young man from sitting on death row. I was thunderstruck, and as I watched I was speechless. This woman was, in my eyes, truly amazing and fully understood how pointless the death penalty really is. In the end the killer received life in prison, which to me is a very suitable punishment for the crime. I hope I would do the same if I were in her shoes. The woman obviously thought the death penalty was wrong and ineffective, but why?

Why do some people feel that the death penalty is true justice? In order to fully understand why someone would support the death penalty I asked a fellow classmate. Pat Holt, a freshman at Quincy University, stated, " If someone kills then they deserve to be killed no matter what." He also said that it would just be easier than spending money on them for rehabilitation. I proposed to Pat the fact that in most cases it would cost more to put them to death rather than give the person a life sentence. His reply: "The person deserves to die at all costs, and they are to me a waste of space and should die." I can understand where he is coming from yet I still don't buy it. As a Christian and a student in Catholic schools my whole life I believe in forgiveness no matter how bad the crime may be. I would rather spend the money for an execution on helping a person than on killing them. I also realize that not everyone is Catholic and holds the same beliefs that I do, but there are alternative solutions in place of the death penalty.

Some crimes and murders are gruesome and the guilty deserve a heavy punishment. Life in prison seems like a bad enough punishment to me, to know that you will die in jail and never get to enjoy the privilege of freedom ever again. A life sentence and rehabilitation are a more rational form of punishment and more practical way of spending money than to waste it on an execution. Solving a problem is a better way to deal with it than just killing the problem.

In conclusion I feel that the death penalty is wrong and unjust. There are alternative solutions for the death penalty. A life sentence is more ideal than to kill a human. It will cost us more money in order to keep performing executions and an easy way out for the person who is being executed. I don't believe that I have the right nor does any person in this world have the right to determine the death of another individual.