Speech – Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

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.

Back to School Sucks