Captial Punishment

Word Count: 925

I agree with the law that people who commit crimes need to be punished for their wrong doings. However, I do not agree with the way that the law thinks that problem should be handled through the death penalty. The bad part about the death penalty is that innocent people are executed, there is racism in the death penalty, the mentally retarded are executed, and the death penalty is costly.

As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated. People who are found guilty and sentenced to death row can truly be innocent. It is said by Amnesty International a campaigning movement that works to promote all the human rights that, "since 1973 at least 53 men were released from death row in seventeen US stated due to significant evidence of their innocence and that some prisoners escaped execution by minutes but 23 were actually executed". Everyone is not perfect. People can fall victim to false testimonies, mistaken identification, community prejudice, and pressure. These are just a few ways in which a person can be found guilty of a crime. These are crucial mistakes that can happen and a person can quickly be sentenced to the death penalty without second thought. Innocent people should not have to experience situations so terrifying which could lead a person to flip out and go insane. There is no reason for an innocent person to be killed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or for some other ridiculous mistake that happened in the court. One article in Amnesty International states that "Judging by past experience, a substantial number of death row inmates are indeed innocent and there is a high risk that some of them will be executed". Some people are judged by their past and not by the current crime they are accused of committing and evidence presented in that particular case. When this happens, a person is wrongly accused of a crime he/she did not commit and now has to pay for it because of uninformed people who do not believe a person can change their bad ways to good ways.

Racism exists in the death penalty. The majority of death row defendants "since 1977 were executed for killing whites despite the fact that whites and blacks are victims of murder in approximately equal numbers". For instance, "in Texas, blacks found guilty of killing whites were found to be six times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites convicted of killing whites". More black people are likely to receive the death penalty than white people who may have committed the same crime

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