The death penalty should be banned

Jimimiah Mentis

09/15/2020

ENGL 112

Professor Bartley

“Death Penalty Should be banned”

     Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment the risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. For example more that 160 prisoners were sent to death row in the USA have later been released from death row on grounds of innocence. The death penalty should be banned because of many reasons. People believe in the saying “an eye for an eye”. But when will they realize that just because someone may have killed a loved one that the best thing for that person is to die also. People don’t realize that they are putting the blood of another person life on their hands. This makes the just as guilty as the person who commit the crime. The only difference is that they didn’t use weapon except their mouth to kill them. The death penalty should be banned because it is racist, punishes the poor condems those who are innocent to death, and is a cruel punishment.

                   About a week ago in guyana the country of my birth two teens were murdered Isaiah and Joel Henry because their murderers claimed they were stealing coconuts from their farm. The residents of the village or town and other citizens of guyana don’t believe that they think it’s an hate crime and they killed them because of their race the family and citizens of guyana and others around the world feel like the killers should be punished with the death penalty because they also believe in the saying an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for a tooth”. Those were innocent teens and their lives was snatched from them for nothing but some fruits as the killers claim. From my point of view yes I think they should be punished but they should be sentenced to life in prison.

          Just a few months ago I was watching this movie starring Jamie Foxx and Michael B Jordan called Just Mercy where Jamie Foxx was sentenced to death for the murder of an 18 year old girl, despite evidence proving his innocence. This shows that there is something wrong with the judicial system. If this isn’t enough to convince you that the death penalty is wrong. Then people may need to look at other reasons.

             The death penalty, does not only show unequal rights, but it also punishes the poor. Some inmates could barely afford a good legal representative, they might get a lesser charge than death row. It also shows that since they can’t afford to have a good defense representative, they are forced to use an inexperienced court appointed attorney that are being underpaid for their services. I feel like the less the court appointed lawyers make the less they want to make their defense so that they can get rid of this case.

         In other words the death penalty has been around many years and has caused more murders and over crowding of prisons and there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than a prison term.