Death+Penalty+Persuasive+Essay

- Alexia Hatun
 * Death Penalty **

In the past thirty-eight years, 139 people were exonerated from the death penalty. Those 139 people were innocent of the crimes they committed, yet they had to stay in jail, waiting to receive their permanent punishment: death. They could’ve been 139 people killed by the government for falsely accused crimes. For this reason among others, I believe that death penalty as a punishment is wrong, inhumane, and even barbaric.

One point I would like to bring up is the fact that so many people sentenced to death row are innocent! It’s one thing to be sentenced to jail for the rest of your life for a crime you may or may not have committed. If you’re guilty, then you wait your life out in jail. If you’re proven innocent, then yay, you’re released from jail and given compensation. You get to move on from that part of your life. But if you’re sentenced to death – well, you’re dead. There is no resurrection for the innocent people that are killed. There is no bringing them back to their families and allowing them to move on. Once they are executed, they are gone for good, and there is no bringing them back. In the past century, twenty-three people were executed under wrong accusations.

Another thing I would like to point out is that the death penalty means going back to the barbaric ways of “an eye for an eye” from the Ancient Sumerian society. We, as a nation, have grown SO MUCH that it would be silly to trash all of our ideals for those that are practically 6000 years out of date. There are much better, effective ways of treating convicts than by killing them. And giving someone the death penalty – especially for first time offense – doesn’t allow for them to learn from their mistakes and change their ways.

Others think that some crimes are just so heinous that death is the only answer, the only way of serving justice and making things right. But, in killing someone – because essentially, that’s what giving someone the death penalty is – we’re sinking right down to their level. Who says that we have the right to take away someone’s Constitutional, basic right to life, even if that’s something that they’ve done themselves? Who says that we have the right to commit the SAME EXACT CRIME that so many are executed for, and not get the same punishment? Death penalty is wrong for both sides. The convicts don’t have the chance to learn from their mistakes, and we’ve stooped down to their level as a //country// for allowing the government to commission such an act.

Think – if one of your friends or family was sentenced to death – with the full possibility of their being innocent – would you still think that death penalty is justified?