Savannah Anderson

Anderson 1

Savannah Anderson

Instructor: Jeff Sturges

English 101

22 November 2004

SGWA #11

Eye for an Eye?

In many states the death penalty is still around and in force. Now as to what constitutes the use of the death penalty that is a different matter. I believe that cases which involve first degree murder, those are the only cases in which the death penalty should be used. First degree murder is where the crime was premeditated before it was actually planned out. It was an act of planning. This is why I think that the use of the death penalty in these cases is okay. The murderer was fully aware of what was going to happen and still carried out such a heinous crime.

I have never heard of capital punishment being used for crimes concerning child molestation or rape. That is unless the act was then followed by the victim being murdered. So in cases where the verdict was for first degree murder the death penalty should used, but not in any other circumstance.

One reason to not have the death penalty used on every murder case is because it costs a lot of money to do so. It cost approximately one million dollars to keep someone in prison for life.

This is opposed to the twenty-five million it costs to have an inmate on death row. This is due to the cost of lawyers and appeals and transportation as well as a bunch of other factors. One thing that money should be spent on is on DNA testing for every murder case. This way no one who is innocent will be tried and sentenced for something they didn’t do. Anderson 2

Another reason why capital punishment should not be used on every murder case is because not only are they not all the same. Some murders are committed by people who are not all there in the head. For these specific cases I believe it is immoral to punish someone like that to death. Although the whole argument could be said that it is immoral to take anyone’s life. It is almost like playing god. But as long as the death penalty is going to be used the government could at least narrow down the number of people who are at least on death row.

Finally I have a reason why the death penalty should be used. If someone has the time and effort to plan out someone’s murder and to be the cause of it then why should they be granted the right to live out their life? Even if it is behind bars? Why should the families of victims have to suffer while the murdered gets to watch TV and eat warm food and have a place to sleep every night? It just isn’t right. We have laws for a reason: to enforce justice. And it seems like these criminals are taking advantage of the legal system.

In conclusion I would just like to say that I believe in the death penalty, but only in certain cases. I only believe that people convicted of first degree murder should be sentenced to death. I also believe that prison conditions should not be as posh as they are but that is a subject to be discussed in another essay.