Should the death penalty be considered cruel and unusual punishment? I am interested with this particular topic because I have always been fascinated with things concerning politics, criminal justice, and court cases. When I was younger my favorite television shows were always ones that involved court cases such as law and order and cops. This is what began fueling my fascination and opinions concerning the death penalty and the rulings in court cases. This Research Exigence affects my values because it affects my political views, religious views, and the way I vote for political candidates. I do not have any personal experience directly relating myself to the death penalty however, I have always been interested in the extreme court cases and concerned with how executions for the death penalty are carried out. The ruling of court cases interests me because I like to know the type of crimes criminals must commit to be sentenced to the death penalty. What makes me a credible writer for this topic is the previous research I have already constructed on this topic with debates and papers written in the past. I have also had to argue the topic from both sides so it allows me to see arguments from both viewpoints.

In the article from the LA times about the Arizona criminal that took two hours to be killed by lethal injection. Witnesses said that after an hour and 40 minutes the criminal was seen wheezing and gasping for air which caused the governor of the state to go into farther investigation. Major values and interests at stake is the criminal himself and whether he endured suffering or not, the criminal's family, the court systems, and the people conducting this execution. This also can lead to court rulings abolishing the death penalty if it is in fact inhume due to the eighth amendment which says the government can punish a criminal with cruel and unusual punishment. The website where the article is from is the LA Times and is a very known reliable source, the author Matt Pearce is a credible source because he is a national reporter for the Los Angeles Times who often writes about violence, disasters, social movements, and civil liberties.  

The article "Death Penalty: Justice or Inhumane" also discusses a court case where the criminal sentenced to death row did not die imminently, in fact he suffered compulsions and then a heart attack which led to his death. This is an informative article because all though it provides this example it is informative on what the government is doing about this and different politicians opinions on the matter. Major values and interests at stake are law makers who are high government officials, the criminal and his family, the criminal himself, and other criminals that were going to be executed with the same material. The article also discusses that high government officials are beginning to think that executions such as this one violates the eighth amendment. The Liberty Voice is the source this article is from and is a known reliable source with many different article and credible sources. The author is Leigh Haugh and the other articles he has written for this site are all dealing with criminal justice. 

A source that I discovered "Six Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty" is an argumentative piece that discussed reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. The author provides great points supporting his viewpoint and also goes into greater detail describing his points. This source provides me with reasoning on why the death penalty is inhumane but also provides more information I can use on why the death penalty is wrong for our society. The major values and issues are stake are the values of people who do not agree with these viewpoints and issues at stake are the ruling court cases themselves and whether or not the public supports this issue. This article does not have a direct author correlating to the article and is from a website called no the death penalty so, it is obviously biased and does not show many viewpoints of the other side. However, it does provide great arguments to abolish the death penalty and credible reasoning behind the ideas. 

Should the death penalty be considered cruel and unusual punishment? This question is up for debate because however people may have very strong opinions on this topic, both sides can be debated. Arguments in the sources I found are that the killers don't deserve a painless death if their victims suffered horrible pain before their death. The other side to this argument is that even lethal injection can go against the eighth amendment and be considered cruel or unusual punishment which goes against the constitution. These arguments are both persuasive because it does seem unfair that the killer is in less pain then a victim however, when it is concerning court cases there are many examples of executions that could be seen as cruel or unusual punishment. In order to make my paper ten pages I need to look at sources that are more informative to both sides and less argumentative.  

