Throughout our life time, most of us have heard the sayings "don't fight fire with fire" and "two wrongs don't make a right". We've all been told that we need to set a good example for those who look up to us. Using the death penalty as a form of punishment is not setting a good example. Now I am not saying that murder is okay and that murderers shouldn't be punished; in fact I'm saying just the opposite. Murder is not okay and the death penalty is murder. The death penalty should be completely abolished in the United States just like it is in so many other countries around the world. 

The death penalty first came about in the United States in the 1600's but in the mid-1800's the number started to increase. There are multiple ways of carrying out the death penalty- hanging, firing squad and electric chair- but the most common now is lethal injection. The first use was in 1982 when Texas executed Charles Brooks Jr. Lethal injection is when you inject someone with a lethal amount of drugs to stop their heart. There are two different types of lethal injection used today, one is using one large dose of a barbiturate, which is a sleep-inducing drug, and the second way is using a three-drug protocol (The Death Penalty ... ). 

A court case that had a lot of influence on capital punishment was Furman vs. Georgia. This case was about a man named Henry Furman who broke into a family's home attempting to rob them. The homeowner woke up and as Furman tried to run away he dropped his gun and it went off, killing the homeowner. Furman told the police that the shooting was completely accidental but it was decided that since the murder happened during a robbery, that if Furman was found guilty of the murder, he could be sentenced to the death penalty. He was found guilty of murder and the court sentenced him to death. The case was heard by the United States Supreme Court who overturned the execution and they stated that "unless a uniform policy of determining who is eligible for capital punishment exists, the death penalty will be regarded as 'cruel and unusual punishment.'". (Kids Law Furman vs. Georgia) 

Some states in the United States have already abolished the death penalty. So far 19 of the 50 states have death penalty abolished, but out of the 31 states remaining only 7 had executions in 2014. In 2014 The United States was ranked 5 in having the most confirmed executions. We were ranked behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and then Iraq. 

As time goes on, the death penalty is not being used as frequently as it once was. It is not abolished by many states yet but the amount of states that actually implement it is dwindling. The death penalty as a whole is extremely barbaric and completely unnecessary. The Constitution says that no cruel or unusual punishment should be used and the act of killing someone with an overdose of drugs, a firing squad or by hanging certainly falls under cruel punishment. Lethal injection is thought of to be a quick and easy pain-free way out, when actually it isn't that at all. It can take up 20 minutes for the poison to run through the person's body and it is not pain-free. It depends how the convicts body reacts as to how long and how painful it is, and if that does not count as cruel and inhumane then what does? Medical doctors are prohibited from administering the drugs in lethal injections because it goes against the Hippocratic Oath and some think that it would ruin the public's trust in them. Since medical personal cannot be the ones to give the drugs, technicians who are less experienced have to do. This leads to the process being longer, the possibility of more mistakes and sometimes causes it to be more painful (Death Penalty Focus). In some states, they still use the electric chair which is even more painful. In 1990 Jesse Tafero was sentenced to death by the electric chair. When the time came for him to die, the chair malfunctioned and Tafero suffered in the chair for 13 minutes before dying. The process took longer than expected and he didn't die immediately. This is so easily avoided; don't use capital punishment. That man suffered because the proper precautions weren't followed through. While I understand that he committed a crime and needs to be punished, but suffering for more than 10 minutes in the electric chair is beyond inhumane (Listverse). 

Besides the fact that it is completely barbaric, it does not save any money. In fact it is more costly. The process that the state has to go through in order to finally get to the death takes years and cost so much more than holding a prisoner in prison for life. There are several different legal actions that have to take place, medical examiners have to check and recheck all the equipment and medicine to make sure it all works properly. On average it takes about 9 years for a prisoner to get to the execution. During those years the state has to keep paying for the criminal, it doesn't just stop. Certain people who are "death penalty" certified are required at these executions which only adds to the cost as a whole. Cases without the death penalty involved cost roughly $700,000 while those with the death penalty cost about $1.26 million; but executing someone can cost about 10 times more than keeping them in prison in for life (Death Penalty Focus). The more humane thing to do with that money would be to give it to the family of the victim. They are going to have tons of bills and expenses to pay and instead of using that money to take another person's life, it should be used to help the grieving family. 

Life in prison without the possibility of parole achieves the same effect as the death penalty but in a more humane manor. The one who committed the crime would be locked away for the rest of his or her life and would never be able to hurt anyone ever again. They would be forced to sit in their cell with nothing to do except think about the horrible things they did in their lifetime.. If you think about it, the death penalty is the easy way out. That person commits this horrible crime and then is killed and doesn't have to pay the price for it. They wouldn't have to suffer the consequences and pay for what they did. The point of prison is giving up your time and paying your debts back to society. If the accused never has to give the rest of his life back to society then he isn't learning anything, basically getting the easy way out. Most people would rather die than spend their life in prison so why give the murders and rapists the easy choice? 

Another reason why people agree with the death penalty is because they believe that murder should be punished with death. This goes back to the "setting a good example" motto I mentioned earlier. Punishing horrible crimes with death just shows that it is okay to fight violence with more violence. Taking someone's life because they took one doesn't make either murder okay and it doesn't bring the victim back. Nothing good comes from capital punishment. All that comes from it is that another life was lost and now someone has to carry that with them for their whole life. No one has the right to take someone's life. Each life is precious and should be treated as such. 

It is commonly thought that using capital punishment will make people less likely to commit these horrendous crimes but that isn't the case. First of all, not that many states actually enforce the death penalty so it isn't that commonly thought of; and the states who do implement the death penalty don't have a lower crime rate (Brook, Dan). Secondly, there is not a regulation with what kinds of crimes are punished with the death penalty; that instability causes people not to associate the death penalty with any crime. Lastly criminals can be on death row for decades so people don't usually associate the death penalty with these awful crimes (Brook, Dan).

Capital punishment goes against almost all religions. In Christianity, the Bible says that God is the only judge and all sin is equal in His eyes. That means that no one should get to play God's role and decide who lives and who dies. Buddhist believe all living things deserve to live and you are supposed to avoid killing or hurting living things. They say that everything wishes to live just like you do. Hindus practice non-violence and try and abstain from hurting or causing harm to anything. The list can go on and on but those are just a few. The majority of religions are against harming or killing anything that is living, which includes killing in the sense of the death penalty. 

Death is permanent and there is no going back once you have taken someone's life. If you are going to give someone the death penalty, you need to be one hundred percent certain that the person is guilty of the crime presented. If not, then an innocent person could be killed and when that happens innocent lives are taken. That is a risk our criminal justice system should not be willing to take because then not only have you killed someone who was innocent, the real criminal is still out there. 

There have been multiple instances where someone is executed and then afterward they discover that they were innocent the whole time. In 1980 in St. Louis Missouri a man named Quinton Moss was killed in a drive by shooting. The alleged killer was Larry Griffin who was incarcerated because a white career criminal, someone convicted of a new crime after being convicted of one or more crimes previously, named Robert Fitzgerald states that he was at the crime scene. Fitzgerald says he saw Griffin shoot Moss with his right hand, although Griffin was left-handed. Because Griffin's attorney had never defended a man accused of murder, he failed to bring in an alibi and question the hand the gun was shot with. All the evidence against Griffin was circumstantial and his fingerprints weren't on the car or the weapon. There were also two witnesses who said that Griffin wasn't the murderer and they also said that they knew who the murderer was but the prosecutor didn't address the witnesses. Griffin was executed in June of 1995 and said he was innocent up until his death. In 2005 a professor at University of Michigan Law School reopened the case and investigated, concluding that Griffin was innocent the whole time (Listverse).

Another example of innocent people being executed was in 1983 when Carlos De Luna was convicted for the murder of Wanda Lopez. De Luna had just been released from prison and was violating his parole by drinking in public but told the police he didn't kill her and told them who did. The crime scene was covered in blood but De Luna had no blood on him and he was taken into custody too quickly to have been able to clean himself up. An eyewitness told the police that De Luna was the right guy but only after he had been told by the police that De Luna was the killer. During the trial, De Luna told the court that Carlos Hernandez was the man he saw inside of the gas station with Lopez. Both De Luna and Hernandez looked very similar and it was later discovered that Hernandez and Lopez had a romantic relationship. Hernandez also had a long history of knife attacks similar to this one and told his friends and family that he had committed this murder. De Luna's lawyers knew about Hernandez's previous record but never even looked into it. De Luna was executed in 1989 in Texas as an innocent man (Listverse). 

The color of someone's skin plays a huge role in many death penalty cases. The race of the victim and the accused really has a determining factor if the accused gets the death penalty or not. Studies show that "As of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims." (aclu.org). Studies taken in Maryland, North Carolina and New Jersey showed that the likelihood of the death penalty is significantly increased if the victim is white (aclu.org). Minorities are much more likely to be punished with the death penalty and about 50% of the people on death row from 2002 to 2006 were African American (ACLU). 

Another important issue with the capital punishment is, there isn't a set system for determining who gets the death penalty and who doesn't. There isn't certain crimes that are punished with capital punishment; it is all circumstantial which makes it very biased and unfair to all. If the people are going to punish one murderer with death penalty and not the next then the death penalty should not be implemented at all. It isn't fair for two people to commit the same crime and only one be sentenced to death and the other gets life in prison. For example, not all murder cases are punished with death penalty but some are. The point of prison is to pay for the crimes that person has committed and if some criminals are punished to the death penalty they miss out on having to pay for what they did. 

There are so many problems surrounding the death penalty and the very little benefits are things that can be given up. I think we should abolish the death penalty and punish the serious crimes with life in prison without parole. There are so many states and countries that have already abolished the death penalty so the rest of The United States needs to get rid of it too. The death penalty no longer serves a purpose and because of the irregularities in the process it is very unfair to the defendants. Hate and crime are a huge issue in the world and especially our country. By abolishing the death penalty we would set a better example for the people in our country.

For most of us, as we grew up we were taught kindness, to treat each person with respect and to do no harm. We learned that fighting fire with fire is never the solution. Our country is built on a set of amendments and the eighth amendment prohibits the government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment. Capital punishment is outdated and no longer a needed source of punishment. The use of a firing squad, lethal injection, or electric chair definitely falls under cruel and unusual punishment. There are no strict regulations for how it is determined and it can cost up to 10 times more than life in prison. We as a country need to follow the other 19 states and abolish the death penalty completely. Hopefully, by doing so we can focus on trying to better our country and find more positive and helpful ways to lower the crime rate, because as we all learned as small children, fighting fire with fire doesn't do anything but cause more damage. 

