FREE ESSAY ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

I once saw a bumper sticker that read, "Why do we kill people, who kill
people, to show that killing is wrong?" Suddenly I thought about what I had
read. I am against the death penalty as a solution to crime. Capital
punishment is a sign of a deep sickness in our civilization. Execution is an
act of violence, but you cannot use violence to end violence. The death
penalty is not an effective way to punish a criminal. It is used by the
powerful to pretend that violent crime is under control, and being disposed of, 
but in reality the death penalty disposes of the poor, the uneducated, and the
minorities in the world. Even states that use the death penalty seem to have
a higher number of homicides than states that do not use it. Capital
punishment has never been shown to eliminate crime more effectively than
other punishments. If the death penalty isn't lowering the murder rate then
why waste the taxpayers money? It cost more to put a prisoner to death with
any method than it does to keep them incarcerated. Our justice system
shouldn't just execute the criminal, they should also make his life miserable. 
Prisons should supply the bare necessities and nothing else. One solution is
to eliminate televisions, libraries, gyms and basketball courts. Even though
our prisons need to toughen up, I do give them credit for taking away a
criminals freedom. Many family members want to see the offenders dead. 
The families emotions are understandable, but death is not a solution. The
victims family has to suffer for a lifetime, so why shouldn't the murderer
suffer too? 
Another problem is the chance or executing an innocent person. The
executed prisoner cannot be given another chance. In the last hundred years
there have been more that seventy-five documented cases of wrongful
convictions in criminal homicide cases. One example is Walter McMillian
who was released from Alabama's death row after having spent six years
there because of perjured testimony and withheld evidence that indicated his
innocence. He was convicted of the shooting death of a storekeeper. On the
day of the murder he was at a fish fry with his friends and relatives, many of
whom testified to this at his trial. No physical evidence linked him to the
crime, but three people who testified at his trial connected him to the murder. 
Only sheer luck saved Walter McMillian. After listening to a tape recording
of a key witnesses testimony against McMillian, a volunteer lawyer flipped
the tape to see if there was anything on the other side. Only then did he hear
the same witness complaining that he was being pressured to frame
McMillian. With that fourutious break, the whole case against McMillian
began to fall apart. All three prosecution witnesses recanted their testimony. 
On March 3, 1993, the County District Attorney joined the defense in a
motion to dismiss the charges. Walter McMillian was finally freed. There
are many other cases of mistaken conviction and execution that occur and
remain undocumented. An innocent person can be freed, but neither release
or compensation is possible for a corpse. If a man is truly a murder, the
thought of execution will not stop him from committing murder. So if capital
punishment is not lowering the murder rate, is more expensive, and being
alive is more of a punishment than being dead, then why not abolish the death
penalty?