Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is the penalty of death for the commission of a crime. The use of capital punishment has been used within societies since the earliest civilizations and is still being used today. 38 states are currently allowing the death penalty, Illinois being one of them. The purpose of this paper is to show that capital punishment for any circumstance is immoral. I believe it is immoral for many reasons. First off because many people have been wrongfully acquitted, it's a horrible shame for someone to be put to death for something they didn't do. Secondly, the penalty is applied unfairly. Statistics has shown that States are more likely to put people to death for killing white victims than for black victims. And that wealthier people get off more often than the poor people do. It also shows that there is continuing evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system and in some cases racism can be found at every stage in a capital trial. Thirdly, some people believe that capital punishment it is an effective deterrent when it is obviously not in anyway. And lastly because capital punishment is just cruel and unusual, which makes it unconstitutional under the eighth amendment. No matter how bad the crime was a person committed they shouldn't be put to death.

Since 1973 there have been 122 people in 22 states that have been released from death row with evidence that their innocent. Which means 122 people, some almost minutes away from having their life taken away. Some people had to wait up to 30 years on death row to later be found innocent. In 1998 Newsweek had reported that there were 75 known cases for people being wrongfully condemned. And now there is an even greater chance of innocent people being put to death because of the push for death row inmates to be convicted faster.