abolishing the death penalty persuasive speech

Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments

Life without Parole

Retribution

Victims’ Families

Methods of Execution

Medical Professionals’ Participation

Federal Death Penalty

1. Legality

The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment’s use).

Proponents of the death penalty being legal argue that such a harsh penalty is needed for criminals who have committed the worst crimes, that the punishment deters crime, and that the US Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty as constitutional.

Opponents of the death penalty being legal argue that the punishment is cruel and unusual, and, thus, unconstitutional, that innocent people are put to death for crimes they did not commit, and that the penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color.

People who view this page may also like:

States with the Death Penalty and States with Death Penalty Bans
US Executions by Race, Crime, Method, Age, Gender, State, & Year
Should Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal?

ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA

Natalie Leppard Managing Editor [email protected]

History of the Death Penalty
Top Pro & Con Quotes
Historical Timeline
Did You Know?
States with the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Bans, and Death Penalty Moratoriums
The ESPY List: US Executions 1608-2002
Federal Capital Offenses
Death Row Inmates
Critical Thinking Video Series: Thomas Edison Electrocutes Topsy the Elephant, Jan. 4, 1903

Cite This Page

Artificial Intelligence
Private Prisons
Space Colonization
Social Media
Death Penalty
School Uniforms
Video Games
Animal Testing
Gun Control
Banned Books
Teachers’ Corner

ProCon.org is the institutional or organization author for all ProCon.org pages. Proper citation depends on your preferred or required style manual. Below are the proper citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order): the Modern Language Association Style Manual (MLA), the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Turabian). Here are the proper bibliographic citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order):

[Editor's Note: The APA citation style requires double spacing within entries.]

[Editor’s Note: The MLA citation style requires double spacing within entries.]

Persuasive Essay Writing

Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty

Craft an Effective Argument: Examples of Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty

Published on: Jan 27, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 29, 2024

What Do We Mean by a Persuasive Essay?

A persuasive essay is a type of writing that attempts to persuade the reader or audience.

This essay usually presents an argument supported by evidence and examples. The main aim is to convince the reader or audience to take action or accept a certain viewpoint.

Persuasive essays may be written from a neutral or biased perspective and contain personal opinions.

To do this, you must provide clear reasoning and evidence to support your argument. Persuasive essays can take many forms, including speeches, letters, articles, and opinion pieces.

It is important to consider the audience when writing a persuasive essay. The language used should be tailored to their understanding of the topic.

Read our comprehensive guide on persuasive essays to know all about crafting excellent essays.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Let's move on to some examples so that you can better understand this topic.

Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty Examples

Are you feeling stuck with the task of writing a persuasive essay about the death penalty?

Looking for some examples to get your ideas flowing?

Youâre in luck â weâve got just the thing! Take a look at these free downloadable examples.

Example of a Persuasive essay about death penalty

Persuasive essay about death penalty in the Philippines

Short Persuasive essay about death penalty

Persuasive essay about death penalty should be abolished

The death penalty pros and cons essay

Looking for some more examples on persuasive essays? Check out our blog about persuasive essay examples !

Argumentative Essay About Death Penalty Examples

We have compiled some of the best examples to help you start crafting your essay.

These examples will provide dynamic perspectives and insights from real-world legal cases to personal essays.

Have a look at them to get inspired!!

Argumentative essay about death penalty in the Philippines

Argumentative essay about death penalty with introduction body conclusion

Argumentative essay about death penalty should be abolished

Argumentative essay about death penalty conclusion

6 Tips To Write an A+ Persuasive Essay

We know it can be daunting to compose a perfect essay that effectively conveys your point of view to your readers. Worry no more.

Simply follow these 6 tips, and you will be on your way to a perfect persuasive essay.

1. Understand the assignment and audience

Before you start writing your essay, you must understand what type of essay you are being asked to write. Who your target audience should be?

Make sure you know exactly what youâre arguing for and against, as this will help shape your essay's content.

2. Brainstorm and research

Once you understand the topic better, brainstorm ideas that support your argument.

During this process, be sure to do additional research on any unfamiliar points or topics.

3. Create an outline

After doing your initial research, create an outline for your essay that includes all the main points you want to make.

This will help keep your thoughts organized and ensure you cover all the necessary points cohesively.

Check out our extensive guide on persuasive essay outlines to master the art of creating essays.

4. Make an argument

Use persuasive language and techniques to construct your essay. Strong evidence, such as facts and statistics, can also help to strengthen your argument.

5. Edit and revise

Before you submit your essay, take the time to edit and revise it carefully.

This will ensure that your argument is clear and concise and that there are no grammar or spelling errors.

6. Get feedback

Lastly, consider asking someone else to read over your essay before you submit it.

Feedback from another person can help you see any weaknesses in your argument or areas that need improvement.

Summing up,

Writing a persuasive essay about the death penalty doesnât have to be overwhelming. With these examples and tips, you can be sure to write an essay that will impress your teacher.

Whether itâs an essay about the death penalty or any other controversial topic, you can ace it with these steps!

Remember, the key is to be creative and organized in your writing!

Don't have time to write your essay?

Don't stress! Leave it to us! Our persuasive essay writing service is here to help!

Contact the team of experts at our essay writing service. We can help you write a creative, well-organized, and engaging essay for the reader.

Our persuasive essay writer will write the best essay for you at affordable rates! Moreover, we provide free revisions and other exclusive perks!

So don't delay! Ask us to write an essay for me today!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most persuasive argument for the death penalty.

The most persuasive argument for the death penalty is that it is a deterrent to violent crime.

The idea is that by punishing criminals, other potential criminals will be less likely to act out of fear of similar punishment.

How do you start a persuasive speech on the death penalty?

When starting a persuasive speech on the death penalty, begin by introducing and defining the topic. Provide an overview of the controversial issue.

Outline your points and arguments clearly, including evidence to support your position.

What are good topics for persuasive essays?

Good topics for persuasive essays include

Whether or not the death penalty is a fair punishment for violent crime
Whether harsher punishments will reduce crime rates
Will capital punishment is worth the costs associated with it
How rehabilitation should be taken into consideration when dealing with criminals.

Cathy A. (Marketing, Literature)

For more than five years now, Cathy has been one of our most hardworking authors on the platform. With a Masters degree in mass communication, she knows the ins and outs of professional writing. Clients often leave her glowing reviews for being an amazing writer who takes her work very seriously.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

Legal & Policies

Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy
Terms of Use
Refunds & Cancellations
Our Writers
Success Stories
Our Guarantees
Affiliate Program
Referral Program
AI Essay Writer

Disclaimer: All client orders are completed by our team of highly qualified human writers. The essays and papers provided by us are not to be used for submission but rather as learning models only.

Share full article

Supported by

student opinion

Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?

In its last six months, the United States government has put 13 prisoners to death. Do you think capital punishment should end?

By Nicole Daniels

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

In July, the United States carried out its first federal execution in 17 years. Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had in the previous six decades.

The death penalty has been abolished in 22 states and 106 countries, yet it is still legal at the federal level in the United States. Does your state or country allow the death penalty?

Do you believe governments should be allowed to execute people who have been convicted of crimes? Is it ever justified, such as for the most heinous crimes? Or are you universally opposed to capital punishment?

In “ ‘Expedited Spree of Executions’ Faced Little Supreme Court Scrutiny ,” Adam Liptak writes about the recent federal executions:

In 2015, a few months before he died, Justice Antonin Scalia said he w o uld not be surprised if the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty. These days, after President Trump’s appointment of three justices, liberal members of the court have lost all hope of abolishing capital punishment. In the face of an extraordinary run of federal executions over the past six months, they have been left to wonder whether the court is prepared to play any role in capital cases beyond hastening executions. Until July, there had been no federal executions in 17 years . Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had put to death in the previous six decades.

The article goes on to explain that Justice Stephen G. Breyer issued a dissent on Friday as the Supreme Court cleared the way for the last execution of the Trump era, complaining that it had not sufficiently resolved legal questions that inmates had asked. The article continues:

If Justice Breyer sounded rueful, it was because he had just a few years ago held out hope that the court would reconsider the constitutionality of capital punishment. He had set out his arguments in a major dissent in 2015 , one that must have been on Justice Scalia’s mind when he made his comments a few months later. Justice Breyer wrote in that 46-page dissent that he considered it “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,” which bars cruel and unusual punishments. He said that death row exonerations were frequent, that death sentences were imposed arbitrarily and that the capital justice system was marred by racial discrimination. Justice Breyer added that there was little reason to think that the death penalty deterred crime and that long delays between sentences and executions might themselves violate the Eighth Amendment. Most of the country did not use the death penalty, he said, and the United States was an international outlier in embracing it. Justice Ginsburg, who died in September, had joined the dissent. The two other liberals — Justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — were undoubtedly sympathetic. And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who held the decisive vote in many closely divided cases until his retirement in 2018, had written the majority opinions in several 5-to-4 decisions that imposed limits on the death penalty, including ones barring the execution of juvenile offenders and people convicted of crimes other than murder .

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law

Speech by tatiana termacic, fourteenth united nations congress on crime prevention and criminal justice.

Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

7-12 March 2021 - Kyoto, Japan

The death penalty: a global perspective

Speech by Tatiana Termacic, Head of Coordination and International Cooperation Division

I would like to thank Amnesty International, and in particular Chiara Sangiorgio, for inviting me to this important discussion.

The UN Crime Congress provides a unique forum to address the link between respect for human rights and efficient fight against crime and is a great opportunity to recall the importance of multilateralism in addressing these issues.

The Council of Europe’s experience shows that respect for human rights and rule of law when delivering criminal justice contributes to a more efficient fight against crime and is essential for its prevention. Abolition of the death penalty is a crucial step to break an endless cycle of violence, which prevents justice from prevailing.

The Council of Europe and its 47 member states have created a death-penalty free zone for nearly a quarter of a century. Abolition of the death penalty has become part of the European acquis. Thus, any attempt to reintroduce the death penalty would have immediate consequences on the country’s status vis-à-vis the Organisation. This prohibition has also an impact outside the European territory through proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights.

The prohibition of the death penalty in law and practice is the precondition for the Council of Europe’s policies to prevent crime and the root causes of crime, and to improve the criminal justice systems of its member states. It has also been a precondition for membership since the 90’.

How did we get there?

The death-penalty free zone that is Europe today – with the exception of Belarus – looked different more than 70 years ago, when the ECHR was drafted. At that time, the death penalty was not considered to violate international standards. An exception was therefore included to the right to life, which provided for the possibility of death sentence following a court conviction of a crime for which this penalty was provided by law.

From the late 1960s, a consensus began to emerge in Europe that the death penalty seemed to serve no purpose in a civilised society governed by the rule of law and respect for human rights. PACE played a leading role in the move towards abolition by confirming, in a momentous debate in 1980, that the death penalty was inhuman.

This led to the CoE adopting in 1983 the first legally binding instrument providing for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty in peacetime: Protocol No. 6 to the ECHR. This text is currently ratified by 46 of the 47 member states, the remaining state being committed to ratification and has put in place a moratorium.

In 2002, the CoE adopted Protocol No. 13 to the ECHR concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, in other words also in time of war or of imminent threat of war. Reservations to and derogations from the Protocol are not possible. The Protocol entered into force on 1 July 2003. It has to date been signed and ratified by 44 member states.

The last execution in Europe took place in 1997.

Are we now complacent?

The abolition of the death penalty has been achieved through a top-down approach in most CoE member states. The experience of Central and Eastern countries has been diverse. In some cases, abolition was undertaken with enthusiasm, in others, with indifference. In a few cases, such as in Albania and Ukraine, there was resistance. In Ukraine, executions were carried out until 1997, that is two years after it joined the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe had threatened that it would suspend Ukraine’s membership and eventually, it was the Constitutional Court of Ukraine which saved the day by ruling the death penalty unconstitutional [in December 1999].

Although public opinion was not in every case clearly in favour of abolition, it did not result in any major objections once abolition was introduced. One has to note that on the occasion of particularly gruesome crimes, very few ask for the re-introduction of the death penalty.

The risk of any serious initiatives towards the re-introduction of the death penalty in any CoE member state is considered to be low. In reality, when the issue of re-introduction is raised by the authorities, it is solely for internal purposes as a topic to distract from real difficulties, such as economic crisis.

However, we cannot let our guard down because dormant support for the death penalty may still exist in some member states and it is important to dry out from the outset the ground for populist calls for reintroduction. For this reason, abolition of the death penalty remains high on the Council of Europe’s political agenda. Since 2001, the Committee of Ministers has held regular exchanges of views on the abolition of the death penalty in all member States as well as its observer or candidate States. The PACE has a rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty who reports regularly to the Assembly.

Exporting the death-penalty free zone

Commitment to the abolition of the death penalty does not stop at Europe’s borders. Therefore, Heads of State or Government called for universal abolition at the CoE’s 2nd Summit held in 1997. Universal abolition can only be achieved by joining efforts with other international organisations, and this has been the CoE’s strategy to contribute to outlawing this cruel punishment in the minority of countries that still retain it in law. The UN and the EU are two major partners in this respect.

Thus, the CoE supports the United Nations General Assembly Resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the use of death penalty. This item remains on the agenda of the Committee of Ministers’ exchange of views with experts from capitals on the cooperation with the UN held every year in February.

However, it is highly regrettable that the reference to the CoE member states’ commitment to the abolition of the death penalty is systematically removed from the UNGA Resolution on the cooperation with the Council of Europe. This always happens in the last round of consultations, as was the case for the latest Resolution on the topic adopted on 3 March.

The Council of Europe and the EU have teamed up to encourage all countries to join the global Alliance for Torture-Free Trade. Also, on the occasion of the World and European Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October, the Secretary General and the EU’s High Representative issue a joint statement.

Two of the Council of Europe’s observer states maintain capital punishment: the US, which enjoys this status since 1995, and Japan, which is celebrating its 25 th anniversary as an observer state. The situation in these two countries is being examined in the biannual exchange of views at the CM and the permanent representatives are invited to present the state of play in their respective country. If asked, the Council of Europe would gladly share its experience in abolishing the death penalty with these two countries, as well as with the neighbourhood countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia, with whom the Council of Europe entertains a special relationship as well.

While, undoubtedly, political leadership only is sufficient to achieve abolition, it is important to understand which are the obstacles preventing abolition because working to remove them can help build this indispensable political will in the respective countries.

Historically, public opinion has never been the driver for abolition. However, maintaining legitimacy in the policies of the country is important. As all studies show, the less people know about the topic, the more they are in favour of keeping the death penalty. Studies have also shown that attitudes to sentencing become less punitive when people are provided with fuller information. This is even more evident when such information is combined with dialogue. Therefore, it is important to underline the vital role of the media in providing reliable information on the issue of capital punishment and its application so that the public becomes less uninformed or is not misinformed. This also extends to the way serious crimes, such as serial murders, terrorism or crimes against children, are being reported by journalists.

Apart from the political institutions of the Council of Europe, the PACE and the CM, the European Court of Human Rights also plays a role in limiting the use of the death penalty outside Europe. The landmark case in this respect is Soering v. UK , in which the Strasbourg Court considered that extradition to the US would constitute a violation of the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment because of the phenomenon of death row (1989). Since then, the Court has developed a rich and consistent case law directed at preventing persons being put at risk of the use of the death penalty.

It said that the risk of being sentenced to death after extradition constituted a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ( Bader and Kambor v. Sweden , 2005). The cases of persons held in CIA black sites on CoE member States’ territory were examined notably in Al-Nashiri v. Poland (2014), where a violation was established as well. In this judgment, the Court held that there had been a violation by Poland of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention taken together with Article 1 of Protocol No. 6 to the Convention by having enabled the CIA to transfer the applicant to the jurisdiction of the military commission and thus exposing him to a foreseeable serious risk that he could be subjected to the death penalty following his trial. The Court went even further in Al-Saadoon & Mufdhi v. the United Kingdom (2010) ruling that the death penalty was as such contrary to the ECHR.

There are a number of other legal instruments having a connection with the issue of the death penalty. For example, the European Convention on Extradition provides that extradition may be refused if the offense for which the extradition is requested is punishable by the death penalty unless the Requesting Party provides insurances that it will not be carried out. An important development, expected in Spring 2021, will be the adoption by the CM of a recommendation on measures against the trade of goods used for the death penalty, torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment.

Slow progress in Belarus

There are many reasons why Belarus is not part of the CoE, and one is that the death penalty has not been abolished. Belarus’ special guest status in PACE was frozen as a result of the 1996 Referendum, which allowed Alexander Lukashenko to stay in power beyond the two mandates provided by the Constitution. In the same referendum there was a question on whether or not the death penalty should be abolished and more than 80% voted for its retention. It is important to note that at that time, the only alternative was 15 years of imprisonment. Since then, life imprisonment has been introduced in the Criminal Code.

Belarus is the typical example where the authorities use public opinion as a curtain to hide a lack of political will. Lukashenko is openly a proponent of capital punishment.

The Council of Europe has been having a dialogue with the authorities and has supported civil society initiatives for over two decades. All the arguments in favour of abolition have been repeated over and over again. The single response we have been getting is: “we cannot go against the will of public opinion”.

Nonetheless, there have been three concrete areas of progress: in 2004, the Constitutional Court declared that the death penalty – provided in the Constitution itself – should be a temporary measure, so that ultimately, it should be abolished.

Also, a parliamentary working group was established over a decade ago, and in 2019, following our advice, the authorities changed its name from “working group on the study of the question of the death penalty” to “WG on the study of the question of the abolition of the death penalty”. The outburst of the COVID pandemic has prevented the CoE from providing support to the new composition of the WG, notably as regards the development of specific terms of reference with expected results clearly defined.

A last area of progress has been that, prior to the 9 August elections, the civil society had become an interlocutor of the authorities in the dialogue on abolition.

No one can predict what will unfold in Belarus in the coming weeks or months. It is not excluded that, for reasons unrelated to human rights, the death penalty could be abolished as part of the constitutional reform launched by Lukashenko. That would be welcome regardless of the overall human rights situation. Also, the democratic opposition has already confirmed its commitment to abolish the death penalty.

What comes after abolition

It is important to remember that abolition of the death penalty is not an end in itself. It is in fact the beginning of another essential process for our democratic societies respectful of human rights and the rule of law: the transformation of punitive justice into restorative justice, where the rights of victims are fully taken into account and the right to legitimate hope of persons deprived of their liberty [or detained to avoid repetition] of being released, recognized. The objective is to put in place a criminal response where all feelings of revenge are rooted out, so that justice for all is achieved.

Let’s not forget that the European Court of Human Rights has recognised a “right to hope” as regards life imprisonment in its judgment Vinter and others v. UK (2008): for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3, there has to be a prospect of the prisoner’s release and the possibility of a review of the sentence.

Prohibiting the death penalty does not mean being lenient on combating crime. The Council of Europe has developed a panoply of standards and tools aiming at an efficient fight against crime, notably through international cooperation.

Last but not least, education plays an important role to raise the awareness of young people on the right to life and abolition. The CoE guidebook "Milestones", on practicing human rights education with young people, provides tools for discussing these issues with them.

The arguments against the death penalty are well-known. It is cruel. Irreversible. Discriminatory. It has no restorative effect on victims of crime. It is not dissuasive. It is ineffective, incompatible with fundamental rights. Socially unnecessary and morally unacceptable. A state cannot claim to be delivering justice if it annihilates human dignity by using violence.

The goals set in the 2030 agenda would undoubtedly be missed if the vision of justice and rule of law that is promoted is not aligned with the promotion and protection of human rights and dignity of all.

Indeed, how can one really believe that killing the perpetrators of crimes achieves justice for both victims and the society as a whole?

The Council of Europe stands ready to share its experience to achieve abolition of the death penalty worldwide and to support the reforms to criminal justice systems that respect the rights of the victims, the accused and all those involved.

History & Society
Science & Tech
Biographies
Animals & Nature
Geography & Travel
Arts & Culture
Games & Quizzes
On This Day
One Good Fact
New Articles
Lifestyles & Social Issues
Philosophy & Religion
Politics, Law & Government
World History
Health & Medicine
Browse Biographies
Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
Environment
Fossils & Geologic Time
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Sports & Recreation
Visual Arts
Demystified
Image Galleries
Infographics
Top Questions
Britannica Kids
Saving Earth
Space Next 50
Student Center
Introduction
Historical considerations

Moral arguments

Utilitarian arguments, practical arguments, the abolition movement.

Capital punishment in the early 21st century

Arguments for and against capital punishment

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Capital Punishment
Santa Clara University - Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?
Cornell Law School - Legal Information Institute - Death penalty
capital punishment - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
capital punishment - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Table Of Contents

Capital punishment has long engendered considerable debate about both its morality and its effect on criminal behaviour. Contemporary arguments for and against capital punishment fall under three general headings: moral , utilitarian, and practical.

Supporters of the death penalty believe that those who commit murder , because they have taken the life of another, have forfeited their own right to life. Furthermore, they believe, capital punishment is a just form of retribution , expressing and reinforcing the moral indignation not only of the victim’s relatives but of law-abiding citizens in general. By contrast, opponents of capital punishment, following the writings of Cesare Beccaria (in particular On Crimes and Punishments [1764]), argue that, by legitimizing the very behaviour that the law seeks to repress—killing—capital punishment is counterproductive in the moral message it conveys. Moreover, they urge, when it is used for lesser crimes, capital punishment is immoral because it is wholly disproportionate to the harm done. Abolitionists also claim that capital punishment violates the condemned person’s right to life and is fundamentally inhuman and degrading.

Although death was prescribed for crimes in many sacred religious documents and historically was practiced widely with the support of religious hierarchies , today there is no agreement among religious faiths, or among denominations or sects within them, on the morality of capital punishment. Beginning in the last half of the 20th century, increasing numbers of religious leaders—particularly within Judaism and Roman Catholicism—campaigned against it. Capital punishment was abolished by the state of Israel for all offenses except treason and crimes against humanity, and Pope John Paul II condemned it as “cruel and unnecessary.”

Supporters of capital punishment also claim that it has a uniquely potent deterrent effect on potentially violent offenders for whom the threat of imprisonment is not a sufficient restraint. Opponents, however, point to research that generally has demonstrated that the death penalty is not a more effective deterrent than the alternative sanction of life or long-term imprisonment.

There also are disputes about whether capital punishment can be administered in a manner consistent with justice . Those who support capital punishment believe that it is possible to fashion laws and procedures that ensure that only those who are really deserving of death are executed. By contrast, opponents maintain that the historical application of capital punishment shows that any attempt to single out certain kinds of crime as deserving of death will inevitably be arbitrary and discriminatory. They also point to other factors that they think preclude the possibility that capital punishment can be fairly applied, arguing that the poor and ethnic and religious minorities often do not have access to good legal assistance, that racial prejudice motivates predominantly white juries in capital cases to convict black and other nonwhite defendants in disproportionate numbers, and that, because errors are inevitable even in a well-run criminal justice system, some people will be executed for crimes they did not commit. Finally, they argue that, because the appeals process for death sentences is protracted, those condemned to death are often cruelly forced to endure long periods of uncertainty about their fate.

Under the influence of the European Enlightenment , in the latter part of the 18th century there began a movement to limit the scope of capital punishment. Until that time a very wide range of offenses, including even common theft, were punishable by death—though the punishment was not always enforced , in part because juries tended to acquit defendants against the evidence in minor cases. In 1794 the U.S. state of Pennsylvania became the first jurisdiction to restrict the death penalty to first-degree murder, and in 1846 the state of Michigan abolished capital punishment for all murders and other common crimes. In 1863 Venezuela became the first country to abolish capital punishment for all crimes, including serious offenses against the state (e.g., treason and military offenses in time of war). San Marino was the first European country to abolish the death penalty, doing so in 1865; by the early 20th century several other countries, including the Netherlands, Norway , Sweden , Denmark , and Italy , had followed suit (though it was reintroduced in Italy under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini ). By the mid-1960s some 25 countries had abolished the death penalty for murder, though only about half of them also had abolished it for offenses against the state or the military code. For example, Britain abolished capital punishment for murder in 1965, but treason, piracy, and military crimes remained capital offenses until 1998.

During the last third of the 20th century, the number of abolitionist countries increased more than threefold. These countries, together with those that are “de facto” abolitionist—i.e., those in which capital punishment is legal but not exercised—now represent more than half the countries of the world. One reason for the significant increase in the number of abolitionist states was that the abolition movement was successful in making capital punishment an international human rights issue, whereas formerly it had been regarded as solely an internal matter for the countries concerned.

In 1971 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that, “in order fully to guarantee the right to life, provided for in…the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” called for restricting the number of offenses for which the death penalty could be imposed, with a view toward abolishing it altogether. This resolution was reaffirmed by the General Assembly in 1977. Optional protocols to the European Convention on Human Rights (1983) and to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1989) have been established, under which countries party to the convention and the covenant undertake not to carry out executions. The Council of Europe (1994) and the EU (1998) established as a condition of membership in their organizations the requirement that prospective member countries suspend executions and commit themselves to abolition. This decision had a remarkable impact on the countries of central and eastern Europe , prompting several of them—e.g., the Czech Republic , Hungary , Romania , Slovakia , and Slovenia—to abolish capital punishment.

In the 1990s many African countries—including Angola, Djibouti, Mozambique, and Namibia—abolished capital punishment, though most African countries retained it. In South Africa , which formerly had one of the world’s highest execution rates, capital punishment was outlawed in 1995 by the Constitutional Court, which declared that it was incompatible with the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment and with “a human rights culture.”

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Death Penalty — Should the Death Penalty be Abolished

Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished

Categories: Corporal Punishment Death Penalty

About this sample

Words: 967 |

Updated: 13 November, 2023

Words: 967 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Video Version

Capital punishment,Prison,Lethal injection,Crime,Murder,Death penalty

Death Penalty Essay: Hook Examples

A Startling Statistic: Did you know that in the last decade, over 170 countries have abolished the death penalty or no longer practice it? It’s time for us to question why we haven’t joined this global trend.
A Personal Story: As I stood witness to an execution, I couldn’t help but wonder if this act of state-sanctioned killing truly serves justice. Let me share my experience that led me to believe the death penalty should be abolished.
An Ethical Dilemma: When we look into the eyes of a society that condemns murder but practices it in return, we confront a moral paradox. Is it time for us to reevaluate our stance on the death penalty?
A Historical Perspective: Throughout history, societies have evolved, discarding practices that no longer align with their values. Is it not time for us to evolve beyond the death penalty, which has roots in a less enlightened era?
An Expert Opinion: Renowned legal scholar Bryan Stevenson once said, “The opposite of poverty is not wealth; it’s justice.” Let’s explore why abolishing the death penalty is a crucial step toward achieving true justice in our society.
Radelet, M. L., & Borg, M. J. (2000). The changing nature of death penalty debates. Annual Review of Sociology, 26(1), 43-61. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.43)
Hood, R. (2009). Abolition of the death penalty: China in world perspective. City UHKL Rev., 1, 1. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ciunhok1&div=3&id=&page=)
Bedau, H. A., & Cassell, P. G. (Eds.). (2005). Debating the death penalty: Should America have capital punishment? The experts on both sides make their case. Oxford University Press. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14624745070090030505)
Koenig, T. H., & Rustad, M. L. (2011). Deciding Whether the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished. Suffolk University Law Review, 44, 193. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1673468)
Mathias, M. D. (2013). The sacralization of the individual: Human rights and the abolition of the death penalty. American Journal of Sociology, 118(5), 1246-1283 (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/669507)

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Expert in: Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 791 words

4 pages / 1775 words

3 pages / 1282 words

2 pages / 764 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished Essay

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Death Penalty

In conclusion, the ethical considerations surrounding the death penalty for murderers are complex and multifaceted. The arguments for deterrence, retribution, and justice are countered by concerns about the risk of wrongful [...]

Capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been a contentious issue in the United States for decades. The history of the death penalty in the US is fraught with controversy, and its current state continues to be a subject of [...]

The debate over whether executions should be televised has been a topic of discussion for many years. The idea of broadcasting such a graphic and controversial event raises ethical, moral, and legal questions. However, there are [...]

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a highly debated and controversial topic. While some argue that it serves as a deterrent for heinous crimes and provides justice for victims and their families, others [...]

The "death penalty" should never exist in the first place. The "death penalty" is wrong.. It should not be given to anybody, whether they are under the age of 18 or not. It is morally wrong and will be the doom of America, The [...]

I believe the death penalty should be legal throughout the nation. Discussing the death penalty pros and cons, there are many reasons as to why I think the death penalty should be legalized in all states, including deterrence, [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Speech by Richard C. Dieter given at the International Conference on Human Rights and the Death Penalty

Facebook Share
Tweet Tweet
Email Email

Testimony and Statements

Tokyo, Japan December 6-7, 2005 Next we would like to welcome, Mr. Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center. I would like to thank the European Commission, the American Bar Association and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations for inviting me to speak about the death penalty in the United States. I first want to say that our Japanese hosts have been especially gracious—I immediately felt welcomed here, and I want to thank you for that. Today we are addressing the cultural aspects of the death penalty, and the United States is certainly a complex culture, made up of many different strands. It is difficult to define exactly what motivates the death penalty in our society, or why this punishment for crime is given a special importance by many people. What I would like to talk about today are some of the facts that illustrate a dramatic change in the death penalty (and perhaps even in our culture) that has been occurring over the past few years. To understand this change, it is helpful to review the recent history of the death penalty. Ten years ago, in the mid-1990s, the death penalty in the United States was finally “succeeding” at what it had been formulated to do. The death penalty had been stopped by the United States Supreme Court in 1972 because it was being arbitrarily applied. Many states, wishing to preserve the death penalty, then re-wrote their laws to meet the Court’s requirements. The new laws were supposed to be carefully channeled so that only the worst offenders would be eligible for the death penalty, thereby eliminating its arbitrary quality. The death penalty resumed in 1976, though executions did not escalate quickly. There was one execution in 1977. The process was slow, there were many appeals, and some state laws were overturned. In the 1990s, the United States began to experience a death penalty similar to that of the 1930s when nearly 200 people a year were executed. The number of executions went steadily up, reaching almost 100 executions in 1999. The number of people on death row kept rising as more and more people were sentenced to death. New states, such as Kansas and New York, added the death penalty to their statutes. In 1994, the federal government, which affects all 50 states but which had not been a significant participant in the death penalty, expanded its capital punishment statute so that 60 offenses were eligible for the death penalty, instead of just one offense previously. Much of the public wanted the death penalty applied more often and more quickly. Moreover, we had just experienced a terrible act of terrorism in 1995 by one of our own citizens in the Oklahoma City bombing. In the wake of that, Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to speed up the death penalty, and the number of executions continued to rise. The death penalty was supported by 80% of the American public in the 1990s. But surprisingly, a dramatic period of change began around the time of the new millennium. This would seem to be a very unlikely time for the death penalty to change in the U.S., given the cultural events taking place. In 2000, the U.S. elected a president, George Bush, who as governor of Texas presided over the most executions of any modern governor, 152 executions. He was not elected because of those executions or because of his death penalty position, but the election certainly symbolized that the U.S. was a country that had no problem with the death penalty. We also experienced another act of terrorism in 2001—the attacks in New York and Washington, DC. These actions created a tremendous anger and resulted in many proposals to expand the death penalty. But despite these events, and despite the rise in the executions in the 1990s, the increase in the size of death row, the high level of public support for the death penalty and its affirmation through the electoral process, the death penalty has been in a sharp decline since 2000. Executions are down about 40%. Last year there were 59 executions compared to almost 100 in the 1999. The number of death sentences—and I think this is the most important measure of the death penalty because new sentences mean more executions and a larger death row—are down by over 60% since 1999. There were 300 death sentences a year throughout the 1990s. Last year there were 125 death sentences. That may sound like a lot, but it is far less than it had been. This year, we are projecting that the number of sentences will remain low, the lowest they have been in 30 years since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States. Not all of the change is positive and in one direction. But the change is significant, and I think it is attributable to two causes: first, and Mr. Greco of the ABA pointed this out earlier, as the number of executions rose, lawyers from bar associations and law firms, journalism students, and concerned individuals from around the country started looking at these cases more closely, especially as executions neared. What they found in case after case was that the defendant had been wrongly convicted. Thirteen people in Illinois, alone, were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, many of them having come close to execution. One of them, Anthony Porter, had his case investigated by journalism students. They happened to review this case because their class met at a time when he had received a stay of execution based on his mental capacity, not because of his possible innocence. This was not an instance of the criminal justice system working well. This case illustrated how independent influences from outside the justice system could expose the problems in the death penalty. The students discovered that Porter could not have committed the crime that put him on death row. They found the actual perpetrator who confessed to the crime. Porter was freed, and the public was shocked at how a near tragedy was averted. In the late 1990s, the number of exonerations from death row continued to grow, and the issue of innocence received confirmation from another outside source. The advent of DNA testing, which emerged in the 1990s and became more sophisticated and prevalent in the late 1990s, confirmed that people, whom the courts and juries ensured us were guilty and deserving of death, were actually innocent. DNA testing cast a new light on our criminal justice system. Even though the majority of the cases where inmates were freed from death row did not involve DNA testing, this scientific affirmation exposed deeper problems throughout the system. If DNA testing proved that in some cases the wrong person had been convicted and sentenced to death, then one had to be concerned about the many other cases in which no DNA evidence was available. The second important contribution to the decline in the use of the death penalty that emerged in the 1990s was the introduction of the sentence of life without the possibility of parole. That has been a gradual process in the United States, and may not seem like progress from the perspective of those concerned about the high rate of incarceration in the U.S. But for the death penalty, it represents a critical alternative. Jurors in death penalty cases are faced with the difficult task of possibly sentencing someone death, knowing that in 5 or 10 years new evidence might reveal that the wrong person was convicted. In the earlier years of the death penalty, the alternative to a death sentence was a life sentence in which the defendant might someday be released. A life-without-parole sentence has given jurors a middle ground between death and the possibility of release. The number of death sentences has declined dramatically and the number of people serving life-without-parole sentences has increased. These two developments, innocence and life-without-parole, are changing the face of the death penalty in the United States. As I mentioned earlier, however, all the change is not in one direction. The federal death penalty is expanding and there are efforts to broaden it even further. The federal death penalty is being aggressively pursued in the 12 states that do not have capital punishment. The number of people on the federal death row has gone up while the number of people on the states’ death rows has declined. Another disturbing development is happening in California. There are 640 people on death row in California. There have been 11 executions over the past 30 years. That is a system that is on the verge of spilling over its damn. In our system, you cannot stop executions indefinitely. Appeals do run out—there are no “endless appeals.” Three executions are scheduled in California over the next few weeks. There could be many more, and that could reverse some of the trends I have been describing. Finally, there are still many lawmakers who believe strongly in the death penalty and are still trying to accelerate executions. There is proposed legislation entitled the Streamlined Procedures Act, which would drastically curtail death penalty appeals. It currently takes an average of 10 years from sentencing to execution in the United States. Some legislators want to shorten this to 5 years. Of course, the danger with such a system is that some of the 122 innocent people who had been freed from death row would have been executed before the evidence emerged to free them. Those cases took an average of 9 years from sentencing until when the inmates were freed to develop the necessary evidence of innocence. If the executions had occurred after 5 years, many of them would be dead. We will hear from one of these individuals, Kirk Bloodsworth, shortly. His case was the first case where DNA evidence freed a death row inmate in the United States. That case took many years to develop. If we cut the appeals process down from 10 years to 5 years, we run the risk of executing the typical innocent person instead of freeing him. So there are clearly trends that counterbalance the decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S. Nevertheless, I believe that the drop in death sentences is the stronger trend because it has occurred not just this year, but consistently over the past 5 years. Moreover, there are other indications that the death penalty may be on the wane: New York recently rejected an effort to restore its death penalty after it was overturned in the courts. New York was the last state to adopt the death penalty in 1995, and now it has abandoned capital punishment. Texas, which leads the country in executions, just this year adopted the sentence of life without parole. I think we will start to see a decline in death sentences in Texas. Illinois has a moratorium on executions. New Jersey has a moratorium on executions. Many states are considering reforms of their death penalty system. I think the prospects for the future are positive, but there are many competing trends. Hopefully, the international movement away from capital punishment will buttress the turnaround on the death penalty that has been slowly emerging in the United States. Thank you. —————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Ronald Tabak from the United States: My question is for Mr. Dieter. The two speakers that spoke after you, one of them claimed that abolitionists in the United States are afraid to debate the subject, and the person after that, Mr. Hodgkinson, spoke about the danger of losing in legislatures what you have gained in litigation. I’d like you to comment on those statements in light of what happened in New York after the court decision there and what has happened regarding the mentally retarded and juveniles in the United States following enactment of legislation in various states. Thank you. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————- All right. Thank you for that question. Of course, the United States strongly embraces democracy and so it is hard to have lasting change unless the people endorse it. There may be decisions from our Supreme Court and laws from our legislatures, but ultimately, if the people are not behind them, such changes are not going to stand, and that is certainly true regarding the death penalty. The death penalty was stopped in 1972 by the Supreme Court, but that moratorium did not last because most people wanted the death penalty. So, at least from the perspective of the United States, I think that what Ron Tabak is hinting at is essential. There has to be debate among the people if death penalty changes are to last. With respect to outlawing the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally retarded, there first had to be local legislative discussion in many states. If the Supreme Court acted alone, I doubt that the incremental steps that we have been making in limiting the death penalty would be secure. It is not enough simply to have a pronouncement from a judicial body. Fortunately, I think this local debate about death penalty issues is happening. Lawyers are not the only ones involved in these discussions; there are activists and church groups. The Catholic Church, for example, has been very involved in this issue, and other religious groups are echoing the same sentiments. Many are saying that the death penalty is a culture-of-life issue, and so conservative people are changing their minds on the death penalty, too. Formerly, liberals were against the death penalty and conservatives were for it. That is rapidly changing. There is openness to dealing with the death penalty on a bipartisan level. For example, I think the country as a whole is accepting of the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the mentally retarded from the death penalty. That decision is not going to be taken back. I think they are accepting of the decision to exempt juveniles from the death penalty, because of the preparation of groups that paved the way. One example of taking an issue beyond theory and the law is the work of the photographer Toshi Kazama, who is here today and who has personalized the issue of juveniles through his pictures. I hope that addresses some of the points you raised. ——————————————————————————— I would like to add a brief comment about life-without-parole sentences, which Marc Mauer will be speaking more about later. The use of these sentences has grown independent of the death penalty. This sentence has emerged from the correctional system—it is invoked for repeat offenders under what we call our “three strikes law.” We have life without parole separate from the crisis with the death penalty. Now that the death penalty is on the defensive in the U.S., life without parole has emerged as the only acceptable alternative to most of the American public. I believe that if the death penalty were struck down, we would also see a reduction in life-without-parole sentences. Because life without parole would then be the most extreme sentence, it would be used for a narrower group of cases. Right now, 1% of the people who commit murder receive the death penalty – a large share of the remaining 99% is receiving life-without-parole sentences. If the death penalty was ended, I think we would still see some defendants, perhaps the “worst” offenders, receiving life without parole. But the majority would receive life with possible consideration of parole. That is perhaps an optimistic view, but I could see it happening.

DPIC Testimony

May 01, 2019

Louisiana Christian Faith Leaders Call for State to Abolish Death Penalty

Jul 03, 2014

INTERNATIONAL : UN Secretary-General Says Death Penalty Is Cruel and Inhumane

Jan 21, 2014

King’s Daughter Says Death Penalty Perpetuates Cycle of Violence

A Persuasive Speech On The Death Penalty

Persuasive Speech: Why I Believe the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Hello, everyone. My name is Devlin O’Connell and I am going to be speaking to you today about why I believe the death penalty should be abolished. There are three factors that I base this argument off which surround ethics, efficiency, and expenditure. In relationship to ethics, I would like to begin with a quote by human rights activist, Desmond Tutu, “To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.” Capital Punishment , also known as the Death Penalty, is described as a government practice where a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for crimes such as murder , treason, espionage, and genocide. While it may seem unlikely that many people would be convicted of a few of the latter crimes, there were nearly 3,000 people on death row in the last year. Of those 3,000 people, 117 were found to be innocent. It is predicted that at least 3% more of those sentenced would have been exonerated with enough time and resources. Let that sink in. An untold number of innocent people have been executed. As it is, many relatives of victims have said that they do not wish for their relative’s killer to be put to death. Circling back to Tutu’s quote, the government is not providing these families with justice – but with revenge. We are “perpetuating a cycle of violence unworthy of a civilized society,” to quote Bernice King, “retribution cannot light the way to the genuine healing that

The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

In this paper I will be discussing everything you need to know about the death penalty such as its pros and cons. While the innocent can be killed, the death penalty has its pros because it prevents them from killing again if they are released or have escaped from prison, it helps overpopulated prisons, and it can help victims’ families get justice and closure. Not only can the innocent be killed, but in the past the death penalty was very inhumane. To some its feels right but to others they feel like 2 wrongs don’t make a right. Most people think that the defendant deserves the death penalty, but what does the defendants’ family think?

Differences And Similarities Between The Canadian And American Criminal Justice System

The death penalty sometimes also known as capital punishment or execution, is the sentence of death brought on by courts as punishment for a serious crime people who receive the death penalty typically are convicted of murder and similar capital crimes like aggravated murder or felony murder (What is the death penalty). In Canada, there is no death penalty, where in America there is one. The most common form of the death penalty is by lethal injection which is done in 33 states (Methods of execution).

Is Capital Punishment Ethical? Essay

Capital punishment is a difficult subject for a lot of people because many question whether or not it is ethical to kill a convicted criminal. In order to critically analyze whether or not it is ethical, I will look at the issue using a utilitarianism approach because in order to get a good grasp of this topic we need to look at how the decision will impact us in the future. The utilitarianism approach will help us to examine this issue and see what some of the consequences are with this topic of capital punishment. For years, capital punishment has been used against criminals and continues to be used today, but lately this type of punishment has come into question because of the ethical question.

Synthesis Essay On The Death Penalty

The mother of a murder victim has stated “Responding to one killing with another killing does not [honour] my daughter”(Source F). The killing of another person doesn’t mean we should kill another for justice. In reality, the death sentences is based on emotional reactions as we try to sympathise with the victims. This should not be the way cases should be run, since they should be based off factual evidence. Society needs to realise that “The standard for depriving one of life should be higher than any other legal action”(Source C). The loss of a life is a difficult choice to make as a society, even if it’s the judgement of a criminal. However, we are no better than the criminal if we kill them as well. People need to learn from its mistakes, as well as help others learn from their

Death Penalty Executive Branch

The death penalty, or capital punishment, refers to a death to a person by a state for their crimes; where the executive branch made an attempt to address the considered but was unsuccessful, where the Legislative branch talks about and try to modify the death penalty, where the supreme court is handling the cases in trail.

The Death Penalty Is A Violation Of Civil Liberties

Society needs to change the eye for an eye mentality in order for civilization to advance past the revenge philosophy that leads to an endless cycle of violence (ACLU, 2012). The American Civil Liberties Union (2012) says that capital punishment is a violation of civil liberties and goes against everything that our democratic system stands for. The death penalty system in the United States is applied in an unfair manner against people based on how much money they have and the race of the victim (ACLU, 2012). African Americans are more likely to be executed than white people, especially if their victim was white (ACLU, 2012).

The Death Penalty Debate Essay

2 Works Cited

In the United States, the use of the death penalty continues to be a controversial issue. Every election year, politicians, wishing to appeal to the moral sentiments of voters, routinely compete with each other as to who will be toughest in extending the death penalty to those persons who have been convicted of first-degree murder. Both proponents and opponents of capital punishment present compelling arguments to support their claims. Often their arguments are made on different interpretations of what is moral in a just society. In this essay, I intend to present major arguments of those who support the death penalty and those who are opposed to state sanctioned executions application . However, I do intend to fairly and accurately

An Eye for an Eye: The Death Penalty

Capital punishment is a custom in which prisoners are executed in accordance with judicial practice when they are convicted of committing a “capital crime.” Capital crimes are crimes considered so atrocious that they should

Persuasive Speech On Capital Punishment

II. Second Main Point: The excessive cost of execution is also a reason for the death penalty to be abolished. To keep a man in prison for one 's whole life cost less than executing him. A state would save millions of dollars if they did away with death row and executions.

Immorality of the Death Penalty, A Speech

A. Attention Getter: Thou shall not kill, only one of the ten commandments that some individuals unfortunately can not seem to uphold. What would the world look like if we did not have an “eye for an eye” mentality? The debate about whether or not capital punishment is ethical or immoral is significant because our country is spending unnecessary amounts on death penalty executions, in which citizens do not know enough about the subject matter to disagree or protest its use. While tax payers are paying for this procedure, the death penalty poses many moral insurrections.

An Advocate for Capital Punishment

Well First let me explain what capital punishment is. Capital punishment, the death penalty, or the execution of somebody is the infliction of death upon a person by a judicial process as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences.

Murder Is Wrong Essay

From an early age, children are taught that murder is morally wrong. In today’s complex society that is impeded by unsettling periods of civil unrest, it is an expectation for everyone to acknowledge and accept that murder is one of the worst crimes individuals can commit. Perhaps it can be said that the death penalty is one of our legal system’s biggest contradictions of itself, as, if someone commits murder (or another heinous crime of that caliber), such ‘murderers’ will, in states that have capital punishment laws, be sent to Death Row and ultimately murdered in order to prevent potential future crimes by such perpetrators. I believe that the death penalty is wrong not only as it is immoral to take a life, but also, such ineffective laws waste money and do not deter crime.

Persuasive Speech On Death Penalty

Comrade judges and layers: I am overjoyed to be here with you today. However, today is not a particularly joyous occasion. Today we are talking about the future of the death penalty. Due to new technology, access to execution drugs, -- or lack thereof, -- irreversible sentences, and constitutional issues, lawyers all around the nation are wondering: is the death penalty actually a good punishment, or should we simply outlaw it?

Essay on The Death Penalty Is Morally Unjustified

8 Works Cited

According to opponents of the death penalty, the death penalty, not only does not heal the wounds and hearts of the victim’s family and society, but it will also inflict more hatred and vengeance in the society. As Morgan (2011) said in her chapter “The Death Penalty Does Not Deliver Justice”, death penalty does not allow the relative of the victims to forgive and forget. For instance, she believes that seeing the cold-blooded execution of the criminal will not bring any peace or healing, rather, she believes that being involved in activities with other friends and relatives of the victim, such as the memorial service for the victim will be more effective in bring about peace and healing. In addition, she believes that arresting rather than executing the offender will bring more

A historical moment in United States history was shortly after the “so called,” “Boston Massacre. Many British soldiers were being accused of murder; but one Patriot, John Adams, who would one day become our second President, asserted that everyone deserves a fair trial. There was no killing. Only trials, observation, and questions. Our country states that everyone deserves the right to a trial, and not automatic death. The theory of capital punishment, or as most of you call it, the death penalty, is a violent way to sort out the criminals of an event. Capital punishment is a serious issue, and most of United States is on it. In fact, it is on the 2016 Presidential ballot, whether it should remain or be abolished. To inform people, capital punishment is a government practice where a person is put to death for a crime they committed. These capital offences are of serious issue, but should it really determine whether a person is allowed to live? No! I am an opponent for the death penalty being used anywhere in the world.

Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty

Death Penalty Persuasive Speech

Please take a moment, set aside your current feelings, and journey with me to the other side of the fence. As I share with you, I ask that you truly and honestly consider "What if this happened to me or my loved one?". Also, know that at absolutely no time do I forget about the victims or their loved ones. Thank you. As I grew up in a tiny town in Virginia, it was commonplace to hear rampant support for the death penalty. At the news of a homicide, people in their Sunday best would shout out "Fry his ass!". So eager for "justice" to be served, yet I could never quite jump on that train. My mother was one of those people, though. "The law is the law, you do wrong you go to jail, you kill someone then we kill you"- that's her ringing in my ears. However, each time my brother would land himself in the local jail, she was there in a flash to have him…

Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

The U.S. Needs to Drop the Death Penalty In 1991 Ray Krone was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was immediately faced with the death penalty. It wasn’t until after years on death row and 10 years total in prison that he was proven innocent because of a new DNA test (McKellar). This is just one example of the poor system of execution in the United States. The death penalty has been around in the states since colonial times.It has always had people opposed to it but after many legal pressures…

Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

1,264 people have legally been killed and counting by our very own government asserts the Death Penalty Information Center. What are we teaching our children? Killing people is wrong, so we should kill murders. Does this make any sense? There are so many aspects of the death penalty that citizens do not know about nor understand. It is such a controversial topic and widely debated, mainly for moral reasons, yet the facts are rarely used as evidence. As I speak to you ladies and gentlemen in…

Pro Death Penalty Persuasive Essay

The death penalty is the ultimate price to pay. Literally. Not only that, but it is the height of hypocrisy. How can one be proclaimed a killer and then be killed themselves? Is it a fair and just ending, or a waste of time, money and people? We stand in affirmation of the resolved: that the death penalty ought to be eliminated as a form of punishment administered to criminals. Racial prejudice unfairly plays a role when people are sentenced, the cost for death penalty cases is staggering, and…

In life we are always taught to treat others the way we would want to be treated.Should people take this into consideration when the death penalty comes into play though?Deciding whether the death penalty should be legal or not is mostly based off morals,beliefs,and existing laws already.I believe the death penalty is beneficial to our justice system.These benefits include tax payers paying less towards prisoners,a decrease in violent crime rates, and some closure for the victims families and…

means of retribution and deterrence. Today this controversial penalty is legal in only 31 states, dividing our nation. Due to this split of acceptance, the death penalty has become a controversial issue on the grounds of morality and civility. I believe capital punishment should continue to be a legal practice in the United States for it deters future suffering, is an equitable consequence for murder and imparts the ultimate warning to criminals should they kill with premeditation. Everyone is…

it shall be inflicted on him” (Leviticus 24:20). This has been the mindset of the justice system for years. The most controversial of the method of punishment is the death penalty. The death penalty has been here since the fifth century with the roman empire. In the world today we still use this practice but why? The purpose of the death penalty is to punish the crimes of the criminal by death. In the eighteenth century, the death penalty was introduced to America. America began to use the death…

Death penalty is used across the world today. Many people are put on death row to later be executed. This is a very controversial idea because many innocent people are killed. Rigorously, the cost, inhumanity, and torture, death penalty should be eliminated across the world. Death Penalty is an option used around the world for people who commit crimes. There are different laws in each state regarding the death penalty. Throughout the years, the rates of deaths continue to decrease. This is…

consequences. For those unaware of being sentenced to the death penalty is an extreme execution served by the government and must surpass plenty of levels for this punishment to be accomplished properly. Some dispute that the death penalty is in humane and wrong while others find the ruling fair and brings justice to those whose lives have been permanently scarred just by their wrong doings. While some feel the way you kill is how you should be exterminated, like the old saying goes, “an eye for…

The death penalty is legalized and still used in 58 countries around the world but, should it be legal ? The death penalty does not deter murders : It continues them. It’s not only barbaric and cruel, it’s inhumane. States should not have to power to kill, not in my name. The death penalty is a very controversial topic even after being around for a long long time.To some it’s a great solution, but to others, the death penalty is nothing less than an uncivilized barbaric act. I personally agree…

Ready To Get Started?

Create Flashcards
Mobile apps
Facebook
Twitter
Cookie Settings

Forgotten password

Please enter the email address that you use to login to TeenInk.com, and we'll email you instructions to reset your password.

Poetry All Poetry Free Verse Song Lyrics Sonnet Haiku Limerick Ballad
Fiction All Fiction Action-Adventure Fan Fiction Historical Fiction Realistic Fiction Romance Sci-fi/Fantasy Scripts & Plays Thriller/Mystery All Novels Action-Adventure Fan Fiction Historical Fiction Realistic Fiction Romance Sci-fi/Fantasy Thriller/Mystery Other
Nonfiction All Nonfiction Bullying Books Academic Author Interviews Celebrity interviews College Articles College Essays Educator of the Year Heroes Interviews Memoir Personal Experience Sports Travel & Culture All Opinions Bullying Current Events / Politics Discrimination Drugs / Alcohol / Smoking Entertainment / Celebrities Environment Love / Relationships Movies / Music / TV Pop Culture / Trends School / College Social Issues / Civics Spirituality / Religion Sports / Hobbies All Hot Topics Bullying Community Service Environment Health Letters to the Editor Pride & Prejudice What Matters
Reviews All Reviews Hot New Books Book Reviews Music Reviews Movie Reviews TV Show Reviews Video Game Reviews Summer Program Reviews College Reviews
Art/Photo Art Photo Videos
Summer Guide Program Links Program Reviews
College Guide College Links College Reviews College Essays College Articles

Summer Guide

College guide.

Song Lyrics

All Fiction

Action-Adventure
Fan Fiction
Historical Fiction
Realistic Fiction
Sci-fi/Fantasy
Scripts & Plays
Thriller/Mystery

All Nonfiction

Author Interviews
Celebrity interviews
College Articles
College Essays
Educator of the Year
Personal Experience
Travel & Culture

All Opinions

Current Events / Politics
Discrimination
Drugs / Alcohol / Smoking
Entertainment / Celebrities
Environment
Love / Relationships
Movies / Music / TV
Pop Culture / Trends
School / College
Social Issues / Civics
Spirituality / Religion
Sports / Hobbies

All Hot Topics

Community Service
Letters to the Editor
Pride & Prejudice
What Matters

All Reviews

Hot New Books
Book Reviews
Music Reviews
Movie Reviews
TV Show Reviews
Video Game Reviews

Summer Program Reviews

College Reviews
Writers Workshop
Regular Forums
Program Links
Program Reviews
College Links

The Death Penalty: Persuasive Speech

There are five different forms of execution in the United States: hanging, electrocution, lethal injection, lethal gas, and firing squad. All of these should be illegal. It does not deter crime, it is a crime, and it encourages violence. It is also very expensive. With the United States struggling with the economy, people are now asking, “Is this the way to spend money?” A California state commission reported that its death penalty system costs more than $100 million a year to administer. First of all, the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. There are still criminals who continue breaking the law. In fact, only twenty percent of United States states show evidence that executions do deter crime. The murder rate in non-death penalty states has actually remained consistently lower than in death penalty states and the gap has grown since 1990. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan says, “It is not denied that many, and probably most capital crimes cannot be deterred by the threat of punishment.” On average, states where capital punishment does seem to deter crime tend to execute many more people than in states where there seems to be no deterrent effect. So, only if a state executes many people does deterrence grow. Also, the death penalty itself is a crime. The death penalty is murder, and two wrongs don’t make a right. There is no point in murdering people who have committed murder because then no one has been taught a lesson. The U.S. has successfully executed about 700 since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated, and unfortunately, Kansas has been a death penalty state since 1994. There are currently thirty-six states, including Kansas, which allow capital punishment. Others, like Illinois, have slowed or temporarily discontinued the use of capital punishment because of innocent defendants. Lastly, the death penalty encourages violence. In eighty percent of the United States, murder rates actually increase after executions take place. California has the largest death row in the United States with approximately 650 inmates. Executions lead to a brutalization effect, a climate of violence and killing to avenge grievances. Representative Jack Minor remarks, “The death penalty’s not a deterrent. In fact, the figures would suggest it’s just the opposite.” At a murder victim’s support group, a large group of approximately 40 people say their names, and the member of their family who was murdered. And last, when they are finished, they announce, “And I oppose the death penalty.” These are the people who have come to realize that by killing a murderer, no lives are being saved, no lives will be returned, and no one is learning a lesson from the execution. It is only revenge, which does no good for anyone. The death penalty is expensive, it is not a deterrent, it is actually a crime because it is murder, and it encourages violence. Therefore, the death penalty should be illegal.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 11 comments.

Favorite Quote: "If you smoke, you die. If you do drugs, you die. If you drink, you die. What does it matter, if in the end we all die anyway?"

Subscribe to Teen Ink magazine
Submit to Teen Ink
Find A College
Find a Summer Program

Share this on

Send to a friend.

Thank you for sharing this page with a friend!

Tell my friends

Choose what to email.

Which of your works would you like to tell your friends about? (These links will automatically appear in your email.)

Send your email

Delete my account, we hate to see you go please note as per our terms and conditions, you agreed that all materials submitted become the property of teen ink. going forward, your work will remain on teenink.com submitted “by anonymous.”, delete this, change anonymous status, send us site feedback.

If you have a suggestion about this website or are experiencing a problem with it, or if you need to report abuse on the site, please let us know. We try to make TeenInk.com the best site it can be, and we take your feedback very seriously. Please note that while we value your input, we cannot respond to every message. Also, if you have a comment about a particular piece of work on this website, please go to the page where that work is displayed and post a comment on it. Thank you!

Pardon Our Dust

Teen Ink is currently undergoing repairs to our image server. In addition to being unable to display images, we cannot currently accept image submissions. All other parts of the website are functioning normally. Please check back to submit your art and photography and to enjoy work from teen artists around the world!

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

Newsletters
Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

The Kamala Harris Death-Penalty Test

When President Joe Biden leaves the White House, he will leave behind a mixed legacy on the issue of capital punishment. He was the first person openly opposed to the death penalty to serve as president. However, his administration’s actions have left abolitionists confused and disappointed .

As we contemplate the possibility that Vice President Kamala Harris might succeed him, the question is whether she would do more than Biden has to put an end to all death-penalty prosecutions and support the abolition of the federal death penalty. Based on her record as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, as well as her public statements , it is far from certain that she would be an improvement.

And she even may be baited into running a law-and-order campaign. As the Wall Street Journal notes , “Trump is attacking Harris, accusing her of being soft on crime … and criticizing her record as a prosecutor.”

This criticism could, Politico reports , “make the phrase ‘Kamala the Cop’ — once a phrase used by Harris’ detractors on the left — a de facto campaign slogan.” When it comes to the death penalty, that would be a major mistake.

Indeed, the first test of her death-penalty commitment will be whether she gives in to the temptation to run a tough-on-crime campaign this year. She can do better in opposing capital punishment than Biden did as a candidate or president.

Biden ran as an abolitionist, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, reimposed a moratorium on executions in the federal system. But the Justice Department has initiated new capital prosecutions in a few cases and opposed almost every effort by anyone on the federal death row to obtain redress from the courts.

And to this point, Biden has not used his clemency power to empty the federal death row.

Harris has been an outspoken opponent of capital punishment longer than the current president has. Twenty years ago, during her 2004 campaign to become the San Francisco DA, Harris promised that she would never seek the death penalty.

That promise was quickly put to the test .

As ABC News reported :

Harris was just three months into the job when a 22-year-old gang member named David Hill shot and killed a young, on-duty police officer, Isaac Espinoza. Calls for the death penalty rang out from community members and politicians alike. Two days after Espinoza’s death and two days before Espinoza’s funeral, Harris held a joint press conference with the then-head of the San Francisco police union, where she announced that she would not seek the death penalty for Hill.

The decision, ABC says, “ignited outrage.”

At the time, Harris admitted that she “felt an immediate desire for revenge. … Wanting an eye for an eye is also one of the oldest, and most natural, of emotions. But as one of America’s greatest teachers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, ‘The old eye for an eye philosophy leaves everyone blind.’

“For those who want this defendant put to death,” Harris insisted, “let me say simply that there can be no exception to the principle. I gave my word to the people of San Francisco that I oppose the death penalty, and I will honor that commitment despite the strong emotions evoked by this case.”

Harris assured everyone, “I have heard and considered those pleas very carefully, and I understand and share the pain that drives them, but my decision is made and it is final.”

Her anti–death penalty bona fides were put to the test again when Harris became California’s attorney general. In 2014 a federal district court ruled that California’s death penalty was unconstitutional , halting executions in the state.

To the chagrin of the abolitionist community, Harris appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9 th Circuit. Death-penalty opponents said that Harris’ actions were “hardly consistent with her personal opposition to the death penalty.”

The 9 th Circuit agreed with the attorney general’s argument and overturned the lower-court ruling . The death penalty lived on in California.

At the time, Harris argued that “her professional duty requires her to defend state law.” In a Los Angeles Times editorial, she was praised for “putting professional responsibility over personal politics.”

“We commend her professionalism,” the Times said. But it argued that “Harris’ decision should not be confused with an act of political courage.

“Although public support for the death penalty has declined markedly over the last decade, a majority of Americans still favor it, and Harris can only benefit by being seen as someone willing to overcome her personal objections to enforce a popular law.”

Harris’ commitment to “professional responsibility” suggests that she may well continue the policy of the Biden DOJ to defend existing federal death sentences. That would be a mistake.

As law professor Hadar Aviram argues , “You are not under any obligation to defend things that are morally unjust. If you truly believe that they’re morally unjust and you have an opportunity to take a stand, I think it’s an imperative to do so.”

But Harris may have had a change of heart about what she did a decade ago. In her aborted 2020 presidential campaign, she was even more definitive in her opposition to capital punishment than Biden was.

As she ramped up her first campaign for president, Harris wrote an op-ed detailing her criticism of capital punishment. “I’ve long been opposed to the death penalty. It is deeply immoral, irreversible, and ineffective,” Harris said. “And if we are going to transform our country’s broken criminal justice system, we must be fearless—unafraid to speak hard truths.”

She called the death-penalty system “an abject failure. It has wasted taxpayer money, has not kept our communities safe, and has discriminated against those with mental illness and people of color.”

Harris explained, “In addition to the moral arguments against the death penalty, abolishing it just makes financial sense. Our government would save billions in taxpayer dollars if each death sentence in America were replaced by a life sentence without parole. Those taxpayer dollars could be invested in our schools, in our health care, and in lifting up our communities.”

Harris concluded that we should “abolish the federal death penalty. This failed system is immoral.” She promised that “as President, I would lead the fight to end it. It’s simply the right thing to do.”

The promise that Kamala Harris made four years ago had no expiration date.

Now that she is again running for president, she must resist the allure of a law-and-order, tough-on-crime campaign. And should she prevail, it will be up to her to show the courage and clarity needed to lead the charge to end America’s long love affair with capital punishment.

Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

It is not known the exact date and time that the first execution took place, but one of the first documented cases was as early as the Fifth Century B.C.. Captain George Kendall was executed . His crime was documented “Spy” for Spain. Method of execution “Public Hanging”. The Death Penalty was “Romans Law Of The Twelve Tablets”. The Death Sentence was handed out to “any and all” punishable crimes. In the Tenth Century William The Conqueror a Celebrity of his time was one of the first out spoken opposer of the Death Penalty. He felt it was not a necessary punishment unless it was a “Crime Of War” such as treason or spying. And so it began the great debate Should we use The Death Penalty as punishment to crime.Today, out of 196 Countries 140 have abolished the death penalty. With capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, it has its pros and cons. Pros, being that the death penalty brings a closure to loved ones who lost the victim. It also lets people know that the criminal who was convicted of such a heinous crime, will never be a repeat offender. With the cons, retribution is just another word for revenge... The desire for revenge is one of the lowest human emotions. Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty, 97 people have been freed from death row because they were later proven innocent. This is by far …show more content…

They believe the cost of food medical and all expenses incurred with life. Everything that is needed for an ordinary trial is needed for a death penalty case, only more so more pre-trial time, more experts, twice as many attorneys, two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment. And then will come a series of appeals during which the inmates are held in the high security of death row. Most of which is never paid for by the defendant but by tax payer dollars. The cost difference varies from state to state but is in the

More about Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

Agenda47 on crime: Trump proposes death-penalty for drug dealers, requiring stop and frisk

Project 2025 has stolen headlines from donald trump's detailed agenda47, which trump plans to implement if wins. here's a look at the crime proposals, including a 'death penalty for drug dealers'..

Former president Donald Trump 's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention covered a lot of territory, but left out several of his policy objectives for a potential second term .

Agenda47 is Trump's official campaign platform for the 2024 election. It is separate from the oft-mentioned Project 2025 , but proposes conservative ideas on education, immigration and crime.

" Joe Biden and the ‘Defund the Police’ Democrats have turned our once great cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime," Trump says in an Agenda47 video .

A recent report by nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice shows violent crime in U.S. cities has largely fallen back to 2019 levels, before the pandemic and civil unrest contributed to a spike in crime. CCJ CEO and president Adam Gelb says there are three factors to consider in assessing how effective a policy might be in deterring crime from happening in the first place:

"It's about certainty, swiftness and severity," Gelb said, explaining that severity undercuts certainty and swiftness. "If we put anywhere near as much energy into increasing certainty and swiftness as we do into increasing severity, we'd be much safer, and I think fairer too."

Here is a look at some of Trump's policy proposals to address crime in the U.S.

'I'm not going to be nice:' Donald Trump launches all-out attack on Kamala Harris

Invest in police officers

"President Trump will sign a record investment in hiring, retention, and training for police officers. The bill will increase vital liability protections for America’s law enforcement officers."

How we got here: Police budgets are largely controlled by local governments, but the federal government does issue grants . The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 sparked racial justice protests and raised the visibility of a controversial movement to " defund the police ." Lawmakers failed to agree on a police accountability bill in 2021, but in 2022, Biden issued an executive order establishing an accountability database, reforming civil rights violations prosecution and requiring body-worn cameras for federal law enforcement.
In today's context: Research shows hiring police officers is one of the most cost-effective measures in adult criminal justice policies, but departments are struggling to hire and retain police officers. Support for " defunding the police" waned quickly after the 2020 protests, even as the majority of the supporters only opted for redistributing budgets towards social community programs . Many advocates say still want police reform to address racial disparities in policing.

Requiring stop and frisk

"President Trump will require local law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ grants to return to proven policing measures such as stop-and-frisk, strictly enforcing existing gun laws, cracking down on the open use of illegal drugs, and cooperating with ICE to arrest and deport criminal aliens."

Policy evolution in U.S.: The " Terry Stop," is based on the 1968 case Terry v. Ohio, which ruled police can stop and pat down someone without probable cause for arrest if they believe the person is armed. In 2013, stop and frisk in New York was found to disproportionately target Black and Latino New Yorkers , and a federal judge ruled it violated their constitutional rights. Trump also suggested stop and frisk for Chicago in a 2018 speech . Gelb said requiring local police departments to implement the policy would to be a dramatic expansion of federal power over police governance.
In today's context: Limited searches can help uncover illegal guns, Gelb said. For example, Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker has not ruled it out as a tool to combatting gun violence in the city, The Trace reported . The American Civil Liberties Union, which has reached settlements with several cities to limit stop-and-frisk, says it is ineffective, disproportionately used against people of color, decreases community trust in police and leads to people of color reporting crimes less often.

Death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers

"President Trump will instruct the Department of Justice to dismantle every gang, street crew, and drug network in America. President Trump has also called for the death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers."

Policy evolution in the U.S: Twenty-one states in the U.S. have the death penalty, 23 do not have the death penalty, and six have put executions on hold. After a 2008 Supreme Court case held that the death penalty should only be used for the worst offenses, no one is on death row for a crime other than murder, according to the Death Penalty Information Center . Still, the U.S. is in the global minority of countries that use the ultimate punishment .
In today's context: The U.S. is in a decade-long overdose epidemic that is currently largely driven by fentanyl and other substances. The DPIC reported 24 executions in 2023 , compared to more than 18,900 drug trafficking cases in the same year that were reported to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which studies federal sentencing practices.

Target 'Marxist' courts without cash bail

"President Trump will take on the radical Marxist prosecutors who have abolished cash bail and refuse to charge criminals."

Policy evolution in the U.S.: A 2022 report showed 60% of people awaiting trial were in jail because they could not afford bail, but the solution is highly debated. Advocates of removing the cash bail system say it creates disparities in the criminal justice system because low-income defendants may have to wait behind bars for their trial, arguing instead that pre-trial detention should be based on risk to the community. Others believe cash bail is necessary to keep some skin in the game for defendants to show up for court proceedings.
In today's context: New Jersey moved away from a monetary bail system in 2017 . In the last few years, a court decision in California has curtailed the traditional role of bail, and some cities have worked on further reforms. In 2023, Illinois became the first state to abolish cash bail .

Disciplining minors

"President Trump will order the Education and Justice Departments to overhaul federal standards on disciplining minors...Many of these carjackers and criminals are 13, 14, and 15 years old. I will order the Education and Justice Departments to overhaul federal standards on disciplining minors. So, when troubled youth are out of control, they're out on the streets and they're going wild, we will stop it. The consequences are swift, certain and strong and they will know that."

Policy evolution in the U.S.: According to a 2022 Department of Justice report, juvenile arrests for violent crimes have been on the decline since 2006. Evidence shows harsh punishment does not stop youth crime, and juvenile detention centers are often harmful places to be for youth, according to criminal justice advocacy group the Sentencing Project .
In today's context: Earlier this year, Louisiana repealed a 2017 law known as "Raise the Age," so that 17-year-old can be tried as young adults again. The move was a splashy part of a special legislative session on crime by the state's newly elected Gov. Jeff Landry .

Contributing: Patrick M. Keck, Thao Nguyen , Tami Abdollah, Aamer Madhani, Amanda Lee Myers, Ken Alltucker, Mabinty Quarshie , N'dea Yancey-Bragg , Bart Jansen, Savannah Behrmann, Sarah Elbeshbishi, Mabinty Quarshie

IMAGES

Persuasive speech
Persuasive speech
Death Penalty Speech: Arguments For and Against Free Essay Example
💄 Argument essay against death penalty. Against the Death Penalty
Persuasive Speech
Persuasive Speech on Death Penalty Essay Example

VIDEO

Abolishing the Death Penalty
Purposive Speech: Persuasive Speech of Death Penalty
Persuasive Speech on Abolishing Income Tax
Persuasive speech on death penalty
Policy Law Abolishing The Death Penalty
Abolishing the Death Penalty

COMMENTS

Against The Death Penalty: a Persuasive Argument for Abolition
According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death penalty, a 2012 study has shown that 4 billion dollars have been used for the death penalty since 1978, in California alone, and that changing the death sentence to a life imprisonment or another type of sentence could save at least 170 million dollars a year.
Abolishing The Death Penalty: a Persuasive Call for Justice
Many states have abolished the death penalty and have resorted to life sentences, which would be more humanely correct. What other reasons would it take to completely prove with facts that taking someone's life is completely unacceptable, especially by a governing body. There are many examples stated in the reading of why the death penalty has ...
Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments
Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments. 1. Legality. The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment's use).
10+ Top Examples of Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty
6. Get feedback. Lastly, consider asking someone else to read over your essay before you submit it. Feedback from another person can help you see any weaknesses in your argument or areas that need improvement. Summing up, Writing a persuasive essay about the death penalty doesnâ t have to be overwhelming. With these examples and tips, you can ...
Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?
Justice Breyer wrote in that 46-page dissent that he considered it "highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment," which bars cruel and unusual punishments. He said that ...
PDF Death Penalty Persuasive Speech Outline
Attention-Grabber: Start with a shocking statistic or a powerful anecdote about a wrongful execution. Relevance: Explain the significance of the death penalty as a contentious issue in society. Thesis Statement: State your position clearly - in this case, that the death penalty should be abolished. Preview of Main Points: Provide an overview ...
PDF Persuasive Speech Outline
Persuasive Speech Outline Introduction Why does the United States continue to violate human rights with the implementation of the ... the death penalty should be abolished in the United States because of mistakes in the judicial system that can lead to the death of the innocent, the randomness of its sentencing, and its failure to deter people ...
PDF College of San Mateo
College of San Mateo
Justice that kills
I must acknowledge the worldwide progress made towards abolition since 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserts the human right to life. Back then, 66 years ago, only 14 countries had abolished the death penalty. Currently, around 160 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty
For every 8.2 people executed in the United States in the modern era of the death penalty, one person on death row has been exonerated. State-By-State States With and Without the Death Penalty
Persuasive Speech Outline- abolish death penalty
Persuasive Speech Outline Briana Holguin HCOM 100- December 1, 2021 Professor Wahl. Persuasive Speech Outline Speech Topic: The topic of my speech is why the death penalty should be abolished.Specific Purpose: To persuade.Central Idea: My central idea is to show why execution should be illegal.Attention Getter: Imagine yourself, sitting in a courtroom and a judge tells you that you've been ...
Speech by Tatiana Termacic, Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime
Abolition of the death penalty is a crucial step to break an endless cycle of violence, which prevents justice from prevailing. The Council of Europe and its 47 member states have created a death-penalty free zone for nearly a quarter of a century. Abolition of the death penalty has become part of the European acquis.
Capital punishment
By the mid-1960s some 25 countries had abolished the death penalty for murder, though only about half of them also had abolished it for offenses against the state or the military code. For example, Britain abolished capital punishment for murder in 1965, but treason, piracy, and military crimes remained capital offenses until 1998.
Persuasive Speech: Why The Death Penalty Must End
To start off, death penalty should be abolished because it requires large expenses from citizens and the punishment is not carried out right away. For the death penalty to be carried out, tax money has to be used. It costs an extra $1.6 billion to pay for death penalty to be performed, which comes from taxes ("Costs").
Essay On Death Penalty
A Persuasive Speech On The Death Penalty Persuasive Essay Against Death Penalty A Thesis Statement For Death Penalty Rogerian Argument For The Death Penalty. Skip to document. ... Opponents like myself think the death penalty should be abolished because it is an unnecessary thing to do, it is unfair to the minorities and there have been cases ...
Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished
Since 1977 to 2016, 1,436 people were put through the death penalty, some of this being innocent. The second reason why the death penalty should be abolished is that the system is flawed. 1 out of 7 people who are sentenced to the death penalty is innocent. The defendants chance of winning the case might be decreased due to the chance of not ...
Speech by Richard C. Dieter given at the International Conference on
Jurors in death penalty cases are faced with the difficult task of possibly sentencing someone death, knowing that in 5 or 10 years new evidence might reveal that the wrong person was convicted. In the earlier years of the death penalty, the alternative to a death sentence was a life sentence in which the defendant might someday be released.
Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty
People who are for the death penalty say abolishing the death penalty with disrupt the judicial system. As a matter of fact, in a majority of states, the prosecutors are white, and more than 20% of black defendants that have been punished by the death penalty have been convicted by all-white juries.
A Persuasive Speech On The Death Penalty
Open Document. Persuasive Speech: Why I Believe the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Hello, everyone. My name is Devlin O'Connell and I am going to be speaking to you today about why I believe the death penalty should be abolished. There are three factors that I base this argument off which surround ethics, efficiency, and expenditure.
Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty
Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty. it shall be inflicted on him" (Leviticus 24:20). This has been the mindset of the justice system for years. The most controversial of the method of punishment is the death penalty. The death penalty has been here since the fifth century with the roman empire.
The Death Penalty: Persuasive Speech
The U.S. has successfully executed about 700 since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated, and unfortunately, Kansas has been a death penalty state since 1994. There are currently thirty-six ...
Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty
Capital punishment can also be applied for treason, espionage, and other crimes. Currently, thirty-two states support the death penalty and eighteen states have abolished it. I am in favor of the death penalty being legal throughout the United States. I believe there are many strong reasons why the death penalty should be legal in this country.
Abolishing the Death Penalty Persuasive Speech
About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright ...
Assignment #4 (Part 1) (docx)
S/P, -- Capital punishment is used to protect the safety of the citizens, deter crime, and bring criminals to justice. Though the purposes are convincing, none of them can justify the killing of a human being. C/Is, -- The death penalty is not a practical solution to end crimes in our society. The death penalty costs a lot of money and is not a practical solution to our societal problems.
Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty
This is why I think the Death Penalty is a waste of money and I also think that for this exact reason slavery should be abolished. …show more content… There was this man named Damien Echols he was imprisoned for eighteen years. The reason he was put on death row was because people accused him of killing three little boys.
2024 campaign: The Kamala Harris death-penalty test.
Death-penalty opponents said that Harris' actions were "hardly consistent with her personal opposition to the death penalty." The 9 th Circuit agreed with the attorney general's argument ...
Côte d'Ivoire: Model to follow for definitive abolition of the death
This commitment was strengthened by the constitutional abolition in 2000, and the amendments to the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2015, replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment. The 2016 Constitution further reinforced this abolition by stipulating in article 3 that "the right to life is inviolable.
Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty
And so it began the great debate Should we use The Death Penalty as punishment to crime.Today, out of 196 Countries 140 have abolished the death penalty. With capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, it has its pros and cons. Pros, being that the death penalty brings a closure to loved ones who lost the victim.
Agenda47 on crime: Trump proposes death penalty for drug dealers:
Former president Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention covered a lot of territory, but left out several of his policy objectives for a potential second term ...
South Sudan: Rise in extrajudicial executions
We are extremely concerned about extrajudicial executions in South Sudan, where people face army and security forces' firing squads for a range of alleged offences, such as murder, rape, cattle-raiding, domestic disputes and inter-communal violence.Between January 2023 and June 2024, a total of 76 people, including two children, were executed by firing squad, and with no trial.

Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments

People who view this page may also like:

Cite This Page

Craft an Effective Argument: Examples of Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty

What Do We Mean by a Persuasive Essay?

Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty Examples

Argumentative Essay About Death Penalty Examples

6 Tips To Write an A+ Persuasive Essay

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you start a persuasive speech on the death penalty?

What are good topics for persuasive essays?

Keep reading

Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?

Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law

Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

The death penalty: a global perspective

Moral arguments

Arguments for and against capital punishment

Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished

Video Version

Death Penalty Essay: Hook Examples

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on Death Penalty

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

Speech by Richard C. Dieter giv­en at the International Conference on Human Rights and the Death Penalty

Louisiana Christian Faith Leaders Call for State to Abolish Death Penalty

INTERNATIONAL : UN Secretary-General Says Death Penalty Is Cruel and Inhumane

King’s Daughter Says Death Penalty Perpetuates Cycle of Violence

A Persuasive Speech On The Death Penalty

The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

Differences And Similarities Between The Canadian And American Criminal Justice System

Is Capital Punishment Ethical? Essay

Synthesis Essay On The Death Penalty

Death Penalty Executive Branch

The Death Penalty Is A Violation Of Civil Liberties

The Death Penalty Debate Essay

An Eye for an Eye: The Death Penalty

Persuasive Speech On Capital Punishment

Immorality of the Death Penalty, A Speech

An Advocate for Capital Punishment

Murder Is Wrong Essay

Persuasive Speech On Death Penalty

Essay on The Death Penalty Is Morally Unjustified

Related Topics

Persuasive Essay About Death Penalty

Death Penalty Persuasive Speech

Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

Pro Death Penalty Persuasive Essay

Related Topics:

Popular Topics:

Ready To Get Started?

Forgotten password

Summer Guide

All Fiction

All Nonfiction

All Opinions

All Hot Topics

All Reviews

Summer Program Reviews

The Death Penalty: Persuasive Speech

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Share this on

Tell my friends

Send your email

Pardon Our Dust

Pardon Our Interruption

The Kamala Harris Death-Penalty Test

Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

More about Persuasive Essay Pro Death Penalty

Agenda47 on crime: Trump proposes death-penalty for drug dealers, requiring stop and frisk

Invest in police officers

Requiring stop and frisk

Death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers

Target 'Marxist' courts without cash bail

Disciplining minors

Speech by Richard C. Dieter given at the International Conference on Human Rights and the Death Penalty