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10. After reading the following selection, write an argumentative passage supporting one of these conclusions: (1) The death penalty should be abolished. (2) The death penalty should be retained in its present form. (3) Laws governing the death penalty should be modified in such-and-such a way. Death Penalty Is Not a Deterrent to Murder-- In Fact, It May Have the Opposite Effect by Jesse Gillies There are thousands of people on death row in the United States today, and executions are relatively common in some states. That has not been satisfying enough for we the people, as we are also in a hurry to kill those people, eliminating avenues for appeal considerations for the sole reason that they take too much time. We the people want to shed blood, and we want to do it now. Nothing less will satisfy our morbid desire. Our former president spoke of a kinder, gentler nation, but it failed to materialize. Now we have a new president and more of the same. I am ashamed to admit that I supported capital punishment with the offhand justification of "An eye for an eye." Like most people, my mind was preoccupied with the day-to-day questions and matters pertaining to my own life, and not usually on things that had no apparent bearing on my existence. But all that changed on Feb. 3, 1981, the day of my arrest for murder. From the time of my arrest until the time I was sentenced to death, I could not avoid evaluating capital punishment. As a result, I find it difficult to understand how it is that anyone supports capital punishment, and how it is that we as a society can support it simply on an emotional basis. Contrary to the charges of some people, the anti-capital punishment position has nothing to do with "bleeding-heart liberalism." It is a matter of being rational and one of judicial integrity. The death penalty puts us at odds with ourselves because is a double standard. We cannot find the unnecessary and premeditated killing of a person to be fundamentally wrong (murder) while at the same time find it to be right (execution) simply because we wish it to be so. An unassailable truth: If you support the death penalty, you are responsible for the unnecessary and premeditated killing of a person in cold blood. The line that separates you from a murderer becomes lost because "execution" is a euphemism for murder. Don't fool yourself: The truth can't be played with through semantics. It doesn't take a genius or a bleeding-heart liberal to understand that there is something wrong with a punishment that fits the legal definition of an infamous crime. Punishing with a crime for a crime is irrational and lacks all integrity. Sexual assault is a crime, regardless of who does it. The state cannot punish a person for the crime by sexually assaulting him or her, because society finds sexual assault to be an action that is intrinsically wrong. We don't rape the rapist, we don't assault the assaulter, and we don't steal from the thief. A crime is a crime regardless of who is responsible, be it an individual or the state. Laws must apply to everyone. Allowing the state to commit murder in order to punish a murderer makes a mockery of the law that made murder a crime. It's indefensible. There is a pseudo-argument that executions are a deterrent to other would-be murderers. It is the main argument of politicians who are pro-capital punishment. They like it because it gives them the air of being logical and rational. But in reality, the argument carries no weight. In states where executions are now relatively common, there has been no ebb in the rising tide of murder rates. And that comes as no surprise to death row prisoners, because we have always understood the fact that people don't commit murder with the plan or idea of getting caught; spending your life in a small cage is no less of a deterrent than a death sentence. What is surprising is that anybody actually believed that murderers planned on getting arrested. In most cases, if people thought that there was a real chance of getting arrested, they wouldn't commit murder, or very many other crimes for that matter. The only real deterrent to murder is an increased likelihood of being arrested. Many murders are committed in the course of robberies where the victim or bystander attempts to overpower the robber and, in doing so, gets killed. That is what is known as felony murder, and many people are on death row because of it. Those murderers could not possibly foresee that their robbery would somehow become murder and subject them to the death penalty. People are not going to stop robbing other people because there is a death penalty for murder. Many other murders can be directly linked to long mandatory sentences for various crimes. A person arrested for almost any crime will usually be charged with at least several crimes, and will face after conviction, depending on the state in which he lives, several long, mandatory sentences, and those sentences will likely be "stacked." ("Stacked" sentences indicate that the sentences must be served in consecutive order, serving the time on one sentence before the next begins.) So a person committing almost any major crime is facing up to 50 or 60 years in prison. But if the criminal murders the victim/witness, he or she may be eliminating the only witness to the criminal activity, reducing greatly his or her chance of being arrested and sent to prison for 60 years. That is a strong incentive to murder. Would you murder someone to avoid a 60 year prison term? You may not, but many people have and will¾ regardless of plea-bargain opportunities. The death penalty is not a deterrent to murder, and it may have the opposite effect, if only to a small degree. The death penalty endorses the idea that killing in cold blood can be acceptable behavior. The so-called deterrent argument fails to give a credible sense of justice to the idea that murder is wrong. There is no rational argument for the support of capital punishment. The death penalty is the result of our emotions getting the better of our intellect. It is not an intelligent law; it is an emotional one. We are allowing our emotions literally to govern us. If we ever hope to achieve the ideal we have of ourselves, we must draw the line and find that the unnecessary and premeditated killing of people is unacceptable behavior for any government. By doing so, we certainly wouldn't be blazing any new trails for humanity¾ since most of the major industrialized democratic countries of this world have already taken that lead. But do we really want the distinction of being the only major industrialized country with a death penalty¾ or being the last to abolish it? The death penalty is an embarrassment to this country, and it puts us in league with some of the most backward countries on this planet. The killing must stop if we truly want to be a "kinder, gentler" nation. |