Critical Thinking: Supporting a Position

Should the U.S. continue to use capital punishment?

The debate about capital punishment has been an ongoing debate for more than 100 years and the debate still is as heated now as it was when it first started. When the foundations of this country were being laid, one of the documents that were laid out was the Bill of Rights; many of the 10 Bills of Rights were adopted from the English Bill of Rights. The eighth Bill of Right pertains to capital punishment: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

I am a big believer in keeping the policies and laws of this country as they were intended. For instance, there was a core belief for separation of church and state and for the most part this has been upheld. There are other rights, such as state rights, that have been infringed upon in large part. Many of these rights have been purposely left ambiguous, such as cruel and unusual punishment.

There are certain instances when it might be best to take someone’s life away from them. When there are people out there who kill just to kill, they have no remorse, and they will do so again, is it not better to take their life away from them to preserve the lives of others? In the most recent parole hearing of Charlie Manson, he denied that he murdered people but he said that he is capable of doing that. Using inductive reasoning, to me this means that if Charlie Manson is ever paroled, he would not baulk at the opportunity to kill again should the opportunity present itself. However, right now he is just locked up for life and not on death row.

Also, who are we as a society, to say whether someone should live or die? Is it not very animalistic to kill other creatures as a form of punishment? What qualifies a person to be able to pass judgment on whether an individual should continue their life or not?

I myself am an advocate of the death penalty however I think that there should be a reform. I believe that there should be set in stone criteria that a defendant has to fill to be put to death. This will be beneficial in that there will not be so many loopholes where someone can kill another individual, and basically plead insanity and escape the death penalty. If the prosecution can prove that there was premeditated murder, then that would be a “checkpoint” and if someone had enough checks then they would be eligible for the death penalty but not necessarily required to be put to death.

Another issue of reform needs to be in how death is administered. The NPR Podcast obviously brought up the horror of a botched death penalty administration: the needle was inserted in the flesh and not the vein, over 14 vials of the chemical cocktail had to be administered, and chemical burns resulted. Personally, I feel that death should be professionally, painlessly, and instantly. I think new ways need to be developed so that when this steep penalty is administered, it needs to be done with as much dignity as possible to the convicted person. I also think that the processing of a convicted death penalty receiver needs to be sped up. I do not think that they should pine away for months on death row as this is a drain both on the convicted individual and on the state and taxpayers. I agree with the death penalty but as the NPR Podcast shows, this is a policy that is in need of extensive reform.