Saturday, December 8, 2012

Supporting a Position


1.     Assignment: Supporting a Position
  • Resource: National Public Radio (NPR) podcast: “Florida Mulls Lethal-Injection Problems”  or article “Execution Rules Still Inhumane”
  • Due Date: Day 7 [post to the Individual forum]
  • Listen to the NPR Podcast or read the article located on the Materials tab of your student web page for Week One.
  • Consider the issues raised by the question, “Should the U.S. continue to use capital punishment?”
  • Post a 350- to 700-word response in which you identify the question’s principal issues. Be sure to:

o    Choose a position on capital punishment and support your position in your response.
o    Support your position with facts about capital punishment.

          My personal position on capital punishment is firmly on the opposed side.  Many of my personal reasons for steadfastly opposing using the death penalty to punish crimes has no facts or scientific basis.   I went looking for hard evidence on a few websites that talked about capital punishment statistics, pros and cons, facts and general information in order to find some imperial evidence to back up my position.  I found a lot of opinions on the subject and then facts that support the opposite is actually true. 
       
·        One example, some people believe it is more expensive to feed and house an inmate for life that to execute him.  The facts support that the opposite is true; in actuality it costs three times as much to execute an individual than to sentence him to life in prison from the start. http://salt.claretianpubs.org/stats/capitalpun/capitalp.html
·        Another is that more African Americans are given the death penalty over White Americans.  Again, not true; statistics show that slightly over half the death row inmates are white. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm
·        We would all believe all death row inmates actually belong there,
1)   But according to the “Death Penalty Information Center” fact sheet: “Since 1973, over 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.”  http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf.
2)   Also, “By 2005-APR, DNA testing has proven that 14 inmates awaiting execution on death row were innocent.”   http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut3.htm

3)    Since 1977, some 553 people have been executed in the United States while another eighty death row inmates have been released after they were found innocent. For every seven executed, one innocent person is freed-an “error rate” of more than twelve (12) percent. In the State of Illinois, 12 people have been executed since 1977 while 13 have been released after proving their innocence-an error rate of 52 percent.  http://www.caught.net/innoc.htm

·        One of the most interesting contradictions I found was the fact the death penalty is in place as deterrence.   “According to a survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies, 84% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder.” http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf


          All of these facts I have found only serve to harden my position on opposing the death penalty.  For those concerned about money, it is cheaper to lock them up for life from the start.  I would have to agree with the experts about the death penalty is a good deterrent.  Anyone willing to kill another is not scared of death themselves.   Some may become frightened when the moment of their own execution grows close but at the time of the murder that moment is a long time away.  How many of us behaved just because we may get punished?  As far as innocence goes, if even one innocent life is taken because the system failed, that is too many.  If there was no death penalty the innocent person could be freed and retribution could be tried.  One last reason, think about the family of the murder.  Each one of us thinks our child could never be capable of anything that vicious and cold.  Even if we suspect that our child went wrong somewhere and may be capable, we still can not come to terms that our child killed another, or raped another.   Then, not only do we have to live with that knowledge but then we get to see our own child killed in the name of justice.  There are life-long emotional consequences for the families of the criminal.  “In the Shadow of Death” is a book written by three PhD’s about death row families and the trauma they suffer.  We can not ignore the families; do you think they suffer any less than the victims’ families?  I would think their suffering is more because they will carry the guilt also.
        This is where we move out of facts and into my personal feelings on the subject.  I grew up with a man currently sentenced to life in prison guilty of rape and murder.  Even though he admits it I still have a hard time believing in his guilt.  I love him like my brother, I am saddened at his crime but am very thankful he will have plenty of time to learn from his mistake and repent his crime before he passes on.  I am sure the victims’ family is more concerned for justice; I am more concerned with his soul.  I know what I would feel for the person responsible for killing someone I care about, and it would have nothing to do with justice.  It would be all about revenge.  I tend to believe most would feel the same but not admit it.  I believe it is revenge masked as justice.  And, after all, why bother to admit it when our justice system and even our faith’s tell us it is ok to seek “justice”.  Even the bible says, “An eye for an eye”, does it not?



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