Capital Punishment is a highly controversial and emotional subject subject about which most people seem to have strong opinions. The debate is by no means new – there are conflicting references to capital punishment dating back to the Bible. Over two millennia later, we’re still arguing the issue and perhaps we are no closer to resolving it.

In the United States, controversy over capital punishment began in colonial times when, against the wishes of the English Crown, some settlements enacted only a few capital laws. Soon after the war for Independence and the adoption of the Constitution, the Americas’ death penalty debate in earnest. Armed with the right to free speech afforded by the new democracy, and infused with a ‘revolutionary spirit’ as well as the philosophies of the European Enlightenment, some Americans began to question whether government should have the power to end life – even the life of a condemned criminal.

The word ‘capital’ in ‘capital punishment’ refers to a persons’ head. In the past, people were often executed by severing their head from their body. Today, in the US, most prisoners are murdered by lethal injection. The United States is one

The chance of error is another argument, which many people agree with. Many convicted murderers are later found to be innocent, and have been pardoned. It is impossible to pardon a corpse. In 1987, a study was published by the Stanford Law Review. They found some evidence that suggested that at least 350 people between 1900 and 1985 in American might have been innocent of the crime for which they were convicted, and could have been sentenced to death. 139 ‘were sentenced to death and as many as 23 were executed.’

Some people feel that to execute terrorists would create martyrs of them and lead to more deaths. Therefore they feel that it is not worth sacrificing hundreds of lives to seek justice on one or two people.

I think that there are many good points in both sides of the argument, but personally I believe that some people do not deserve the right to live. I see the death penalty as a method of seeking justice.

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