By looking at both the pro’s and con’s of the death penalty, and methods of execution, there might be a better understanding of the death penalty.

There are many reasons why people believe the death penalty is wrong. People believe that we have no right to play god or that the method of executing someone is cruel and unusual punishment. On the website “The campaign to end the death penalty” they give five reasons to abolish the death penalty.

3. The death penalty condemns the innocent to die.

4. The death penalty is not a deterrent against violent crime.

5. The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.

The best argument out of the five above is number three. The death penalty condemns the innocent to die. Currently in Illinois there have been arguments to abolish the death penalty. Actually Governor George Ryan susp

ended all executions two years ago due to the fact that an innocent man was executed. Recently a man named Anthony Porter was cleared of murder by students at Northwestern University, literally after he had been fitted for his burial suit. In the last several years, you hear more and more about the possible executions of innocent inmates on television and in the newspaper.

“In the case Furman v. Georgia the court said that the arbitrary manner of applying the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual forms of punishment” (Rosenbaum, 123). These were just some of the opposing viewpoints. Now for the pro-death penalty argument.

“We kill people to show people that killing people is wrong.” This is a slogan from a popular bumper sticker. This bumper sticker slogan is misleading. “The death penalty does not punish people for killing, but for murder. Killing is justified when it is done in self-defense. Killing means to cause death. Murder on the other hand, is defined as, the unlawful and malicious or premeditated killing of one human being by another” (Carmical, 2). Many pro-death penalty advocates believe in lex talionis, or an eye for an eye. This was a practice by the ancient Jews. People against the death penalty argue that if we as a society believe in lex talionis why don’t we rape the rapists? Well raping the rapists would according to Carmical degrade another human being, and it has no redeeming value. It cannot stop them from raping again, but executing a murderer will stop them from murdering again. Carmical believes that sentencing a murderer to life in an air-conditioned, cable-equipped prison where inmates get three meals a day, and recreation time

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