Monday, August 31, 2009

Capital Punishment

Why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong? Murders, rapists, and other criminals are being put on death rows and it is time to stop. It is so repulsive and cruel to execute a human being. The government is not making our society a better place by executing criminals. Still today, there are continuous debates about capital punishment by the government; the biggest one is whether to end it or to fix it. Capital punishment should not occur under any circumstances because it's going against the eighth amendment, life in prison is a worse punishment, and it doesn't always turn out to be quick and painless.
             The eighth amendment of our Constitution states, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Even though it clearly says no cruel and unusual punishment should be inflicted it still happens; this is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is part of this slow motion shutdown of the death penalty machine. The inmates had made appalling choices by breaking the law to end up where they are but the government is being a hypocrite. Showing the inmates that they had broken the law by killing them; the government is breaking the law also.
             Prisoners are human beings too; they have a conscience, a heart, and a brain. Living in a cell for the rest of their lives is a worse punishment because they live every day knowing what they did and how they ended up being here.
             When performing a lethal injection, which is the most common way of execution, doctors are prohibited from participating in executions. In a lethal injection there are three
steps involved. First injection causes unconsciousness, second injection stops respiration, third injection stops the heart. When the first drug is administered properly, the process is quick and painless. When a poorly trained personnel does not properly administer it, the inmate can suffer intense pain. Most of the states use the lethal injection process; but some still use the electric chair or the gas chamber. There are many ways when the process of executing could go wrong.
 
iambroken

1 comment:

Madonna Wayne Gacy said...

Alright, so the cornerstone of your argument is that capital punishment is "cruel and unusual". And specifically, you take exception to the execution process.

Ok. First of all, "cruel and unusual" is the most subjective part of the entire constitution. You can consider prison to be cruel and unusual, does that make it wrong?

I feel that that part of the constitution is more of an "on paper" kind of thing, where it's quite hard to leigitimize or do anything with.

And the execution process....what about abortion? Last I remember, the process for third cycle abortions is injecting potassium cyanide into the baby's heart.

Sound familiar?

Not saying that you necessarily are pro choice, but it's a common trend that most people that are liberal or conservative are so across all topics. So I had to throw that argument out there.

Oh, and the whole "hypocrisy" argument. Well. THe thing about that is that there is a difference. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. Execution is wildly different than murder.