Davis1

Sammy Davis

Mrs. Oberg

English 11

10/October/16

The Immorality of the Death Sentence

The question, is the death penalty immoral, has been going around quite frequently. There

are many supporters of both sides. I, for one think its immoral however, I do realize there are

reasons for people preferring the death penalty. I made up my mind on supporting the statement

that the death sentence is immoral after looking at the site procon.org, where people amass a

large amount of information on two sides of a topic My reasons for being against the death

sentence are that the penalty for rape isnt to have the rapist be raped, that theres a question of if

the federal government deserves to kill the convicts. Though I do agree that it wouldnt be right

if someone deserved to die for their crimes and didnt.

Theres this saying that goes an eye for an eye makes the world blind(Gandhi), which

can be applied here. If we put so many people on death row that the system gets overloaded with

people, you know somethings not right. Something I pulled from the website was written by the

American Civil Liberties Union and it says; In civilized society, we reject the principle of

literally doing to criminals what they do to their victims (third article excerpt, pro). Basically

theyre asking why, if the criminals arent subjected to what they did to their victims, are

murderers subjected to it? How would it be moral in todays standards, because were saying

dont kill people or youll be killed in return, and thats not right. I realize that yes, they did

something horrendously wrong, but were they totally sane?

 Davis2

Another thing that is a big issue is that the federal government is responsible for issuing

the sentence. As its best stated in Bryan Stevensons article; The legacy of racial apartheid,

racial bias, and ethnic discrimination is unavoidably evident in the administration of capital

punishment in America. Death sentences are imposed in a criminal justice system that treats you

better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent (first article excerpt, pro).

What he means is that the same people that evidently have very pronounced racial and social

class biases should decide who should live and die for certain crimes? How and why is that

allowed? Shouldnt people that are unbiased in those sectors be better people for deciding?

It wouldnt be right to have some mass murderer being able to get off with a cushy life

sentence without parole. I think its best summed up by Bruce Fein; Abolitionists may contend

that the death penalty is inherently immoral because governments should never take human life,

no matter what the provocation. But that is an article of faith, not of fact (third article excerpt,

con). The statement that no matter what the provocation no one should ever take a life seems a

little too much. There are some messed up people who wouldnt stop if they got the chance to

continue killing, whether that would be a random person on the street, or themselves. Those

people shouldnt remain alive while they could still cause harm to people.

In conclusion, I think that many aspects of the death penalty are wrong and should

definately be changed because they make the death sentence immoral. However I dont think the

penalty needs to be abolished, in fact Im highly against it. I think that the penalty is immoral in

the ways that people with racial and social bias are allowed to make the decision whether one

dies or lives, and because we shouldnt kill all murderers because they killed. Though despite

what it may seem there are some people who should in fact be taken out of the picture so they for

sure wont be able to cause harm.

 Davis3

Works Cited:

The American Civil Liberties Union, Bryan Stevenson, and Bruce Fein. "Is the

Death Penalty Immoral? - Death Penalty - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., 30

July 2008. Web. 15 Oct. 2016.