Persuasive Essay against the Death Penalty

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Over the years, capital punishment has become a focus of debate and international attention. Several controversies surround the death penalty with many more key issues and considerations about it from an ethical perspective. This excerpt is meant more to guide you on how to write a persuasive essay against the death penalty.

A large majority of criminologists believe that there aren’t enough reasons credible enough to justify the death penalty. The belief that capital punishment rehabilitates, incapacitates, or even deters criminals is so far fetched it makes no sense. Sure, deterrence and retribution may somehow justify the use of capital punishment. But is it enough, though? Rehabilitation and incapacitation seem more viable options and can be achieved through lengthy jail sentences.

Besides being a controversial, divisive issue, capital punishment is such a costly issue that, unless it actually succeeds in saving lives, it should be abolished entirely. Read on for more in-depth information on the capital punishment issue:

Below is a breakdown of the arguments that different parties have given over the years in favor of abolishing the death penalty:

Most people, not everyone, believe that life is valuable. To some people, human life is so valuable to the point that even the worst criminals shouldn’t be deprived of their right to life. Essentially, the value of any offender’s life shouldn’t be destroyed by the offender’s previous misdeeds, even if they killed someone.

Some abolitionists don’t actually go that far. It’s important to preserve life at all costs unless there’s a very good reason not to. Even then, those who favor capital punishment should have reasons to justify their position in this matter.

Everyone, even the incredibly bad people, have an inalienable right to life. And sentencing another human being to death and executing such a sentence violates that right. This is more similar to the argument surrounding the ‘value of life’ but approached more from a human rights perspective.

Some people’s counter-argument, on the other hand, is that criminals can, by their actions, forfeit their human rights. This argues that some criminal acts are just so gruesome that they forfeit their right to life entirely. Well, there are situations where a person may forfeit the right to life when he/she starts a murderous attack. In such instances, the only way the victims may save their lives is by killing the attacker first. Then you can call that self-defense. It’s not, however, self-defense when a judge or jury sentences another human being to death.

Well, this isn’t anything new. There have been countless cases where juries have convicted the wrong person or sentenced someone for an act they didn’t commit. The death penalty isn’t any different. This should form a critical concept when writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty. It’s perhaps the most common, cogent argument to petition against capital punishment.

Like all other aspects of life, the justice system also gets things wrong sometimes. Sure, it may not be as often. But it’s human nature to make flaws and miss key details when it matters most. As such, witnesses, prosecutors, and jurors are also prone to making mistakes. Add this to the current flawed system, and we have innocent people being convicted of crimes. Unfortunately, where the justice system enforces capital punishment, nobody can right such mistakes.

The death penalty, therefore, legitimizes an irreversible act that has inevitably and, without a doubt, claimed innocent lives. Provided human justice remains fallible; the justice system always runs the risk of executing an innocent.

Retribution may be one of the most morally flawed and problematic concepts and practices in regard to the death penalty. And for many reasons:

Most people see vengeance as the leading argument in the path to retribution, at least an immoral sanitized version of it. What with the different instances where howling mobs have attacked prison vans that contain people accused of murder to and from the courtrooms. As such, vengeance remains a major ingredient, especially when it comes to the public’s popularity in support of capital punishment.

Retribution alone, when designed to re-establish justice, can just as easily be distinguished from vengeance and other forms of vindictiveness.

If there’s a possibility of executing an innocent, then the idea that criminals must get what they deserve is violated. This is true both in the United States and many other countries across the globe where such errors occur.

The uniqueness of capital punishment is another key factor to consider when writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty. Crimes other than murder don’t always receive punishments that mimic the crime itself. For instance, rapists aren’t always punished by sexual assault. Neither are people guilty of assault ceremonially beaten up. As a result, many people argue that capital punishment delivers a double punishment; the executioners and the preceding wait.

Unfortunately, the death penalty doesn’t always seem to deter criminals from committing horrific crimes. This makes capital punishment all the more ineffective. Essentially, the main reason for catching and punishing a criminal is to prevent them from repeating the offense.

The general consensus among most philosophers is that the deterrent effect that capital punishment imposes is still unknown. If anything, it’s actually impossible to test the deterrent effect of capital punishment.

Most social scientists argue whether it’s acceptable for a person to pay for other people’s predicted future crimes. Some even argue that it’s no different from punishing innocent people. It has the same effect, really.

Yet, this is far from true. For instance, if the government picked people randomly from the streets and punished them as scapegoats. The most probable consequence is that people would fear going out altogether.

The ethical objections of how some legal systems procure enough evidence to allow them to execute capital penalty are also questionable. It’s no secret that some legal systems extract confessions from criminals through torture. Others even use fictional evidence to convict their ‘man.’ These are some of the key points to consider when writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty. All of these factors make the use of capital punishment all the more ethically immoral.

Now comes the issue of how much it actually costs to sentence someone to death. Capital punishment in the United States alone costs millions of dollars. In New York and New Jersey alone, the very high costs of executing the death penalty was a leading factor in their decision to abandon it.

In a span of nine years, New York had spent about $170 million without making any executions. New Jersey had, in 25 years, spent over $253 million without making any executions as well. That’s a lot of money, especially if you consider that it didn’t serve its purpose.

In countries with less lengthy and less costly appeals procedures, it may seem like a more viable option compared to long-term imprisonment. But still, is it ethically moral to take another human being’s life?

This is more on applying capital punishment wrongly on people proven to be insane. It is generally accepted that the justice system shouldn’t punish people for their actions. Not unless the criminals have a guilty mind. This requires that the perpetrator knows what he/she did and that it was wrong.

Essentially, people determined to be insane shouldn’t be convicted, let alone executed. This, however, does not mean that insane people who’ve committed criminal actions shouldn’t be confined secure mental institutions. The justice system should do this more for public safety rather than as a punishment for insane persons.

It’s wrong to impose capital punishment on people who don’t even know the difference between what’s right from what’s wrong. A more difficult moral issue is when an offender commits a crime when sane by develops signs of insanity before their conviction or execution.

Writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty requires that you have some very tangible evidence. There has been a lot of concern in the United States that mistakes in the judicial system make the death penalty unfair. It’s possible that, with time, capital punishment could damage the cause of justice throughout the globe.

It’s said that even the jurors in most death penalty cases must approve of the use of capital punishment, be ‘death-eligible.’ As a result, any prospective jurors should always be ready and willing to convict criminals, knowing that capital punishment is also a possibility. This often results in having a jury biased in favor of capital punishment. After all, it’s not ideal for accepting a juror who opposes the death penalty.

There’s much concern throughout the world that the legal system does not always provide poor accused persons with good lawyers. Studies show that almost three-quarters of all offenders sentenced to death are always the ones allocated legal aid lawyers. The chances are always that these poor accused suspects will be convicted or executed. In contrast, this figure drops significantly if the defendant can afford to pay for a good representative.

Regardless of whichever moral status you use to justify using capital punishment, it’s just wrong. No matter which way you use to execute capital punishment, it causes so much suffering. This is something you must incorporate in your paper when writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty. There’s always no painless way of condemning someone else to die no matter which procedure you use.

Many execution methods used will likely always cause enormous suffering both to the condemned person and his/her loved ones. Executions by lethal gas, strangulation, or electrocution are all really painful ways to go. Whereas, other methods such as beheading and firing squads were simply abandoned because they were considered too barbaric. That’s how inhumane and degrading capital punishment can be.

Most countries that still use capital punishment prefer the use of lethal injection instead. It’s considered less brutalizing for the executioner and less cruel to the offender as well. Yet, capital punishment is capital punishment, no matter how much you pamper it.

This capital punishment method has several flaws as well. First, it requires that medical personal involve themselves directly in this heinous act. This directly contravenes the medical ethics code that medical personnel work by. Also, several studies show that lethal injection isn’t always as human as people initially thought. Post mortem findings show that offenders experienced consistent wakefulness and pain throughout the process.

To reiterate, you cannot reverse killing someone once you sentence them to death and execute that punishment. It’s therefore, vital that judges and other people in authority revise death penalty sentences before actually carrying out those sentences. This is a critical concept that should form a big part of your argument in your persuasive essay against the death penalty.

And as you’ve read above, absolute judgments may lead to innocent victims paying the ultimate price for crimes they didn’t commit. Once you sentence someone to die without actually knowing what transpired, isn’t that murder in itself? The only difference is that you’re not the actual person that’s doing the killing. But then new evidence comes to light proving that the person you just sentenced to die didn’t commit the crime. But it’s too late. You just killed an innocent human being based on falsified or incomplete evidence.

Always capture this segment in your persuasive essay against the death penalty. Your audience must know the dangers of capital punishment and the risks of executing such sentences.

It’s due to this flaw that over 70% of countries across the world abolished the death penalty. The USA is one of the few nations that still enforce this punishment, which, in itself, stands in stark contrast against its democracies. If anything, life in prison without the possibility of parole seems a much better form of punishment.

Each word in your persuasive essay against the death penalty should clearly and directly reiterate this one fact. The risk of killing an innocent person, even just one, far outweighs any justifications people may have to use the death penalty as a punishment. The wrongful death of one innocent victim should be enough to discourage against state-sanctioned killing. It’s just wrong, and no evidence supports it works toward the betterment of the society.

The immorality of taking another human being’s life is ridiculous in all aspects. Taking another person’s life, legally or otherwise, in punishment for murder isn’t justice. It’s vengeance. It does not matter how you sugarcoat it. It’s an act of vengeance and murder in itself.

Express in your persuasive essay against the death penalty that one cannot write one wrong by creating another wrong. Therefore, taking an offender’s life because that offender took someone else’s life isn’t really serving justice. Moreover, the usual excuse for capital punishment, as a deterrent, isn’t true. And new evidence refuting this claim time and time again. So, why do it?

The American Medical Association and several other health professions and organizations also prohibit their members from participating in executions. It’s against the healing role of all healthcare providers. No medical professional should end another human being’s life, no matter the circumstance or situation.

Writing a persuasive essay against the death penalty isn’t as easy as it may seem. You must have all your facts right and know which pressure points to use to clearly and definitively state your point. Unfortunately, not many students have the research and writing skills to write an impactful, persuasive essay against the death penalty. Thus, the reason to hire a professional online essay writing service to the job. Myhomeworkwriters.com ranks as the best custom writing service in the world to handle papers on arguments against the death penalty.

My Homework Writers has thousands of certified, experienced writers in this field with the technical expertise and writing skills to write and submit your paper in record time. This is a company you can trust to deliver the best persuasive essay against the death penalty. Rest assured that you will receive a high-quality, 100% original paper written by the best in the business.

Ultimately, your persuasive essay against the death penalty is an argument against sentencing criminals to death. Your paper should explicitly oppose the giving of death sentences to criminals under any circumstance. If possible, abolish this law altogether. Ending the life of an individual, no matter the degree of his/her crime is not the solution. Overall, ensure that you conduct thorough research before you start writing. Then again, you can always hire an expert writer from Myhomeworkwriters.com craft for you the best essay on the subject.