Capital Punishment: Supporting A Position

Capital punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and has been in use in America since 1608. I am not a supporter of capital punishment and feel that it should be abolished in every single state. Twelve states, plus the District of Columbia, have no capital punishment statutes. The majority of executions take place in the southern states, 930 out of 1136 to the end of 2008, with Texas having carried out 422. The following states are the leading execution states in America; Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Florida

As of January 2009, 36 states have the death penalty and 34 of these have carried out at least one execution since 1976. The death penalty is also available for Federal and Military crimes. Lethal injection is now almost universal in the United States, being either the sole method or an option in all but one of the states that have the death penalty. Despite what you may read to the contrary, the execution of any person under the age of 18 is not permitted in any state. Surveys indicate that there has been a decline in the majority opinion that favors the death penalty from 80% in 1994 to 65% level of support in 2007.

There are many incontrovertible arguments against the death penalty.   The most important one is the certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. Since 1973, 130 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Other defendants, though not exonerated completely, were released from death row with substantial evidence of their innocence. Generally, the defendant's conviction was overturned and then he or she entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge.

Another argument is cost.   There are many that believe it is cheaper to put the convicted criminal to death. This could not be further from the truth; the cost of executing someone over giving them life in prison is far higher....