Essay Example on The United States should ban the death Penalty

The United States should ban the death penalty nationwide because it is a cruel punishment Imagine sitting on a table getting ready to be executed they say it will be painless but who knows if the person injecting the drugs gives you the right dose to knock you out cold Without the right amount of anesthesia the person being executed would experience asphyxiation a severe burning sensation massive muscle cramping and cardiac arrest Source 1 The death penalty is not a fair punishment No matter the offense that the inmate committed they should not be put to death for it The death penalty violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the 8th Amendment In the US there are 31 states that allow the death penalty as a punishment for crimes Of those 31 16 states allow alternatives to lethal injections such as hanging a firing squad electric chair and gas chamber Source 3 These methods of execution are all horrible ways to die and if done poorly make the pain even more excruciating than it already is When you hang the fall is supposed to break your neck and your spinal cord The cruel part about hanging is If the rope is too long the inmate could be decapitated and if it is too short the strangulation could take up to 45 minutes Source 4 

The firing squad method is self explanatory The squad is aiming for the heart or a major blood vessel and they have the possibility of missing by accident or intention which will cause the prisoner to bleed to death slowly Source 4 When being executed by the electric chair the executioner puts a metal skullcap shaped electrode to the scalp and forehead over a sponge moistened with saline and then gets another electrode attached to the leg once the executions pulls the handle a jolt between 500 and 2000 volts which lasts for about 30 seconds rushes through the inmate s body leaving them burnt from the inside out Source 4 During the Holocaust Hitler killed a countless number of Jewish people using gas chambers When being executed by gas in the US the executioner causes a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide gas Source 4 This method causes the inmate to suffocate due to the lack of oxygen in the chamber It also cause tremendous amounts of pain and horror leading up to the death You can only imagine what all these methods of execution would feel like and I can guarantee that you don t want to be dealt punishments like these Even inmates deserve one of their unalienable Rights that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness Source 5 No they don t deserve liberty or the pursuit of happiness but they do deserve a life locked up behind bars If they are behind bars they won t be able to harm any innocent citizens 

It is the best and humane way to punish somebody for a crime In the court case Roper vs Simmons Simmons was a 17 year old kid planned a burglary and murder of a woman Simmons confessed to the murder The jury of the trial court said he was guilty and recommended the death penalty the trial court imposed the penalty Simmons appealed his way up to the Supreme Court The Supreme Court decided that it violated the 8th Amendment to execute someone who committed a crime while under the age of 18 Instead of getting the death penalty Simmons got sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole I can see why people are for the death penalty If one of my friends or family members got murdered I would want the person who did it to suffer and die just like my friend did when they killed them It s like and eye for an eye type of deal That is how people think in the spur of the moment They want to get someone back for a wrong the other person did It sucks to see a loved one go and the emotional pain can last forever It gives the victim s families a little taste of revenge which can also last forever The death penalty is something that people want only in the moment It s like when you say something mean to someone and then you think about it after you said it and you feel bad The death penalty is extremely expensive punishment Inmates in North Carolina on death row have cost the state over one billion dollars more than inmates not on death row since 1976 Source 6 The death penalty is a cruel punishment and is unreasonable for both sides of the case If you really want someone to suffer you have to let them live and think about what they did on a daily basis