Capital Punishment is Murder Essays -- Against Death Penalty Essays

American history is replete with examples of brutality and rage that will forever blot the American conscience. Early in this century, Sacco and Vanzetti were railroaded for a murder of which they were almost authoritatively innocent. The trial was a farce, and the verdict was a more than a result of bias against Italians than of the evidence. Their lives were forfeit. Later in the century, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried for conspiracy to commit espionage. Despite questionable evidence and even more questionable conduct on the part of prosecuting attorneys and government agencies, they were convicted the verdict was a statement of public hysteria and fear of Communism. They too met the executioner. Not even so ingrained in the annals of history, in the past months the state of Texas execute a man who even the state admitted had not pulled the trigger, but was provided an accomplice. If the recent elections prove anything, it is that these examples of the state-sanctioned murders of innocents have done nothing to change the American mind. Many Republicans ran and won on a law and order computer programme in New York, Governor George Pataki defeated former Governor Mario Cuomo mostly on the basis of Cuomos opposition to great punishment. This article is an appeal to readers morality, to their consciences. It does try on to show that the death penalty is costly and impractical (though it is), or that it is unconstitutional (which it may well be). The article is an appeal for mercy. Perhaps the greatest bother with the death penalty, as the cases of the Rosenbergs and of Sacco and Vanzetti point out, is the chance for error incurred in capital cases. A study conducted at Stanford University found that, since 1900, more than fifty pe... ...run by criminals unless the criminals are all destroyed it is a war of us against them and we essential use whatever means are necessary to fight against them. change surface more moderate advocates of capita l punishment tend to hold to a black-and-white morality that justifies the brutality of capital punishment as a necessary act of self- protection. However, before giving in to fear of crime and justifying the deaths of innocents that inevitably result from the institution of capital punishment, we should remember that one of the some things that distinguishes human from animal is the capacity for mercy. Even if we could be absolutely certain of a persons guilt, by killing him or her do we not plant murderers of ourselves. Darrow reminds us exactly what it means for society to abandon its mercy I would hate to live in a state that I didnt trust was better than a murderer.