Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the legal consequence of being killed for committing a crime. This is an extremely rare sentence, as it is only given to criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes. In America, 23 states and Washington, DC, have abolished the death penalty.
Recently, our society has grown to have strong feelings toward this punishment. Many believe it should be entirely abolished in our country because of the high number of wrongfully convicted inmates on death row. There is also the argument that it is just wholly hypocritical. Killing someone as a punishment for killing someone. But most Americans support the death penalty, particularly for murder cases. The argument is that if someone takes a life, they should not get to live theirs. It has become a political debate with strong justifications from both ends of the spectrum.
The last person sentenced to death in the United States was in 2019. The number of executions each year has steadily decreased, with only 11 in 2021. With this punishment being so rarely used, it raises the question of why does the death penalty even exist anymore?
Nikolas Cruz was just recently recommended life in prison by a jury for opening fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, killing 17 people. The victim’s families and survivors spoke in court, pleading for Cruz to get the death penalty. Their lives will never be the same, and they expressed how unfair it is for him to take so many lives but continue to live his. After the jury’s sentencing, people across the nation were infuriated. If he could kill 17 young innocent people and not be sentenced to death, who will be?
This case highlighted several significant problems in our society. It ultimately proved that capital punishment has no purpose of being legal because even the most wicked crimes, like what Cruz did, do not get the death sentence. People might support it more if it was used widely and when necessary in these extremely vile cases.
https://deathpenalty.procon.org/states-with-the-death-penalty-and-states-with-death-penalty-bans/
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/the-case-against-the-death-penalty/671716/
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