RUNNING HEAD: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Capital Punishment
Oscar Gonzalez
CRJS 256
Professor Weiss
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
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One of the main topics talked about in the United States is capital punishment. This is
easily one of the most controversial topics than can easily be brought up between people. What
capital punishment is that it can also be “be known as the death penalty. There are several states
that still use this practice to punish those who have committed serious crimes. Reason why this
topic is important and chosen was that since capital punishment has been talked about throughout
the years, I wanted to get a better understanding on the whole process happens after being
sentenced to death. There is always a debate whether having capital punishment is the right
ethical thing to do. So far while taking this class and previous courses that there are only several
states that allow capital punishment. The several states that I have recently seen was Texas,
Arizona, Florida, and California. These states are the most common know for the death penalty
while several other states have the death penalty active. The rest of this paper would consist of
how capital punishment is in the United States, how California handles capital punishment, and
whether capital punishment should be allowed.
To continue on about capital punishment, once a criminal is sentenced to death, he or she
is then put to death row. The state that will be used as an example about capital punishment
would be California. California still has the death penalty but over the years have been very
moderate about it. “The state of California has not executed anyone in 13 years since January
2019, there are still nearly 1,000 people that have been sentenced to death since the current
system was adopted in 1978. In that time, there has been a total of 13 executions” (Defenders,
2019). What this means is that even though the death penalty exist, California tends to be more
calm about it. This can be a bad thing because there are no executions going, having the criminal
on death row can cause overpopulation in some of the prisons. Some of the crimes that can cause
on to get the death penalty in the state of California would be any type of murder, or any action
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caused by the person that can involve someone else to loses their life. There are some multiple
ways that any defendant involved in the death penalty can get out of. Once given the death
penalty, the defendants is allowed to overturn the sentenced. Now by being a person from
California, I believe that if someone has a committed a crime by taking a way another life, then
they deserve to be punished and get the death penalty. Not many would agree but those who
committed murder should not be put into death row, instead should be taken out as early as
possible. The more the people on death row stay alive, the more tax payers money are getting
wasted. If someone is on death row, why keep them alive for years. There are still many
criminals waiting to be put to death and some even been waiting for ten years. The ones that
deserve to be put to death are the ones that deserve it. A person killing another person should
automatically be the death penalty and not waste anyone’s time by putting them on death row
