ENGL COMP I
12/2/15
The Death Penalty and Its Effectiveness
The death penalty can be a very controversial topic. So many questions can go with it, is
it unconstitutional, is it inhumane, is it more expensive than just sentencing life without parole,
and is it even effective? The list can go on and on as well as the opinions. Its effectiveness can be
questioned, but personally in some situations I feel like it is acceptable to put the death penalty
into effect.
One of the first things that come up when discussing the death penalty is the morality or
if it abides by the constitution. It may not sound all that moral when you first hear death penalty
and imagine what it could possible consist of, but it is something that needs to be done. The
crimes committed to be sentenced this are not pretty so why would the punishment be? In a pros
and con source, I found that there are other individuals who feel like I do about the situation. It is
stated, “”The crimes of rape, torture, treason, kidnapping, murder, larceny, and perjury pivot on a
moral code that escapes apodictic [indisputably true] proof by expert testimony or otherwise. But
communities would plunge into anarchy if they could not act on moral assumptions less certain
than that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Abolitionists may contend that the death
penalty is inherently immoral because governments should never take human life, no matter what
the provocation. But that is an article of faith, not of fact. The death penalty honors human
dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or
for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense. “Bruce Fein, JD” What he said
holds very true to how I feel about the subject. When it comes to how constitutional capital
punishment it is, the same article said “”Simply because an execution method may result in pain,
either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of
‘objectively intolerable risk of harm’ [quoting the opinion of the Court from Farmer v. Brennan,
511 U. S. 825, 842, 846 (1994)] that qualifies as cruel and unusual… Kentucky has adopted a
method of execution believed to be the most humane available, one it shares with 35 other
States… Kentucky’s decision to adhere to its protocol cannot be viewed as probative of the
wanton infliction of pain under the Eighth Amendment… Throughout our history, whenever a
method of execution has been challenged in this Court as cruel and unusual, the Court has
rejected the challenge. Our society has nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of
