Death Penalty

For the most cruel and heinous crimes, the ones for which the death penalty is applied, offenders deserve the worst punishment under our system of law, and that is the death penalty. Any lesser punishment would undermine the value society places on protecting lives.” (Retribution…)

“Our most profound emotional response is to want criminals to suffer as their victims did. When a man is accused of throwing a child from a high-rise terrace, my emotional - some might say hysterical - response is that he should be given an opportunity to see how endless the seconds are form the thirty-first story to the ground. In a civilized society, that will never happen. And so what many people want from the death penalty, they will never get.” (Quindlen)

The average death penalty case is appealed three times. This means the taxpayers must pay for the same case to be heard three different times. This is a very expensive practice, and the average convicted murder spends about 12 years on death row. If supporters of the death penalty are positive enough to kill the person for committing the crime, shouldn’t the supporters be confident enough to kill the person in a timely manner? The taxpayers continue paying for the inmates jail time, when in the end they are also paying for the execution. This money could be used to create a better society, where possibly the murders wouldn’t happen in the first place. “The Miami Herald reported that Florida, with one of the nation’s largest death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is ap