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Critical Analysis: Death and Justice by Edward Kotch

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Critical Analysis: Death and Justice by Edward Kotch
The Unbiased Truth: An Overview of Edward Koch’s Controversial Essay ‘Death and Justice’

In his essay with regard to capital punishment entitled “Death and Justice”, which first appeared in The New Republic on April 15, 1985, Edward I. Koch aggressively refutes the claims of individuals who are opposed to the subject matter with seven firm and satisfying points. A native of New York, born 1924, Koch was an American lawyer, politician, political commentator and a reality television arbitrator. He earned his law degree in 1948 from New York University and practiced law in New York City for some two decades thereafter. He was a member of the U.S House of Representatives, serving from 1969 to 1977 and in the later year, he was then elected as New York mayor, holding the post until 1990. With such a strong and wide variety in terms of line of work, it is my belief that his views communicated in this essay by way of his, logical, ethical and rational appeal are well-thought out and unbiased. Unbiased or impartial, if you will, due to the fact that with the rebuttal style in which the argument was written, the opposing claims would first have to be identified and evaluated before generating an objecting response. The piece of work in my opinion achieves its purpose and is well organized by use of logos, pathos and ethos, thus influencing a successful but indeed controversial essay. As mentioned in my introductory paragraph, the essay is carefully structured into seven sturdy points in which each, Koch identifies the claims of his opponents followed by his rebuttal arguments. This makes the piece much easier to follow and interpret, hence making his arguments extremely clear and concise. This also influences the readers to grasp a better knowledge of his position hence increasing the probability of reader agreement. In this logical system of ideas, each argument is further justified by the use of analogies, if, then...statements, statistics, stories and the use of

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