David Bruck Death Penalty Analysis

Arguments on capital punishment have been around for centuries, and will continue to be so. Providing adequate punishment to those that take a human life must be approached very carefully. David Bruck wrote a response to Mayor Edward Koch's essay entitled, "Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life," in which he goes on to explain through examples why the death penalty should be forgotten. In Bruck's response, "No Death Penalty," he provides many examples, but few arguments to support why the death penalty should be abolished. Bruck relies on the various cases of death row inmates to persuade the reader against the death penalty. His use of facts give body to the paper but little substance to support his stance. He states that the "rate of intentional homicide declined by 17 percent" in Florida when there were no executions performed in 1983 (David Bruck, 2).
And goes on to state that the execution of eight people in 1984 caused homicide percentages to grow "by 5.1 percent" (3). Burk robs the stability of his claims by stating, "but these are just tiresome facts" (3). He further states "how little the facts have to do with
the public support for capital punishment" which contradicts his use of facts to support his argument (3). Throughout the paper the audience is reading about real life death row cases, the author fails to provide or state any credible information about himself.
Bruck never attaches his name to any of the cases, even though "many of his defendants are prisoners under the death sentence" (1). Luckily the reader is informed that David "Bruck is a lawyer in the South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense" by a header that is injected before the essay was printed. With the lack of credentials Burk fails to solidify the cases through personal experience. His continual attack on Koch's argument merely shows his lack of tact and professionalism. (Such as "the electric chair has been a centerpiece of each of Koch's recent political campaigns") (3). Through the use of his title Burk undermines the gravity which his words were meant to
uphold. There is an underlying assumption present that the audience shares a common value with the author. Burk who is pro life weakly portrays that all human life is sacred by citing that "Knighton had killed a gas station owner during a robbery" and although his crime was terrible it "very rarely results in a death sentence" (2). He goes forward to state that he doesn't "claim that executions of entirely innocent people will occur very often " thus counteracting the nature of his argument (2). He supports this statement in that his other examples cited are all guilty men. Burk takes a dangerous rode in assuming that his audience shares his ideas, this has the possibility of turning a good percentage of his readers off. Sadly his choice of representatives supports the points in which he is speaking against. The presentations of the different examples do pull at your heart strings, but leave a negative mark within. Burk shares a story of "Lenell Jeter – the young black engineer who recently served more than a year of a life sentence for a Texas armed robbery that he didn't even commit" (2). This is the only example that has a case were the convicted did not murder anyone. This does offer support for his stance but the audience is quickly reminded that his crime was not as severe as the other supposed victims. He then goes on to state that "if someone had been killed in that robbery, Jeter probably would have been sentenced to death" (2). Reminding us that the most heart felt situation he proposes is the least severe and most unlikely to happen. By his continual use of Koch's example with Kitty Genovese, his attempts lessens the affect of her story ultimately guides the audience into seeing Koch's point of view. Alvin Ford was cited in Burks essay as a means to pull at the readers emotions, and captivate them. "Ford had lost his mind during his years of death row confinement" and Burk is leading the audience to the idea that a mentally incapable person should not be subject to capital punishment (1). This tactic can backfire being that Ford was convicted when he was mentally sound and understood the consequences of his actions. Burk did not use the necessary techniques to properly build a convincing and persuasive argument. The four main lines of argument: argument of facts and reason, character, values, and heart where not fully portrayed in this response to Koch's essay. Whenever Burk was building an argument it was never filled out with enough body to properly support his stance. The paper itself is thrown together as if it was a heated attack towards Koch's essay. Burk lacked organization and focus throughout his essay and most readers would find this very hard to follow. In the end, he turned many of his readers off due to the lack of detail and conviction to the matter at hand.