Capital punishment, or death penalty, is a very controversial topic for the last decades. Capital punishment is a punishment by way of killing an offender. Death penalty is an inappropriate form of punishment that infringes constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Supporters of death penalty argue that it has led to the unjustly sentence of prisoners, that it incites capital crimes, that it does not deter criminals more than life in prisoning, that is against the God’s commandments, and that it discriminates against minorities.
As human being we make mistakes and a single mistake can cost lives of innocent people. Death penalty is a non-reversible action and there have been many cases where innocent people have lost their lives. For instance, Jesus Christ was an innocent man who was accused of blasphemy. Although no one could prove his crime and the Roman governor in Judea, Pontius Pilate, found him innocent the crowds declared “Crucified him!” Jesus was publicly scourged, beaten and crucified and the third day after his crucifixion he rose from the death proving himself innocent. Some people blame the court system, not the death penalty itself for the problem, but we can’t risk mistakes. “Despite the recent attention to the issue of wrongful conviction, few are aware that over 20 people have been wrongly executed. Anti-death penalty advocates maintain these flaws cannot be fixed.” (Finley).
Another reason death penalty should be eliminated is because it fail as a deterrent. Capital punishment would not end the crime problem in our society. It is a useless weapon against crime. No comparable body of evidence contradicts this conclusion. “Furthermore, there are documented cases in which the death penalty actually incited the capital crimes it was supposed to deter. These include instances of the so-called suicide-by-execution syndrome –