Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

The Death Penalty

Hevia Burgos

COM 220

May 23, 2010

Katherine Lambert-Scronce

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

Should the United States continue to use capital punishment? This a great question that arouses many debates that include doubt and passion toward this type of punishment. Some people are completely against it regardless of the background of the case. Others are for it and believe this is justice and a way of stopping others from doing monstrous actions. While some base it on the scenario of the case. After much consideration, my position on this question would have to be against capital punishment. Everyone should understand and see the bigger picture of this punishment. The death penalty does not only affect the person being sentenced, it also affects the family of the accused, the victim’s family, and taxpayers. We also can’t forget about the following question: Can anyone believe that the justice system is perfect and errors never occur?

When looking at the information gathered for years on capital punishment, it brings up a question that I would love answered, has every person who has been executed truly guilty? There have been 1,203 executions since 1976 but since 1973 there has been 138 people exonerated, and some have been freed by the information provided by people not in the justice system. One example being the case of Sonia Jacobs and Jesse Tafero, who were charged and sentence to death for murdering a Florida Highway Patrol and a visiting Canadian police officer in 1976 but only after the third party in the case agreed to testify against them for a lesser charge of life in prison. In 1981 Jacobs sentence was dropped to life imprisonment but Tafero was executed in 1990 despite his claim of being innocent. Jacobs’ childhood friend read about Tafero’s execution and shortly after reached out to her and helped Jacobs to be release in 1992 by gathering information and showing the case was flawed because of shaky evidence and not enough evidence to retry her case in court. Tafero was not cleared of this case as there is no judicial mechanism for review of guilt or pronouncement of innocence after an execution (Kreuter, 1997). Do to this case of unclear evidence and a person who went against Jacobs to save his own life; she lost many years away from her two children who at the time of the incident were nine and 10 months old. By the time she was released they were 25 and 16, the oldest having a child of his own and the youngest was hesitant and took months before she allowed a relationship between the two of them to occur.

Throughout these cases are the families of both the victim and accused considered? Overall I have notice the victims family are able to speak up on the case but what happens to the family who are not allowed to speak up for the accused? What happens to these family members after “justice has taken place”? Is it justice when people believe its right to take a life to compensate for the life lost? If this is the case then why is it wrong when a father kills his daughter’s rapist? After all, the rapist took away the innocence from his daughter and possibly has destroyed this families perspective of life, and isn’t it the right of the father to protect his children? In my personal opinion, the death penalty solves nothing. It is a fact that all states do not have much difference in murders rates. This information alone should show everyone; those who want to kill will kill regardless of state laws.