Should the Death Penalty Be an Option?

Should the Death Penalty Be An Option?

“I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live...” (Thatcher, 2009)

He was only eight years old when he was taken out of school early and told that his father had been arrested for the brutal stabbing and murder of his girlfriend. Although Joshua’s parents were divorced and he was living with his mother and siblings over a thousand miles away in his mother’s sister’s house, the impact of the news was still numbing. Even more devastating was the sentencing the following year of punishment by death. Almost ten years later, during the fifteen minute phone calls his father placed to him on the 3 consecutive days before his lethal injection, he was again struck with the disassociation of being related to a cold blooded killer. In spite of his tough childhood and the years of dealing with the reality that his father was a murderer, my husband still believes in the death penalty, and so do I.

Often referred to as ‘capital punishment’, there is evidence that the death penalty as a form of legal punishment has been around since 1700BC during the time of the ancient Babylonians. In the United States, the first recorded execution was in the British American Colonies for treason in 1608. By 1775 and the beginning of the American Revolution, all 13 colonies were using the death penalty as punishment for crimes such as high treason, rape, theft and slave mutiny. The US Constitution, signed in 1787 gave certain provisions such as the eighth

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amendment that incline one to believe our forefathers believed in the death penalty. It wasn’t until around 1833 that the public begin to declare public hangings as cruel and violent, leading many states to implement laws that protected hangings as private events. Near the mid-1800s the first anti death penalty society was formed and when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, it was also used to contest the death penalty as unconstitutional. Today, numbers of prisoners subjected to the death penalty are dwindling. This is mostly due to the incredible controversy on the topic which is largely led and influenced by the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU, and also by the human rights group, Amnesty International. As of 2009, 34 US states have officially sanctioned capital punishment with differing regulations of crime, age and manner. (White)

Much like the late British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, I believe in the death penalty. Although I believe that life is sacred and to be cherished, I also believe that blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life should void one’s right to live. While I realize there is a multitude of varying crimes that warrant this severe a punishment, in cases of innocent and defenseless victims, I believe