Christian Hampel is author of next 2015-2016 MLHS senior student editorial
Death Penalty
The death penalty has been used on notorious serial killers for generations. I believe that the criminals that are on death row should have the death penalty because of the cruel and unusual punishment that they inflicted on their victims. However, I also believe that these criminals should die peacefully, not in an inhumane way.
There are reasons why we have this punishment.
We have it to simply save lives of innocent people. I believe that the penalty should only be used on the most evil murderers, murderers such as John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy; all who killed a lot of people. There are some murderers who killed hundreds of people in horrific ways. Would you want those criminals around other people?
The website pewresearch.org says that there are 600 fewer prisoners on death row now than there were at the end of the year 2000. With this penalty, the murder crimes are decreasing.
Despite what I think, people may have different opinions on this punishment. Some think that life in prison would be a better punishment for murderers. Yes, keeping them isolated from society provides the same level of protection, but there is still a possibility that he/she could escape. Would you ever feel safe when there’s a murderer roaming around at night?
Others say that killing the criminal would make them murderers, too.
In addition, there have also been some accidents while performing this punishment. Some of the criminals had a slow, painful death and some falsely-accused people have been killed by this form of punishment. In order to keep this punishment, we need to get the process right. We cannot kill falsely-accused people. there have been too many innocent people being put to to death. As I said before, we should only use this punishment on the most evil murderers; murderers who have been convicted of multiple homicides. While performing this punishment, we should not kill them in a horrific way, only a peaceful death.
To wrap this up, I just believe that we need this penalty to decrease crime of murder and to save the lives of innocent people.