Death Penalty Essay -- essays research papers

The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and violates the right to life. It's hard for me as a Swede to understand that a country such as USA still have that kind of punishment. For many people and nations the USA serves as a model, so it is to me very difficult to imagine how you can persuade nations like Burma and China to respect basic human rights when you don't do it yourself. Body A. Concerning the Death Penalty Capital punishment -- the death penalty -- is supposed to select the worst criminals who committed the worst murders and punish them and protect society by taking their lives. In numbers far beyond our greatest fears, innocent people are being convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Nationally, more than 75 innocent people have been freed from death row in the last 20 years. Here in Illinois alone, we've executed 12 and we've exonerated 11. That's almost a 50% error rate on the most fundamental question of guilt or innocence. B. The poor are often represented by incompetent or underfunded lawyers. Some people are on death row not because they committed the worst crimes, but because they had the worst lawyers. In Illinois, as in most places, there are no minimum standards for death penalty defense work. Any lawyer can defend a client in a capital case, with no experience. There is some very good lawyering going on in death penalty cases in Illinois, but there's also some very bad lawyering. C. The death penalty is e...