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Capitol Punishment right or wrong

ut the public looks at it as an investment in safety since thesemurders will never kill again. Retentionists argue that these high costs are due to "thelengthy time and the high expense result from innumerable appeals, many over'technicalities' which have little or nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence,and do little more than jam up the nation's court system. If these 'frivolous' appeals wereeliminated, the procedure would neither take so long nor cost so much" (Kronenwetter29). The moral issues concerning the legitimacy of the death have been brought bymany abolitionists. They think that respect for life forbids the use of the death penalty,while retentionists believe that respect for life requires it. Retentionists says the bible(Genesis 9:6) says, "Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man may his blood be shed." Thisclassic argument in favor of the death penalty has usually been interpreted as a proper andmoral reason for putting a murderer to death. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is itssecondary counterpart (Cox). Both quotes imply that the murderer deserves to die and itwas his own fault for putting himself on death row. Supporters of capital punishment saythat society has the right to kill in defense of its members, just as an individual has theright to kill in self defense for his or her own personal safety. This analogy is somewhatdoubtful, however, as long as the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent toviolent crimes has yet to be proven. In the United States, the main objection to capital punishment has been that it wasalways used unfairly, in at least three major ways. First, females are rarely sentenced todeath and executed, even though 20 percent of all murders that have occurred in recentyears were committed by women. Second, a disproportionate number of nonwhites aresentenced to death and executed. A black man who kills a white person is 11 times morelikely to receive the death penalty than a wh...

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