Capital Punishment

Does An Eye For An Eye Still Have A Place In Society?

Purpose: To persuade the audience that Capital Punishment has a place in today's society.

General Objective: Persuasive

Intro: Imagine that someone kidnapped your child and then killed them. What would you want to do to that person? Most would answer kill them. In fact in 2000, 58% of the population agreed that if someone was convicted of murdering a child then they should be put to death. Capital Punishment is defined by Encarta as, "the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law." Methods of execution have included such practices as crucifixion, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, impaling, and beheading. Today capital punishment is typically accomplished by lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, or shooting. Encarta cites that, on average 75 executions occur each year throughout the United States. Out of 50 states 38 use the death penalty.

English: Total number of executions carried out in...

US gas chamber usage

Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of ...

This is one of the most if not the most controversial penal practices in the modern world. Although, this may seem to be an extreme form of punishment I believe that it should not be eliminated from our system. I believe that it serves the population as a whole to keep this practice in the system.

Points:

There are many murders that could have been averted if capital punishment had been used in the first place. For example, in 1957, Richard Biegenwald murdered a storeowner during a robbery in New Jersey. He was convicted, but given a life sentence rather than death. After serving 17 years, he was paroled. He violated his parole, was returned to prison, but was again paroled in 1980, after which he shot and killed an 18-year-old Asbury Park, New Jersey girl. He also killed three other 17-year-old New Jersey girls and...