The death penalty has proven itself to be a relic of a bygone era. Often we believe the punishment should fit the crime but should that apply even if the punishment is killing someone? The death penalty has long been a point of contention in the American legal system and has largely been put to bed in recent years but has still been used in smaller amounts. We think that the penalty should be put to rest for good but what does the rest of the student body think? What about the teachers?

“I believe we shouldn’t have the death penalty,” Said Junior Jonathan Height, “It’s kind of, ‘getting off easy’,”. Many people agree with Heights’ perspective. They think it would be better for the culprit or whoever committed the crime whether that be murder or another serious offense should rot in prison as that would be a more severe and worse punishment, causing them to have to live with what they did and sit in a prison for the rest of their life. Another common response was “two wrongs don’t make a right,”. The idea that two wrongs don’t make a right around this topic stems from the idea where if you kill one killer, the number of killers stays the same. From that perspective, using the death penalty makes you no better than the person you’re killing.

We believe that the death penalty is outdated. It was used in a bygone era where killings and swift justice was more common. The justice system would find its culprit and take them out. It was easier to convince and convict back when there were less ways to do so. It’s also a fact that when people have something to take out their anger on, it becomes much easier to do so. We think that as said above, the idea of letting them rot in jail is a worse punishment than death. Assuming they’re sane, eventually they should feel the guilt for what they’ve done and will have to live with that. Not only that but also assuming they have a life sentence, they’d never see outside the prison walls again, being shown the outside world but never being allowed to be a part of it. That’s a worse torture than a swift death.

Being as controversial as it is, there are often a lot of misconceptions about it. It is crucial to be informed on a topic like the death penalty, considering human lives are at stake. Some of the most common misconceptions are that only people who are truly proven guilty are executed or that only people who have committed horrific crimes are executed. Those aren’t always the case however. There have been false or incorrect convictions that have resulted in people being put on death row. Thankfully most have been exonerated and released before they went through with the execution. This still proves it can happen however. This shows that people can be falsely convicted and put on that path. In the excellent novel, The Green Mile, the full extent of this problem is shown. An innocent man is executed and while we have a death penalty, that’s always going to be a possibility. 

A common counter to these ideas is that it should be up to the victim’s family whether the assailant receives the death penalty or not. Something like “If you saw the man who killed your family, would you want them to die too?” Quite often, people answer this question with a yes. People often want justice for their loved ones and I can’t blame them.