Death Penalty: a Senseless Polemic

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Capital Punishment: A senseless Polemic
Capital Punishment is regarded as one of the United States' hottest topics. Those for and against it constantly debate over the various issues that capital punishment brings forth. This essay explains just a few of these topics and my view on the death penalty. Many argue that Capital Punishment should be abolished since there are many miscarriages of justice. In his essay "The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense," Ernest Van den Haag uses a survey that indicates that out of the thousands on Death Row, 35 were innocent of capital crimes; even though there may be some miscarriages of justice, we continue to use the Death Penalty because the good greatly outweighs the bad. To add against the unjustices, "Criminal Justice in America," reports from the Death Penalty information Center that 80 have been released from death row due to their innocence. That is 80 unjust lives given the sentence, but how many more lives were saved from the rest given the sentence if the death penalty was abolished? This is how I view those lives, such as Sacco and Vanzetti as well as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, whom may have been innocent  but even if a few innocent may die, we must maintain Capital Punishment intact in order to punish the even many more for the thousands of lives they have so unjustly taken. As to the deterrence of the Death Penalty, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that it deters. The reason being is because it would be very difficult to ask every individual in our whole country whether or not they have decided not to carry out a murder since there may be a chance of paying with death. However, deterrence may be used to its full potential if every state had Capital Punishment laws; "Capital Punishment: Give it a Chance," makes a great point of this. If consistency were established through our whole country, many would fear the punishment and not commit murder, but the inconsistency as it is right now, many commit a...
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