DEATHCON
Hayden sorrels
10/04/14 dr
Dan Phillips, Juvenile Offender

Capital punishment has been around forever, even in the bible. Capital punishment aka the death penalty, really heats people up and goes back and forth with right and wrong. I am against the death penalty… although I am not 100% against it, I would still classify myself as someone who looks at the death penalty in more of the cons than the pros. One thing I really am not too fond of is the death penalty to juveniles. The death penalty which is enforced in all but 18 states (not including the District of Columbia.) I believe is a bad thing because it does not rehabilitate people, it fails as a deterrent, innocent deaths/financial bias, and also because of a collection of small things that I will lump into a reason of random category. Again I am not saying 100% that the death penalty should be done away with, I am saying that there are some cons to it. When I think of the topic of death penalty it makes me think of grown men being sentenced and put to death, I look at juvenile as anyone under the age of 18 in my eyes. When searching for this topic I found it very interesting that these nine states; Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin trial anyone 17 and above with a serious offense as an adult and even more surprising these three states; Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina will trial a 16 year old as an adult (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execution-juveniles-us-and-other-countries ) also when on the above site I found that the last juvenile to participate in the death penalty was Scott Allen Hain (17) on April third of 2003, in Oklahoma. The last sixteen year old was in 1999 (Sean Sellers, Oklahoma). Everyone is not put to death at the age they are tried, that is unconstitutional the Supreme Court says following the 2005 Roper v. Simmons case. In all of the reading I have searched over the penalty I believe it’s not right because it doesn’t promote rehabilitation. After all when you go to prison it was originally made to give you time to think of what bad you have done (Lecture, Dan Phillips. In class), so how can the death penalty make that equal to this originality or the purpose of prison. And most everyone knows that most murders are done in the “heat of the moment” when people don’t think very rationally, so they really didn’t even mean to commit a murder, also the victim is already dead and killing the killer isn’t going to bring them back! Another reason I am con-death penalty is that it fails as a deterrent. When reading online (Burgado. Death Penalty Arguments. Prodeathpenalty.com) “Some criminologist claim they have statistically proven that when an execution is publicized, more murders occur in the day and weeks that follow. A good example is in the Linberg kidnapping. A number of states adopted the death penalty for crime like this, but figures showed kidnapping increased. Publicity may encourage crime instead of preventing it (McClellan, G., 1961).” This blew my mind, it never occurred to me that publicizing the death penalty that more people would be involved with it! Also the penalty is supposed to protect people against being murdered as you would think of deterrent, but there is no evidence that this is true, declaring it non deterrent! If anything the penalty raised more murders in the previous quote to contradict this deterrent again. My third reason to be against the death penalty is because of innocent deaths and financial bias. Most people who go through trials are “pennied out” with no money after their trials. Many claim this as unfair. “Ninety-nine percent of criminal defendants end up penniless by the time their case is up for appeal” (Burgado) this being said the death penalty is breaking the