Article Rebuttal: Taking a Stance Against Capital Punishment
NAME
BCOM 275
DATE
INSTRUCTOR

It is no human’s right to take another human’s life; Therefore, the United States should stop the use of capital punishment. My heart goes out to the victims, and victim’s families, of crimes that are currently punishable by way of the death penalty. I could understand the deep yearning for justice. The death penalty is not the answer.

Currently, the only crime punishable by the death penalty is murder. However, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, or the DPIC, (2010) the state of Louisiana has administered the death penalty twice for the crime of raping a child. Some states are fighting to broaden the crimes punishable by death, but have not succeeded. After Louisiana administered the death penalty for rape, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional because the degree of punishment exceeded the degree of the crime (DPIC, 2010).

Some may argue that it costs more to give a criminal a life sentence versus the death penalty; however, quite the opposite is true. For example, in the state of California, it costs an average of $90,000 more to put someone on death row versus placing them in a maximum security prison with no chance of parole (DPIC, 2010). Research also shows that there is no significant deterrence to committing murder because of capital punishment. According to Donohue (2010), “evidence suggests that the death penalty may increase the murder rate although it remains possible that the death penalty may decrease it. If capital punishment does decrease the murder rate, any decrease is likely small” (The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence, para. 33).

As a country based on Christianity, I feel it is important to look to the Bible for a more simplified stance on the death penalty. The Official King James Bible Online (2010)