Daliab's Waterfall
As we have made lots of different points against the death penalty we hope you changed your view point of it. We have stated that it can go wrong in many ways. We posted 3 cases that prove that point. We have also have shown you lots of evidence about the drug shortage in U.S.A and how that causes lots of unnecessary pain to victims. Families of the victims need conselling and help, the death penalty keeps the families of the victims in the process and doesn’t give them time to grieve. It is time for a change and many states(Nebraska at this very moment) and other nations have started.
21,000 cases of which 27 were death penalty cases might have been flawed. The FBI has acknowledged that their forensic unit has given false testimonies. There microscopic hair unit has been giving flawed testimonies for decades, by matching crime scene hairs with the hair of a defendant's accused of those crimes. FBI laboratory reports have shown that positive identifications could not be made through hair association. So different hairs could be coming from the same person with near certainty. In the 268 examined so far, forensic experts exaggerated the certainty of matches between crime scene hair and the hair of the defendants. The testimonies favored prosecutors 95% of the time. The FBI admitted to providing inaccurate testimonies in 32 capital trials in which defendants were sentenced to death. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, said, “These findings are appalling and chilling in their indictment of our criminal justice system, not only for potentially innocent defendants who have been wrongly imprisoned and even executed, but for prosecutors who have relied on fabricated and false evidence despite their intentions to faithfully enforce the law.” This is a major disaster as it has connected innocent people to crimes they haven’t commit. This also shows that innocent people die from false information. This is not fair on the victims.
Sources:http://www.washingtonpost.com/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
That was long time ago. As the world is starting to change and evolve now a lot of things are changing. For example we don't hang people anymore in the USA. Other countries have also abolished the death penalty. So that isn't really a good point.
Another horrifying story about the pain victims have to go through, is the story of Romell Broom. Broom was supposed to be executed in 2009 but it was stopped because officials failed to get a needle into his veins. Officials tried for more than two hours to stick a combination of 3 drugs into his veins. They pricked him 18 times before they finally called it off. "The pain made me cry," Broom said. Sticking a needle into someone 18 times for two hours is definitely a “cruel” punishment. The issues with lethal injections made states look at new ways to execute people as a back-up plan. Tennessee has made the electric chair a back up plan. Do you think this is fair and not "cruel"??
Source:http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/
This link shows lots of examples of executions gone wrong and a picture of Broom arms after he survived the execution: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
Who said this?? Already other nations are strictly against the death penalty. The European Union is strongly against the death penalty. Its abolition is the main key for the Unions human rights policy. The EU is the biggest donor to the fight against the death penalty. The EU says: “The death penalty is cruel and inhuman, and has not been shown in any way to act as a deterrent to crime. The European Union regards abolition as essential for the protection of human dignity, as well as for the progressive development of human rights.” So if the European Union(Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK) can govern the people without the death penalty so can U.S.
Source:http://eeas.europa.eu/humanrights/adp/indexen.htm http://eeas.europa.eu/humanrights/guidelines/deathpenalty/docs/guidelinesdeathpenaltyst08416en.pdf
So if so many countries already are against the death penalty why is America not??
Your source http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/ 04/supreme-court-to-decide-constitutionality-of-lethal-injection-drugs/; doesnt work!
Maryland was the most recent in 2013. New Hampshire came very close to becoming the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. The repeal lost by one single vote! Nebraska is also questioning the death penalty. There has been a massive change the past few years in opinions of the death penalty in states.
Lots of things can go wrong in the execution of a person. For example Dennis McGuire’s case in Ohio or Clayton Lockett’s case in. His execution took nearly 25 minutes which was 10 minutes of struggling and gasping. McGuire was executed with a mix of drugs that had never been used before in a lethal injection execution. This violated the 8th Amendment “no cruel or unusual punishment.” Since he suffered for 25 minutes. His daughter Amber McGuire said:“I can’t think of any other way to describe it than torture.” Thirty two states permit the use of lethal injections during executions but the nationwide drug shortage is making it hard for them to find new ways to execute people. Ohio used different drugs on McGuire because the manufacturers of other drugs used in executions don’t export them to be used for capital punishment anymore. The drug used on McGuire was called midazolam which was also used in 5 other executions that year. One of them being Clayton Lockett’s execution. Lockett’s execution took 43 minutes until he was declared dead. One of his veins blew after injecting one of the three drugs, which prevented the drug from effectively going into his body. Under the 8th amendment it is stated that “no cruel or unusual punishment” is allowed to be used. What happened to McGuire and Lockett is cruel. Even though they have done a crime they shouldn’t have to suffer in their execution.
Now that sounds like a really "cruel" punishment.
This is from the article: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/cruel-and-unusual-punishment
The drug shortage in the U.S. is forcing them to use a lot of back up drugs that have not been used before. Most executions in the U.S. used a simple 3 combination drug formula. In 2009, 50 out of the 52 people executed used the 3 drug combination. Most of America’s drugs came from European companies but now the companies are refusing to sell their products to be used for executions. Hospira was the main manufacturing company that supplied drugs to the U.S. When they backed out U.S. went to Lundbeck a Danish company which protested the use of their drug in executions.This is forcing the U.S. states to start experimenting using more/less drugs or less effective ones. It is also forcing states to turn to other choices like electric chair(Virginia), firing squad(Wyoming), and the gas chamber(Missouri).
“In 2014, we have a far riskier, more haphazard lethal injection procedure than we ever have had throughout the country,” said Deborah W. Denno, a death penalty expert and a professor at Fordham Law School.
“Despite all the litigation that has occurred…lethal injection has never been riskier or more problematic than it has been within the last four or five years, because of the drug shortages,” Denno said.
Experimenting different drugs on people isn’t right and can cause lots of unneeded pain.
Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Where are your 3 points that you are going to argue? You say that the death penalty is not "cruel or unusual," but you have no proof. More states are starting to question the death penalty. Currently 18 states have officially abolished it since 2007. The most recent in 2013.
Hello,
I’m Yaashna, and this is Kendra and Dalia.
Today we will talk to you about the death penalty and if it should be allowed under the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments from being inflicted upon the accused. We think that capital punishment (the death penalty) should not be allowed as it is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment.
These are the points that we will argue today:
Firstly, sometimes the judge doesn’t have all the facts and evidence needed to make the judgment, or the accused doesn’t have a good enough lawyer to defend them. The jury can make a rash judgment and their decision is final. Once a life is gone, it can’t be recovered. Not even after some hidden evidence has been found to prove that the accused is innocent.
Secondly, the death penalty can go wrong. Often, the argument is that it is painless and quick, but when it goes wrong it can cause excruciating pain for hours. For example, the lethal injection often reacts badly with people, and does not kill them straight away.This has happened in many cases, where people have had to suffer for a long time.
Often these executions can be quite expensive. The millions currently spent on the executions can be used to help the murder victim’s family, to help pay for counselling and other ways to get their lives back on track.
We will be presenting these points with a variety of sources, information/facts, and evidence to prove our point that there are other measures that can be taken to avoid the death penalty.
