8th grade Amendment debates

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-voices-victims-families

Victim's Brother says Execution Left Him with "horror and emptiness"

Ronald Carlson wanted vengeance when his sister was murdered in 1983 in Texas. But when he witnessed the execution in 1998 of the person who committed the murder he changed his mind. In a recent op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Carlson said he had no opinion on capital punishment before his sister’s death and remembers feeling hatred and “would have killed those responsible with my own hands if given the opportunity.” But he later discovered that, “Watching the execution left me with horror and emptiness, confirming what I had already come to realize: Capital punishment only continues the violence that has a powerful, corrosive effect on society.”

Carlson said he sympathizes with other victims’ families, understanding how they would want to see those who killed their love ones suffer the same fate. But, he said, “[O]ur justice system should not be dictated by vengeance.” He asked, “As a society, shouldn’t we be more civilized than the murderers we condemn?” Carlson has spent over half of his life examining this issue and has come to believe, “We as a society should not be involved in the practice of killing people.”

(R. Carlson, “Time to end the death penalty’s cycle of violence,” Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, August 3, 2008).

http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=1715

William J. Brennan, JD, Justice of the US Supreme Court, in the July 2, 1976 dissenting opinion in Gregg v. Georgia, stated:

"Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment... The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats 'members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. [It is] thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.' As such it is a penalty that 'subjects the individual to a fate forbidden by the principle of civilized treatment guaranteed by the [Clause].' I therefore would hold, on that ground alone, that death is today a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Clause... I would set aside the death sentences imposed... as violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments."

or in other words, the death penalty is cruel and unnecessary. You could put somebody in jail for the rest of their lives, but killing them is wrong. It is as if because the accused did something wrong, they are no longer people, and don't have human rights.

That is not what matters. It is saying that people get in more trouble for killing white people then killing black people or Hispanics.

http://deathpenalty.org/section.php?id=13

The millions of dollars spent on executing the accused could be put to better use, like helping the families of the victims, helping them with counseling and getting over the trauma.

wheres your link? We will consider this invalid if you dont have proof.

http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/teacher/c/about/arguments/argument3a.htm

that doesn't seem to work very well, because when cases were retried, over 80% of the people on death row were not sentenced to death and 7% were completely freed of charges

The death penalty: Killing people that kill people to show killing is wrong

I tried to open the link, but it says page not found. That doesn't seem very reliable

If the court would not make an incorrect decision, why are 1 in 8 people put on death row innocent? If an automobile company had these statistics, they would be run out of business.

Race has a hand in which people that are sentenced to death. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/death-penalty-statistics/, 76% of the victims in the death penalty case are white, 15% are black, and 6 are Hispanic or other. This shows that people who murder whites are more likely to be put on death row than people who murder black, or Hispanics. They say the death penalty is fair, but this doesn't seem very fair to me.