Patten 1

Sydney Patten
Mrs Byers
Developmental Writing
19 May 2016
The Death Penalty: A Necessity in America
In August of 1974, 85 year old Opal Cooper was minding her business on a nice summer
evening in her little home in Indianapolis, Indiana. She may have been drinking tea and going
over the days events. Did she remember to get eggs at the grocery store that day? Has she sent a
birthday card to her granddaughter yet? Her mind was beginning to wind down and relax enough
to go to bed until, suddenly, Howard Arthur Allen burst through the door and demanded that she
give him her money and everything valuable she had. She screamed, as any frail lady would in
this situation, and began to cry and beg that the man would not hurt her. Apparently that sort of
answer was unsatisfactory for Mr. Allen, because he proceeded to beat poor Opal to death. Opals
last sight was of a monster on a rampage. After killing Opal, Allen robbed her and went on his
way. For this crime, Allen was only sentenced 2 to 21 years in prison for the charge of intentional
manslaughter. He was in prison for only 11 years until he was paroled in January of 1985. After
that, he went on to break into the homes of four more elderly people, causing two of them to die.
The ones that did not die were either extremely injured or, as a coming home gift from Mr. Allen,
had their house burnt down. If the United States had been in agreement with me during that time,
three innocent elderly people would not have died. The death penalty should be legal and
enforced everywhere in the United States for crimes such as first degree murder, second degree
murder, and intentional manslaughter.

Patten 2
Capital punishment has been used by different governments and societies all over the
world for as long as people have been on this earth. There have been different methods of going
through with it, whether it be the blunt bludgeoning of cavemen or the swift guillotine of French
revolutionaries. These days, people mostly use methods such as lethal injection, electrocution,
gas chamber, hanging, and a firing squad, though the latter three are very rare. The majority of
states in America still have the death penalty classified as legal, but it has been abolished in
states like Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. Besides the United States, many other countries
permit the death penalty, including Thailand, India, and Japan. In early American history, the
death penalty was used to punish people who committed the crimes of rape, robbery, forgery,
and murder (Capital Punishment). Hanging was the most popular method of execution in this
time. Between that time and 1967, the number of executions steadily rose year after year. Then, a
moratorium, or temporary ban, of the death penalty was put on America for a number of years.
After the moratorium was over, many of the states decided that the death penalty was
unconstitutional and decided to keep it permanently banned from their state. Since then, it has
been a topic of heated conversation and arguing sides.
Some abolitionists, or people against capital punishment, try to use different reasons to
dispute the fact that legalizing it is the right thing to do. They like to argue that because of
litigation costs, [the death penalty] costs much more than life imprisonment (Death Penalty),
so we should not even bother with it. They also like to say that the death penalty does not serve
as a deterrent for further crimes of the same sort. Another idea they are fixated on is the idea that
the person on death row might later be discovered to have been innocent. To this, I say that if
they are really worried about that, we need to invest in making our justice system more efficient
and accurate as well.

Patten 3
The cost of capital punishment versus the cost of life imprisonment is a big topic of
debate and one that many people are confused on. I believe that, even though capital punishment
cases cost more overall than life imprisonment cases, they are worth investing in and making
legal everywhere. It is worth the extra money because the money works towards ensuring the
finality of the punishment. According to DAurora, Death penalty cases cost more than ordinary
cases because all the lawyers, judges, and other personnel will put more hours into preparing,
trying, and reviewing the issues, given that a life is at stake. What this means is that capital
punishment cases only cost more because people are putting in the amount of effort that all cases
deserve but not all receive. If people argue that this is a cause of useless spending, they must not
realize how much actual useless spending goes on every single year in this country. In 2009, the
U.S Department of Health and Human Services gave a grant worth about $800,000 to a
foundation in Washington D.C. to draw in the yuppies (Gardner Selby). For claritys sake,
yuppies is a term used to describe college students looking for a good place to live or hang out
in. Anyway, this is a better example of lack of fiscal responsibility or usefulness in America than
the amount of money spent on ensuring the safety of our citizens and the punishment of our
worst criminal through legalization of capital punishment.
Making the death penalty legal would ensure that no murderers or otherwise violent
people escape from prison or hurt other people even when they are being contained. Most people
that murder have the mentality that its okay to do again when they feel like its necessary.
Unstable people like this can resort to violence if they are simply given a look that they dislike.
We have men and women working in the prisons alongside people who have murdered, maimed,
and injured that do not deserve to work in constant fear of accidentally triggering the convicts
urge for violence. Along with the correctional staff employed at prisons around the country, other

Patten 4
prisoners are murdered as well, prisoners who may deserve the punishment given to them but do
not deserve death. From the years 1999 to 2008, 77 prisoners were killed by another prisoner
(Bureau of Justice Statistics). Many deaths and injuries, including the deaths and injuries of
correctional workers, could have been avoided if all murderers had been executed. An example
of this would be the case of Corey Jackson. While awaiting transfer to another prison for the
three life sentences he got for murdering three teenagers, he slashed a handymans face that
worked at his current facility (Pataki). Other violent acts resulting from overpopulation in prisons
such as riots could be reduced if the death penalty was made legal. Overpopulation in general is a
problem that faces many prisons. Prisons housing significantly more inmates than a design
capacity based on sixty square feet per inmate are likely to have high assault rates (Gaes).
Protecting the lives of citizens outside of prisons and working inside prisons is one reason to
legalize capital punishment.
One of the main purposes of any type of punishment is to teach people a lesson or give
certain things a negative connotation. The death penalty fulfills this purpose by acting as an
effective deterrent for murder and manslaughter; many people will think twice before deciding to
kill someone if they know their life could be lost as well because of it. When America went
through a moratorium concerning the death penalty from the years of 1967 to around 1977,
homicide rates went way up (Fox). This happened because the negative connotation attached to

Patten 5
murdering people was not as strong. After the moratorium, it was difficult to lower homicide

rates to what they were before.

Murder rates, which had trended downward since 1935, took off almost vertically
after 1963, the year the Supreme Court started overturning state death penalty
convictions on a routine basis. With capital punishment in abeyance, homicides
rapidly climbed to unprecedented heights. From 4.9 per 100,000 in 1963, they
doubled to 10.1 per 100,000 in 1972, two years after the Supreme Court finally
overturned all existing capital punishment statutes. The national homicide rate
reached a peak of 10.7 per 100,000 in 1980. And after a decade of dalliance when
states condemned over 2,000 to death but executed only a handful, the rate was
still at 10.5 per 100,000 in 1991. (Tucker)
From this data, it is easy to ascertain that the death penalty is truly an effective deterrent for
horrible crimes that is essential in the fight to keep homicide levels low. To prove this fact, Isaac
Ehrlich created a study in 1973 to discover how many lives were saved for every one murderer

Patten 6
executed. His research showed that for every murderer executed, seven innocent lives were
saved. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies (The
Death Penalty Prevents Future Murderers: Agree). I believe in the Latin phrase lex talionis,
which means an eye for an eye in cases like this (Carmical). If we cannot save the initial
victim, the least we can do as a society is eradicate the threat of more innocent lives being lost.
However, because the death penalty acts as a deterrent, it should lower the number of innocent
lives lost anyway if it is legalized everywhere. Simply put by Nancy Reagan, I think people
would be alive today if there were a death penalty (16 Pro Death Penalty Quotes by Presidents
of the U.S.A.).
Taking everything into consideration, it is clear that making capital punishment legal
countrywide would be the best thing for all innocent citizens, at least for crimes like first degree
murder, second degree murder, and intentional manslaughter. There is plenty of evidence
suggesting that the death penalty is useful in that it helps protect our citizens by discouraging
further crime, and it lowers the number of riots and outbreaks in prisons. For everyone who
wants to protect their loved ones and families who could very well meet a murderer sometime in
their life, I implore you to think about this topic and do some research yourself. Think about how
much safer all of America would become if capital punishment was made legal across the whole
country. Instead of letting sadistic people who maim and then murder people live a life of ease in
a prison with three meals a day, shelter, learning centers, and plenty of chances to kill again, we
need to make sure they never get that chance. It is our moral obligation to end the less than
appropriate treatment of murders in this country. We must not forget about all the innocent
victims and possible victims. America should avenge those lives lost; we should legalize capital
punishment in every state.

Patten 7

Works Cited
"16 Pro Death Penalty Quotes by Presidents of the U.S.A." Pro Death Penalty Quotes.N.p.,n.d.
Web. 05 May 2016.
"Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) - Federal Prisons." Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
Federal Prisons. Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d. Web. 11 May 2016.
"Capital Punishment." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law.Ed.Donna Batten.3rd ed. Vol. 2.
Detroit: Gale, 2010. 246-252. Opposing Viewpoints in Context.Web. 4 May 2016.
Carmical, Casey. "Capital Punishment Is Morally Justified." The Ethics of Capital
Punishment.Ed. Christine Watkins. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. At Issue. Rpt. from
"The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?" Casey's Critical Thinking Jan. 2010.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context.Web. 8 May 2016.
D'Aurora, Jack. "COSTS: Why the Death Penalty Costs So Much." DPIC. The Columbus
Dispatch, 8 Aug. 2012. Web. 02 May 2016.
"Death Penalty." Death Penalty - Michigan in Brief. Michigan in Brief, 01 Apr. 1998. Web. 03
May 2016.
Fox, James Alan. "Homicide Trends in the United States." Bureau of Justice Statistics (n.d.):
11. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Web. 15 May 2016.
Gaes, Gerald G. "Effects of Overcrowding in Prison, The 6 Crime and Justice: An Annual

Patten 8
Review of Research 1985." Effects of Overcrowding in Prison, The 6 Crime and Justice:
An Annual Review of Research 1985. HeinOnline, n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.
Gardner Selby, W. "Roger Williams Says $765,828 in Federal Money Spent to Subsidize
Pancakes for Washington Yuppies." @politifact. Politifact, 11 July 2012. Web. 10 May
2016.
Leibowitz, David. "Capital Punishment Is Just." Problems of Death. Ed. James D. Torr and
Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from
"Death Penalty Showdown: It Is Just, Legal, and Supported by a Majority." Arizona
Republic 16 May 1999. Opposing Viewpoints in Context.Web. 3 May 2016.
Pataki, George. "The death penalty brings justice." Corrections Today 58.5 (1996): 30.Academic
OneFile.Web. 3 May 2016.
Rafferty, Shannon. "Shannon Rafferty E-Portfolio." Shannon Rafferty EPortfolio RSS.
Pennsylvania State University, 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 03 May 2016.
"The Death Penalty Prevents Future Murders: Agree." Welcome. Michigan State University
Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information Center, n.d. Web. 12 May 2016.
Tucker, William. "Capital Punishment Reduces Murder Rates." Does Capital Punishment Deter
Crime?Ed. Roman Espejo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003. At Issue. Rpt. from "Capital
Punishment Works: The States That Execute Murderers Have Seen the Most Rapid Decline in
Murder Rates."Weekly Standard (13 Aug. 2001). Opposing Viewpoints in Context.Web. 3 May
2016.