The Guillotine and Capital Punishment

10/4/2021

During the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, over 300,000 people were arrested. Of those people, 17,000 were executed by the Guillotine. Many of those who were executed were victims of mistaken identity, or were falsely accused by their neighbors. Today, over 30 states in the U.S. (including the military and federal government) have the Death Penalty, or Capital Punishment as part of their State Laws. Since 1976, there have been over 1,200 executions in America.
1. Do you believe the Death Penalty should still exist?
2. Why, or why not? Consider possible innocent victims, and consider mass murderers. Give your reasons for or against Capital punishment.
3. Use evidence from the articles listed (or your own research) to support your argument.

Articles:
What Criminal Sentence Costs More: Death or Life in Prison?
https://www.thebalance.com/comparing-the-costs-of-death-penalty-vs-life-in-prison-4689874

The Death Penalty Can Ensure 'Justice is Being Done'
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/opinion/federal-death-penalty.html

Death Penalty - Equal Justice Initiative
https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/

11 Comments

Jarika Chen

9/27/2021 09:40:02 am

1. I do not believe the Death Penalty should still exist.
2. I do not trust Capital Punishment because I don’t trust the justice system. For the times that officials suspended the Habeas Corpus or the times that they’ve falsely accused innocent people, I’ve lost my trust to their power. People that were falsely accused of crimes, specifically because they are POC, had been sent to the Death Penalty. Even though we’ve signed many petitions that argue with this, they still get ignored. Giving the government the power to take a life is giving the government power which they can easily abuse. Though there are murderers and killers that should be given the Death Penalty, we should also think about those that were falsely accused and given the Death Penalty. When someone dies, there’s no going back so I am against Capital punishment.
3. From the articles, these quotes support my idea: “Our death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.” “In death penalty cases, perjury/false accusations and official misconduct are the leading causes of wrongful convictions” and “Official misconduct is more common in death penalty cases, especially if the defendant is Black”. This shows that our justice system is flawed and biased. They shouldn’t be trusted with capital punishment.

Eva Lay

9/29/2021 08:50:13 pm

1 . I do not believe that the Death Penalty should still exist.
2&3. I do not believe that the Death Penalty should still exist, because this system is flawed in many ways. First off, for someone to be sentenced to death it will cost the prosecutor/taxpayers a lot of money. In Maryland, taxpayers paid $186 million to prosecute death penalty case, putting someone in death row costs way more then a regular prision.
To me that is just a bunch of money wasted just to execute a person, the money could have been spent on bettering the community rather than using it to punish people. In the article “Death Penalty,” it mentions how our death penality system “treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if your’re poor and innocent”. With this quote alone it already shows you how flawed a biased government is towards Capital Punishment, meaning, if you have money you can bribe your way out of death, even if you are guilty of a crime; but if you're poor, oh well, so sorry, you will die regardless if you are guilty or not.
To add on this vey flawed system, in some death penalty cases, there were some false accusations and offical misconduct which leads to the cause of wrongful convictions. In 2018 alone, there was a record of 111 cases that involved witnesses who lied on the stand or falsely accused the defendant. Out of 111 cases, 50 defendants were accused of a crime they have never committed.
Now that being said, what about mass murders? Yes, mass murders are extremely bad people, but I still think we shouldn’t have the Capital Punishment even during these cases. Like I have mentioned before the prosecutors or taxpayers are the ones funding the Death Penalty, in Calfornia alone, federal taxpayers have paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars, and it costs $90,000 more a year to house one inmate on death row, where they recieve a private cell with extra guards. Because mass murderers are the bad guys, why should we the taxpayers be spending so much money just for them to be killed. Yes, mass murderers deserve to die because of all the innocent souls that they have taken due to their poor actions, but what difference does that make when they do get executed? It’s not like their death will bring back those who have sadly passed during the massacre. My opinion on this is that we let murders sit in jail for the rest of their life, so they can suffer. In the end I believe Capital Punishment should be outlawed.

Belinda Lam

9/30/2021 12:47:23 am

1. Do you believe the Death Penalty should still exist?

I personally disagree for the Death Penalty to exist.

2/3. Why, or why not? Consider possible innocent victims, and consider mass murderers. Give your reasons for or against Capital punishment. Use evidence from the articles listed (or your own research) to support your argument.

I disagree for the Death Penalty to exist because although they did something bad to the point where they deserve death, I don't think you should wish death upon someone. I think they should continue living in jail rather than being forced upon death. This also goes for innocent ones where no one listens to them pleading their innocence and is falsely accused then excepted for no reason or involvement. For the government to handle Death Penalty is awfully scary. "The death penalty in America is a flawed, expensive policy, defined by bias and error" The fact that the word "bias and error" was added into this quote means a lot. Those who were punished without any doing were sadly involved. For example, nobles complaining about a lower level for no reason and having the government on their side because they provide taxes and is rich. It seemed obvious that the government would take the noble's side and would be considered bias and someone loses their life. Overall, those who have evidence of actual mass murder, etc, they should remain in jail for the rest of their life rather than having their life ending.

Peizhen Chen link

10/2/2021 10:35:19 pm

1. I believe that the Death Penalty should not exist.
2. I don’t believe that the Death Penalty should exist because of mainly one reason; the ability for our government to abuse it. If they can suspend habeas corpus to imprison people, they can defineity use the death penalty to kill people. Many people have became victim to this and I don’t think it’s right to get a death penalty if you didn’t commit something that is worth a death penalty like murdering. To be fair, if you just accuse people and they’re innocent, you took their life so doesn’t that make you a murder too? That why I believe death penalty shouldn’t exist. Without death penalty, you can imprison them for however long it deserves, but they can still be proven innocent if they are not killed. This gives victims a fighting chance to live and survive.
3. According to Death Penalty, “It targets the most vulnerable people in our society and corrupts the integrity of our criminal justice system.” Some vulnerable people may be framed and die because of it. Also in the same article it states, “Our death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. As a result, a stunning number of innocent people have been sentenced to death.” Power, money, and fame are important factors that decide whether a person lives or not. If you have a good lawyer, it’ll cost a lot but you can win the case. Because of this poor and innocent people are victims to the death penalty. You can also get away with a lot of things by being rich and having a good lawyer.

Clarissa Tran

10/5/2021 05:52:05 pm

1. I believe that the death penalty should not exist.
2. I believe that because with the death penalty they are killing people without knowing the truth. They could be true but they can also not be true. When people say that they need a punishment, it shouldn't be death. What if their crime is not worth their lives? If someone did a small crime, are they going to get killed for it? Instead of a death penalty it should be something like jail or service for others, just something that is not death. If they kill someone that is innocent it is not like they can bring them back to life. This is why I think that the death penalty should not exist.
3. From my research I found that "The vast preponderance of the evidence shows that the death penalty is no more effective than imprisonment in deterring murder and that it may even be an incitement to criminal violence. Death-penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death-penalty states." In the article it people mention "From police officers to family members of murder victims, Americans are recognizing that the death penalty does not make us safer."

Yibo Wang (Derek) link

10/7/2021 07:54:54 pm

1. I believe the Death Penalty should NOT exist.
2. I believe the biggest reason to against the Death Penalty for most people is that innocents people may die if judges made mistakes and it will cause unchangeable result to victim's family and life. Although some very evil people should deserve capital punishments, but we can't 100% that judges will not make any mistake or this judge don't have any bias to different kinds of people. Most innocents people don't have time or money for hire a lawyer speak for them. The Death Penalty will be very unfair to low-class citizens. If judge sentence them life in prison, they still have time to prove they are innocents. Also, Death Penalty cost more money than life in prisons. The crimes in prison are still workable, they can send to factory for produce goods for government. They even can save billions dollars if cancel the Death Penalty! They can use these money for improve the prison or improve the environment that we lived.
3. From the EJI, I found "The death penalty in America is a flawed, expensive policy, defined by bias and error. It targets the most vulnerable people in our society and corrupts the integrity of our criminal justice system." Yes, the Death Penalty is very unfair to vulnerable people in our society. No one can completely sure that every people in law enforcement are treat equally to suspects, so bias is another very important problem to the sentence death to people. However, this unfair punishments is not a correct way to punish crimes, this is not the justice that everyone want.

Matthew Sarmiento

10/10/2021 02:10:11 pm

1. No. I believe that the death penalty should not exist.

2 & 3. The death penalty should not exist because it costs too much just to end a single life. According to HG.org. “it is actually cheaper to imprison someone for life than to execute them. In fact, it is almost 10 times cheaper”. The money that is used to pay for these expensive executions is taxpayer money. Instead of using this money to execute someone, it can be used to better the community. It is much more beneficial to put a criminal in jail for life, than it is to execute them. According to investopia.com, “Local taxes fund government services including police and fire services, education and health services, libraries, road maintenance, and other programs and projects which benefit the community at large”. All of the things listed above can be improved dramatically with the abolishment of the death penalty. Moreover, by putting suspects in jail for life, if new evidence is shown proving innocence, that person can be released. If they were to be killed, they would not have this chance and would be executed wrongfully. In cases such as George Stinney, a 14 year old boy, he was executed, but 70 years later, his case was considered innocent. There are other cases much like this one, and had the cases been worked on more thoroughly as they were in jail, they may have been set free and allowed to live their life again. The death penalty has many flaws that should warrant its abolishment. With it, the community can be bettered with the saved money, and innocent people can still have a chance at life instead of just being executed.

Hanna Liang (Period 2)

10/10/2021 07:00:56 pm

1. No, I do not believe that the Death Penalty should still exist.

2. Although there are some people in the world who have done terrible things, I do not believe that their sentences should be death. Typically, these people would not act this way if something or someone did not provoke them to do so, which (in most cases) proves that their actions are not solely their own fault. I believe that even the worst criminals deserve a chance to redeem themselves and attempt not to correct the wrongs that have already been done, but to do better in their future. I personally perceive the Death Penalty as inhumane and an unnecessary extreme punishment, wiping out the hope for people to lead better lives with a fatal blow. However, some people may advocate to keep the Death Penalty. Some reasons for capital punishment may be that an individual (or group of criminals) has been consistent in their crimes. This may be shown as them being pardoned from death and going out of imprisonment to do the same crimes over and over again, depicting that they are a danger to society. Another reason that some may believe that the Death Penalty should exist is as a means to punish mass murderers. They believe that a life should be avenged for a life, without looking at what circumstances the murderer was under. In my anti-death penalty perspective, the murderer could have been someone who was in need of serious mental health treatment and the murder could have been their response to a traumatic experience. In this way, even the people who have done the most wrong still deserve to be heard and validated- you never know what someone else is going through if you do not live life in their shoes. In addition, death penalties are shown to be more prevalently given to those in lower classes than those who are rich, as well as also being given to certain races of people more than others. This proves that the death penalty is biased and unfair to society, which are not attributes a just system of criminal punishment should have.

3. Evidence for my claim is stated in the article “Death Penalty” written by the Equal Justice Initiative. A quote that supports the perspective that the death penalty is biased towards people of certain races is this: “Official misconduct is more common in death penalty cases, especially if the defendant is Black. Data shows that 87% of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 67% of white death row exonerees.” Another quote that proves the death penalty’s inhumaneness is shown in the section of this article relating to mental illness. It states that individuals “with mental illness are more vulnerable to police pressure, are less able to give meaningful assistance to their counsel, and are typically poor witnesses.” In these ways, having a sentence of death put onto an individual with mental health issues is equivalent to killing someone who does not know how or what they did was wrong. In addition, cost is also a huge factor. Although some may believe that ridding the world of its criminals through death is easier than keeping them in prison, the costs for death penalty deviate from their views. According to the same article, the “death penalty cists taxpayers more than life without parole.”

Kyra Lau

10/10/2021 10:34:06 pm

1. No, I don’t think that the Death Penalty should still exist.

2. There will always be people in our world doing bad things and committing crimes that they shouldn’t, but death should not be the answer every single time for it. Yes, death sentences may only come when the individual or group has exceeded a certain amount of chances, but still. Sometimes the people that did those bad things or committed those crimes were affected by emotions or my someone else behind who were impacting their actions. It may true that they should learn to control that and know the right thing to do, but there may be times that it just can’t be controlled and whatever happens, happens. I think that even if this individual or group has committed crimes or done bad things that are so bad that they can’t be resolved with just punishments, they still should be given a chance to prove themselves, as discussed about before in Habeas Corpus. In my own opinion, I think that the Death Penalty is a harsh, unnecessary solution that is abused by officials or the people that issue them. It makes sense that the Death Penalty is issued for individuals or groups if they hadn’t learned their lesson from before and still went back to commit the same crime or even worse. If you think about it, death penalties in the past with the guillotine or in present day death penalties are mainly issued to individuals or groups based on their race or social/economical class, which as it can be guessed, would mainly be the lower class.

3. In the article “Death Penalty” by Equal Justice Initiative, the author stated under the first sub-heading, “Our death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. As a result, a stunning number of innocent people have been sentenced to death.” This supports my claim and response above because as I had said, the Death Penalty is mostly only issued to people of the lower class, which is a very big disadvantage to them because in our society, we all know that the lower class has always made up a big percentage of our population. Which also means that at this point, any lower class individual who commits a bad enough crime that qualifies for this harsh penalty, then there would be a very big possibility that the Death Penalty could be issued to them. These individuals didn’t even need to commit something or be apart of something, they literally could just be standing there minding their own business and would all of a sudden be issued to a death sentence. It is crazy how life can potentially change so quick for someone who didn’t even do anything wrong. Another quote from this article is “In death penalty cases, perjury/false accusations and official misconduct are the leading causes of wrongful convictions.” This supports my response above because at this point, it is basically proven that once again, people don’t have to be in the wrong to receive a punishment as harsh as death. If you look at it, it doesn’t matter to the officials if that person was actually in the right or in the wrong. It just so happened that they are in the lower class and received this unjustified life changing result. “Official misconduct is more common in death penalty cases, especially if the defendant is Black. Data shows that 87% of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 67% of white death row exonerees.” This statement shows that not only does social/economical class status has something to do with receiving a death penalty, the individuals’ race also plays a big factor in the results. In a way, it can be said that people of the white race have more advantages of getting away with things than people of the black race. “A person doesn’t have to be innocent to be wrongly sentenced to death. The intense pressure to obtain a death sentence and the political stakes for police, prosecutors, and even judges can cause serious legal errors that contribute to wrongful convictions and death sentences.” This statement shows that it may not even be the individual’s fault at all and it was all caused by the officials’ side of the situation. Since polices, prosecutors, judges, and other officials have such a big say in situations or matters like these, they really have the most impact on the final decision made. Lastly to end off these evidence statements, under the second sub-heading, the author wrote, “The death penalty is mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire an effective lawyer.” We all know how important it is to have an attorney or lawyer present in these cases, but if the individual or group has no access to it financially, physically, or mentally, then there’s nothing that can be done to help them protect themselves. Yes, there may be people that can help them with hi

Nashali Diaz

10/10/2021 10:37:48 pm

1. No, I don’t think that the death penalty should still be around.

2. I believe that the death penalty shouldn’t be around because there should be other ways to give people punishment for their crimes. I do believe that their punishment should be harsh but not to that degree. In my opinion Capital punishment is very outdated and shouldn’t be legal because of how much chaos it caused back then in the Reign of Terror. Also in a way executing the criminal will probably only give relief to that person because they won’t be having to suffer being in prison for the rest of their life. I also don’t think it’s right that people of color are more likely to be executed than people who aren’t. The author from the article the “Death Penalty” states that “Two thirds of people executed in the 1930’s were black, and the trend continued”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they are killing more African Americans than Whites. It’s sad to see that “race still influences who is sentenced to death and and executed in American today”.

Jiajia Chen Zhen

10/10/2021 11:41:08 pm

1. I believe that the Death Penalty should not exist.
2. I'm against Captial punishment because I believe that there are innocent people that are falsely accused of something they didn't do. Not everyone can afford to hire a lawyer that can help defend them and not everyone get to speak up to defend and protect themselves. Putting someone be sentenced to death costs more money than life in prison. I believe that everyone should deserve a chance to learn from their wrong and correct it. Mass murderers are really bad but I don't think it is necessary to spend a lot of money just to put them to be sentenced to death. They could instead spend their whole life in prison. Poor people can't do much to defend themselves while the rich people can get away from their wrongdoing. According to (ACLU), "The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime... The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates". The death penalty is a waste of money and it is also not beneficial. Having the death penalty does not decrease the rate of murder. After all, I believe that the death penalty should not exist because it cost more to be sentenced to death than life in prison.

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