Final Draft

  2011 in America, Troy Davis set fire to the long debated issue, the death penalty. Davis was a convict in death row in America. He was accused of murder and got executed in 2011.The surprising fact that startled people all over the world was that there was no physical or concrete evidence indicating he was the murderer. The victim was shot, but no gun was found. By the logical reasoning the government is pursuing, he shouldn't have been accused from the first place. Nevertheless, only based on witnesses's testimony, he was found guilty and was sentenced to death because the state he was living adopted death penalty. 7 out of 9 witnesses confessed that they were forced to testify, however the confessions were too late. It was after Troy Davis's execution in 2011. Many people mourned for his death for there was hope that a young possibly innocent man could have been found innocent and have lived if the state didn't adopt the death penalty. His death threw a heavy question about the modern society's policy, the death penalty. If he was an innocent man, he is a representative victim of this policy. Not only there are victims that result from the mistakes made in the process of the penalty such as Troy Davis in this case, but adopting death penalty doesn't have enough advantages than not adopting it. Therefore, the death penalty is right to be and should be abolished.

  Death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is a punishment that legally executes a criminal whose crime regards lives of people. Currently 58 nations adopt capital punishment, 98 nations have abolished it , 7 nations have abolished it for only ordinary crimes, and 35 nations are not using it practically. Technically, most of the countries are abolitionist and 90% of all executions are performed in Asia. According to 'death penalty information center', death penalty states have higher murder rates than non-death penalty states.

Murder Rates in Death Penalty States and Non-Death Penalty States in U.S. (murder rates investigated by FBI)



 Murder rates in non-death penalty states grow down more and more each year, faster than death penalty states so that the murder rate percent difference in two areas increased from 4% in 1990 to 35% in 2009. As you can see, the background information shows that the death penalty is an old-fashioned vice so that people should pursue not adopting it.

  Death penalty should be abolished because its original purposes and anticipated results are inappropriate in modern society. Death Penalty's original goals, revenge and eliminating dissidents, are too ancient to be conducted nowadays. They were very significant goals that should be kept over the rights of people in ancient times. However, these days it is a widely known wisdom that revenge cannot help anyone related to the crime let alone the victims. Revenge cannot help or solve anything. Also, in contemporary society, eliminating dissidents only exist in societies of dictators because dissidents are meant to exist as long as people have their basic human right to think in the way they want to think. Therefore, death penalty is inappropriate to be used in modern community.

  Also, death penalty ignores people's rights. People's right is a crucial social issue that cannot be ignored when debating about death penalty. For hundreds of years people had fought and earned their rights, but in the death penalty system, people ignore such rights just because they are the ones of criminals. They are the same humans as innocent people and thus should have equal rights as innocent people. That doesn't mean criminals are innocent people. They should be punished in proper ways since they have committed crimes. However the fact that they are guilty and deserve to be punished doesn't entitle innoent people to throw away criminals's rights in the name of law. Even though they have committed crimes, they are still humans just like us. Also, the death penalty violates the rights of the physicians that work in the death penalty execution sites. When doctors become doctors, they make an oath called the Hippocratic Oath of basic ethical foundation of doctors which includes always working for the health of people. Therefore, making them perform the execution is forcing them to break the oath and possibly gives them unforgettable memory of guilt. That is violating the rights of the physicians. Whether they chose to work doesn't matter because some might be subtly forced by the things such as financial difficulties and needing of jobs. Considering these, death penalty should be abolished if people care for criminals and physicians's rights.

  Anticipated opposing argument against my thesis is that the death penalty prevents crimes by making the would-be-criminals afraid of the punishment, which is death in this case, of their behaviors. This argument could be true when considering criminals that are only brave enough to commit crimes when their lives are guaranteed to be safe. However, according to the previously mentioned survey conducted by 'death penalty information center', the visible result is actually opposite of their argument; death penalty states have higher murder rates than non-death penalty states. Murder rates in non-death penalty states grow down each year and that reduction is faster than that of the death penalty states so the murder rate percent difference increased each year. This survey shows that the opponent to the abolishment of the death penalty has already failed to meet their anticipations and is keep insisting it irrationally hoping it would work someday.

  We are living in a rational world. As humans evolved, they became intelligent and logical. People became able to know that logic, reason, and effects should be the goals in their lives in order to survive. However, there are still some things that cannot be explained rationally. Some of them, such as love, sacrifice, and other emotions, are good enough to remain unreasonable, but the vices, the things that are just too old and too stiff to follow up the growth of the consciousness of people, cannot be ignored nor remain so. Letting them exist is actually not that different from blinding yourself while one man's life is in danger in front of you. If death penalty remains, victims of this old-fashioned vice system will come out. Victims such as Troy Davis will keep coming up. This cannot happen. This should be kept from happening while it can be by abolishing irrational death penalty.

References

•Death Penalty Information Center (2011) Deterrence: States Without the Death Penalty Have Had Consistently Lower Murder Rates Retrieved from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates

•James R. Acker (9/16/2011) Davis case helps focus on what's wrong with death penalty Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/21/troy-davis-10-reasons

•ProCon.org ( 4/13/2009 ) Top 10 Pros and Cons - Should the death penalty be allowed Retrieved from http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000

•Wikipedia (2014) Capital Punishment Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment

•Wikipedia (2011) Troy Davis Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis