Death Penalty

The United States has several ways on how criminals should be punished. The most important punishments are serving time in prison and the death penalty. The death penalty is the worst punishment that a judge could sentence a defendant. The death penalty should be removed from the punishments the United States provides for its defendants, because in many cases it is not a 100% chance that the defendant did in fact commit the crime. In cases where the defendant actually did commit the crime, they should still be convicted a life sentence in prison, rather than the death penalty. If the death penalty is sentenced to a defendant, who according to evidence presented in court did in fact commit the crime, instead of this being the worst thing that could ever happen, it could be an easy way out; the defendant to not serve a life sentence. When it comes to money, the United States may be spending more per having prisoners serve life sentences, then sentencing the life sentence. However, the death penalty is still not a way of justice. The death penalty is a waste of taxpayers' money, and has no public safety benefit. Instead, the death penalty has a main motive of revenge, instead of justice. The death penalty can be considered as violating the U.S. Constitution, because it is considered a cruel and unusual punishment, and the guarantees of the due process of law and of equal protection under the law are violated. The States should not give themselves the right to kill human beings, whatever the crime may have been, it is much more revenge than it is justice. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the majority of the law enforcement professionals, surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crimes. It is obvious that even law enforcement professionals do not agree with the death penalty. The death penalty does not stop crimes that continue in the streets every day, it only kills one human being who may have committed the crime they are being accused of. If money is the issue for having too many prisoners, there is such a thing as rehabilitation centers, which is what prisons are sentenced certain amount of time to serve in the first place. It is much better to have someone spend their life in prison, rather than giving them the easy way out through the death penalty. The doubt of someone actually committing the crime they are being accused of, and going forward with the death penalty is a doubt that will not go away. The fact that an innocent human being was sentenced to the death penalty is a life that is lost and cannot be gained back. The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death, is that it treats members of the human race as nonhuman, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. Lives should not be toyed with when facing a severe punishment as the death penalty. Aside from the death penalty being the worst punishment, the need for a physician to be present to conduct the procedure is in violation of the oath they take upon, which is to protect lives; this erodes public confidence in the medical profession. The use of a physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than promoting an individual's health and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of medicine, which is to do no harm. Instead of the death penalty being a way of stopping crimes, the fact that one person is being named for committing a crime is not accurate, it violates the Constitution, and more importantly those physicians who are certified to save lives , are going against their oath and helping with the prosecution.