FREE ESSAY ON DEATH PENALTY

DEATH PENALTY

The Death Penalty
The Debate over the merits of capital punishment has endured for years, and continues to
be an extremely indecisive and complicated issue. Those opposed to capital punishment
point to the Marshalls and the Millgards, while defenders point to the Jeffery Dahmers
and John Wayne Gacys. Society must be kept safe from the monstrous barbaric acts of these
individuals and other killers, by taking away their lives to function and perform in our
society. At the same time, we must insure that innocent people such as Marshall and
Millgard are never convicted or sentenced to death for a crime that they did not commit.

Many contend that the use of capital punishment as a form of deterrence does not work, as
there are no fewer murders on a per- capita basis in countries or states that do have it,
then those that do not. In order for capital punishment to work as a deterrence, certain
events must be present in the criminal's mind prior to committing the offence. The
criminal must be aware that others have been punished in the past for the offence that he
or she is planning, and that what happened to another individual who committed this
offence, can also happen to me.
But individuals who commit any types of crime ranging from auto theft to 1st-Degree
Murder, never take into account the consequences of their actions. Deterrence to crime,
is rooted in the individuals themselves. Every human has a personal set of conduct. How
much they will and will not tolerate. How far they will and will not go. This personal
set of conduct can be made or be broken by friends, influences, family, home, life, etc.
An individual who is never taught some sort of restraint as a child, will probably never
understand any limit as to what they can do, until they have learned it themselves.
Therefore, capital punishment will never truly work as a deterrent, because of human
nature to ignore practised advice and to self learn.
There are those who claim that capital punishment is in itself a form of vengeance on the
killer. But isn't locking up a human being behind steel bars for many years, vengeance
itself? And is it humane that an individual who took the life of another, should receive
heating, clothing, indoor plumbing, 3 meals a day, while a homeless person who has harmed
no one receives nothing? Adversaries of capital punishment claim that it is far more
humane then having the state take away the life of the individual. In February 1963, Gary
McCorkell, a 19 year old sex offender, was scheduled to hang. But just days before his
execution, the then Liberal cabinet of Lester Person commuted McCorkell to life in
prison. Less than 20 years later, McCorkell was arrested, tried, and convicted for the
kidnapping and rape of a 10-year old Tenessee boy. He was sentanced to 63 years in
prison. Prior to leaving Canada, he was sought by Metro Police in the attempted murder of
an 11-year old boy.
What has been gained by this? Had McCorkell been executed in 1963, two boys would never
have had to have gone through the horror of being sexually abused. These individuals may
themselves become sex offenders, as many sex offenders were sexually abused as children.
McCorkell may have been a victim of sexually assualt in the past, but that does not
justify what he did. He did not do this once, he killed two boys, and assaulted two
others, leaving one for dead. He knew exactly what he was doing. What right does this man
have to live? He has ruined the lives of 4 children, what will he do in life that will
compensate for that? What kind of a life would the state have been taking away in this
case? An innocent life? A forgiving life? No, a life that was beyond the realm of reform,
and did not care to be.
We must be careful. We must be very careful to never, even when suspicion may cause
considerable doubt, send an innocent person to be executed. It could have happened to
David Millgard, it could have happened to Donald Marshall. It probably has even occured
numerous times in the history of the earth. But with proper police investigations, and
where the evidence shows that the individual is a threat to the peace of society as long
as he or she is alive, capital punishment must be used.