Both_Sides_Of_Capital_Punishment

Both Sides Of Capital Punishment Because of the grief that state-imposed death penalty bears, many attempts have been made to abolish capital punishment since the founding of the United States. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a leading medical scholar, argued against capital punishment which laid the groundwork for many debates that followed. Capital punishment is seen as a practical sentencing option in 38 states and as a consequence, arguments continue to rage over its value. (2) Today, the basis for abolishing capital punishment are as follows: that the death penalty can and has been inflicted on innocent people, it is not an effective deterrent, it is illogical by the nature of our legal system, it discriminates against certain ethnic and racial groups, and it is too expensive to justify its use. The Death Penalty Information Center claims that 98 people in 22 states have been freed from death row between 1973 and 2001 after it was determined that they were innocent of the crime of they have been convicted.(1) DNA testing plays a critical role in identifying wrongful convictions because, as Berry Scheck and Peter Neufeld state, “Unlike witnesses who disappear or whose punishment, capital, death, penalty, states, been, people, based, upon, support, studies, sentence, over, opponents, dna, deterrent, costs, wrongful, themselves, testing, state, social, since, revenge, others, nature, murder, might, legal, justify, innocent, information, idea, high, failed