Michael Shofi

Title: “To Kill the Death Penalty”

Specific Purpose: To persuade the audience that the death penalty should not be legal in the

United States.

Thesis Statement: The lawful execution of citizens is immoral and unproductive especially as

there are flaws in the judicial system.

I. Introduction

A. Story of seeing To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway. In rural Alabama a black

man named Tom Robinson is sentenced to death by electric chair for a crime he

didn’t commit.

B. The death penalty has been used as a punishment for thousands of years, but even

though our society has progressed, the death penalty remains an outdated,

inhumane and unproductive method of punishment.

C. Capital punishment is legal in 29 US States and there are currently ~2,673 people

on death row. As tax paying American citizens, we are all funding these people

to stay on death row for years at a time. And it is much more expensive to keep

prisoners on death row than in prison.

D. As human beings we can imagine how traumatic it must be if you were wrongly

accused of a crime, but also how absolutely devastating it must be to receive a

death sentence. There are mountains of evidence suggesting innocent people have

been put to death and even exonerated after the fact.

E. The main aspects of the death penalty in America I will be focusing in on are:

1) Ineffective form of crime control and unproductive financially.

 2) Violates human rights. Innocent people put to death. Psychological torture.

3) Addressing arguments FOR the death penalty (and then shooting them down).

Transition: I would like to begin by addressing the notion that the death penalty may deter people

from committing crimes. That is absurd. Do you really think an individual about to commit a

crime like murder would stop to think of the consequences? Or that falling asleep before dying

of lethal injection would be more deterrent than a life spent in prison, stripped of their liberties?

II. The death penalty is an ineffective form of crime control and unproductive

financially.

A. “The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it.” -

Amnesty. Capital punishment will not deter crimes. Only if the punishment is

immediate and consistent (everyone is put to death after murdering someone) will

it work, but that is unconstitutional (Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280).

Evidence: “Although death sentences in the mid-1990s increased to about 300 per

year, this is still only about one percent of all homicides known to the police. Of all

those convicted on a charge of criminal homicide, only 3 percent – about 1 in 33 – are

eventually sentenced to death. Between 2001-2009, the average number of death

sentences per year dropped to 137, reducing the percentage even more. This tiny

fraction of convicted murderers do not represent the “worst of the worst”.” (ACLU)

B. The capital punishment costs more than life imprisonment and is therefore a less

economically sound option for taxpayers in society.

Evidence: “Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the

annual costs of the present system ($137 million per year), the present system after

implementation of the reforms … ($232.7 million per year) … and a system which
 imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty

($11.5 million).”

-California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, July 1, 2008”

(Amnesty).

Transition: So we can all agree that capital punishment is not helping society as a whole, but now

let’s take a look at how it affects the individuals subject to this brutal punishment.

III. Beyond being an unproductive financial burden and an ineffective form of crime

control, the death penalty is inhumane and often deathly inaccurate (putting innocent

people to death).

A. Lethal injection is the most common form of administering capital punishment,

but it is also the most expensive. Some states deal with instances where the

criminal does not die immediately, thus becoming torture and a cruel and unusual

punishment.

Evidence: “State courts and lower federal courts have refused to strike down hanging

and electrocution as impermissible methods of execution.” (Cornell). “It is estimated

that 3% of U.S. executions in the period from 1890 to 2010 were botched.” “8,776

people were executed and 276 of those executions (3.15%) went wrong in some

way.” (Death Penalty Info)

B. Innocent people have been put to death so many times over the course of history

because of their race, sexual identity, outdated evidence analysis, etc.

Evidence: 14 year old George Stinney “On June 16, 1944, he was executed, becoming

the youngest person in modern times to be put to death. On Wednesday, 70 years

 later, he was exonerated.” (Washington Post). That was in rural South Carolina in the

Jim Crowe era, and George was black.

Transition: Often, I wonder how people can get behind the death penalty, and I have to put

myself in their shoes… I think a lot of the time they really just don’t know the facts, but here’s

what people in support of capital punishment may be thinking:

IV. If prisoners with life sentences escape, they can kill again. Killing the murderer may

give comfort and resolve to families of the murdered.

A. While both valid thoughts, they are both driven mainly by negative emotions like

vengeance and paranoia. The possibility of a prisoner escaping from prison in a

maximum security life imprisonment is very slim (nearly impossible)

Evidence: “No inmate has escaped from federal supermax prison.” (Politifact)

B. The argument that it provides solace for the victim’s family is purely emotional

and more than often untrue. Most people who have viewed executions are sick

and regret watching afterwards.

Transition: So what is keeping capital punishment legal in over half of our country’s states?

Conclusion: It is the evil that rears its ugly head even in a so-called “civilized” country. It is the

darkness in the light. The yin in the yang. I hope that now you have all learned enough about

capital punishment to know how much of a plague it is in our nation.

Interesting ending: Rodney Reed is a man from Texas charged with the rape and murder of a

woman, Stacey Stites. He has been on death row since 1998 and is scheduled to be executed on

November 20th. However, apparently the woman’s ex-fiancé Jimmy Fennel (a police officer)

admitted to the crime while serving time for sexual assault. Although this should exonerate

Rodney Reed, he remains on death row as of now. There is a change.org petition.

Sources:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions

https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/death-penalty-fast-facts/index.html

https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/

https://www.aclu.org/other/case-against-death-penalty

https://www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/18/the-rush-job-conviction-of-

14-year-old-george-stinney-exonerated-70-years-after-execution/

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/21/barack-obama/obama-correct-

no-inmate-has-ever-escaped-supermax-/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/11/06/texas-plans-execute-man-this-month-

murder-his-lawyers-say-someone-else-confessed-crime/

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-execution-of-rodney-reed