Writing to Persuade - Essay Example

003, 22) Those who want the death penalty continued often make their arguments on the grounds of philosophical or psychological speculation stating, “The fact that a state can be just and apply the death penalty does not, of course, mean that the death penalty cannot be applied in error” (Sorell, 2002, 30). A more reality-based perspective is wanted when discussing the actual issue of the death penalty. Overall, the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to many crimes, including murder.

Even though this is one of the main reasons given by its advocates, other conclusions make more rational sense. Murder, is most often done in the heat of passion or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In this state, the person is not cognizant of the outcome of their actions; they are acting on impulse rather than planning out what they are doing. And most murders do happen this way. Those that do not are generally preplanned and worked out so that the perpetrator does not expect to receive any punishment at all.

In neither of these cases is the murderer thinking of the death penalty: in the first case, they are not thinking of the future at all, and in the second, they are assuming they are not going to be caught. In both of these cases, the death penalty is not doing anything to stop the murder from happening; it is simply assuring that, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, an eye for an eye is going to keep making the whole world blind. States that do not have the death penalty do not have greater murder rates than those that do.

This exposes the practice as essentially barbaric and