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Advocating the Death Penalty Thousands of people will attack the death
penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man or woman
who might accidentally get an execution sentence. However, all of these people
are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims
who die every year by the hands of heartless murderers. There are more murderers
out there than people who are wrongly convicted, and that is what we must
remember. I, as well as many others, have total confidence in the death penalty.
It is a very beneficial component of our justice system.
The death penalty saves
lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering
again. It also deters potential murderers from ever committing the crime.
Unfortunately, the death penalty is currently used so rarely that it isn’t
nearly as effective as it could be. In order for it to work, we must put it into
practice more often. In recent years, crime in America has been on the rise, in
particular, violent crime. This has led not only to an overcrowding of prisons
in our country, but also to an increase in the number of death sentences handed
down by the courts. Despite the fact that the number of inmates on death row is
climbing, the number of death sentences actually carried out in any given year
lags far behind. People simply aren’t fearful of the death penalty when it isn’t
used the way it should be (Stewart 50).
If the death penalty has been declared
legal, then the federal and state governments must employ it to its fullest as a
means of stopping previous murderers from recommitting their crimes. Since most
of the prisoners on death row are there for murder, executing them would ensure
that they would never kill again. Obsessive murderers, who know no alternative
to killing, need to be executed to protect both prison guards and society. This
view is perhaps best illustrated through the words of Judge Alfred J. Talley of
New York who explained “If I as an individual have the right to kill in self
defense, why has not the state, which is nothing more than an aggregation of
individuals, the same right to defend itself against unjust aggression and
unjust attack?” (Kaplan 28) About two and a half years ago, my dear cousin,
Jaime, became the first victim of a serial killer named Brian Duffy.
Jaime, a
beautiful twenty-year-old college student at SUNY Binghamton, had been walking
back to her dorm after class when she was abducted by Duffy at gunpoint. Wearing
a black ski mask and gloves, Jaime’s friends were unable to identify him. Having
no idea who this man was, they watched in horror as Jaime was grabbed,
threatened, and taken away. Jaime was thrown into the front seat of a red Nissan
Sentra with no license plates. Later that day, the police located the vehicle,
which had been reported stolen, but Jaime and her abductor where nowhere to be
found. There was not a single trace of evidence except for the fact that the car
was stolen from Jaime’s hometown community.
Weeks went by and there were still
no answers until the day two women, from Syracuse University, were abducted at
gunpoint, the same way that Jaime was. The police soon realized that the three
kidnappings had significant connections linking them together. These three women
had all gone to high school together. Not only did they go to the same high
school, they had all dated the same man at one point in time- Brian Duffy. It
wasn’t long before police tracked him down for questioning. Brian Duffy was
arrested in April of 1997 for the rape and murder of my cousin Jaime and the two
other young women. They were found buried in his backyard, severely decomposed,
beaten, and raped. Each of them had a bullet lodged in their brain. Duffy was
sentenced to death two months later. He never stated a motive for what he did,
nor did he show remorse. It is now more than two years later and Brian Duffy is
still alive and breathing.
I am physically sickened when I think about how this
killer gets three meals a day and a bed to sleep in, while someone I loved
dearly lies dead in a coffin because of his actions. Brian Duffy, or any other
convicted murderer, should not have the right to lengthy appeals and court
proceedings to delay execution. It’s so difficult to understand why these
criminals have their lives preserved for extended periods of time, while the
families of the victims have to wait patiently for justice. It is simply unfair.
If the United States demonstrates that it is serious about using the death
penalty through an increased number of executions, then potential murderers will
know their fate before killing. They will know that if caught and convicted,
they will face a sure death.
In order to promote and maintain a sense of justice
and moral order, the death penalty must be used more frequently and quickly.
Because death is reserved as punishment for only the worst criminals, it is only
fitting that they receive a punishment accordingly. The judicial system should
not be afraid to retain the confidence of the public (Stewart 53). In looking
back to previous societies that relied upon the death penalty, such as ancient
Athens and the Roman Empire, one realizes the effectiveness of this sentence and
its usefulness as a tool for deterring crime (Pro Death Penalty 3). Although
there is no punishment that can entirely eliminate violent crime, a more
stringent use of the death penalty would significantly help. The United States
must allow history to repeat itself and through more severe use of the death
penalty, curtail violent crimes within society.
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