Paper Topic:

death penalty

Death Penalty

Edward I . Koch argues that the death penalty is as important to fight injustice and deter the worst crimes as radical surgery is important to cure cancer . Both are unpleasant procedures , but these methods are to be applied for the sake of both terminally ill patients and society Murders are a social illness whose rate climbed 122 percent between the 1960s and 1980s across the United States , and those who commit them must be eliminated . Koch rejects the argument that capital punishment should be abolished because of a possibility of

executing innocent people saying that there is no policy which would be free of a possibility of error . He also maintains that if capital punishment is abolished , it will diminish the value of human life , cheapen the sufferings of victims , and jeopardize the lives of other potential victims . Capital punishment , he points out , was also supported by great philosophers such as Rousseau , Kant , Locke , and the most prominent American presidents who argued that it is indispensable to protect justice . Koch also rejects the idea that capital punishment is state-sanctioned murder arguing that , according to this logic , keeping criminals in prison should be regarded as kidnapping or taxation should be called extortion . All in all , sparing some guilty lives will result in the loss of many innocent lives (Koch 55-60

An opponent of the death penalty , David Bruck points out that capital punishment does not deter crime at all . Besides , the justice system in the United States just as...

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