Death Penalty Position Paper

The death penalty is an increasingly hot and pressing issue in the United States because there are many strongly opinionated people, and no one can seem to find a solution that will satisfy both sides of this issue. I find it very difficult to pick one particular side because I can see and understand the arguments that both sides have to offer.

On one hand, I can see how a person would want to support the death penalty. I can only imagine how angry I would feel if I lost a loved one to a murderer. I would defiantly be in the fight for that person's death. It may not seem right to seek revenge like that, but I think it is a natural human emotion that cannot be avoided. What are we supposed to do with these murderers anyways? Should we just put them into a prison somewhere so that they can rot? I'm sure that a lot of people don't think that is strict enough. The "eye for and eye" law scheme is one of the oldest laws known to man, and I can see how that can easily be applied to this situation.

On the other hand, maybe our want to avenge a person's death is an animalistic emotion that we need to overcome. Why can't we be the better people in these situations, and work to not kill again? If we support the death penalty, maybe we are only encouraging the killing. I mean, who gives us the right to take someone's life away anyways. Maybe some of us are forgetting just how precious life is, just like the people who committed the crimes, to deserve the death penalty.

I think that I can pretty well understand both sides of this issue. However, there are a lot of people who don't, and the opinions of those people are hard to change. Therefore, in my opinion, the death penalty will probably not change. There seems to be some sort of slight compromise, and I think it should be left alone.

...