The True Cost of Capital Punishment | Teen Ink

The True Cost of Capital Punishment

July 25, 2015
By jackulas BRONZE, Flower Mound, Texas
jackulas BRONZE, Flower Mound, Texas
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, please take a moment to allow me to welcome you to the year two ­thousand and fifteen.

 

This is a great year because the United States will graciously bestow upon us the opportunity to murder dozens upon dozens of living, breathing, human beings; like you and me! We must be so grateful that our tax dollars are spent towards obtaining revenge rather than frivolous things such as education and health care. In addition, when you consider that a capital case only costs one million dollars more than a regular murder case and includes a show… it is a no brainer!

 

The funny thing however in regard to legal premeditated murder is that people in our society are concerned about the ethics of it. This of course is absurd because this practice allows us to share the moral high ground with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea. If we lose this moral high ground, the United States may as well cease to exist on this planet, or we would end up like Europe or Canada saying "sorry" following every sentence. In addition, we would have no place in telling other countries what they should and should not do out of moral beliefs. Strange, right?

 

And still, there are some citizens that regard legal premeditated murder as an act that “violates the eighth amendment”. Their ignorance however is amusing as the death penalty was in Hammurabi’s Code, and when has Hammurabi’s Code ever steered civilization in the wrong direction? Honestly who cares about the Constitution when it says capital punishment is just in Hammurabi’s Code? Hint: no one.

 

Plus, legal premeditated murder has thousands of advantages in itself! For one, it has a “deterrent effect” on potential criminals. This is extremely important because they are definitely going to stop and think about the consequences of their actions before snapping and killing your family in blind rage. Sleep better now honey!

 

On top of this all, legal premeditated murder provides political figures tangible evidence that they are “tough on crime” which in “no” way means that they are willing murder a few people for your vote. In addition, legal premeditated murder provides much needed closure for the executioners who truly exemplify the fact that not all heroes wear capes. They shall inspire generations to come. I guess you could say legal premeditated murder benefits the victims of crimes too. I mean who would not want to be a victim of a crime or know a victim and have to wait every day for give or take twenty years, in search for closure and in the end never finding it. Of course, in the meantime the media would constantly be surrounding you with memories from your horrible past. Sounds splendid if you ask me! Is there a waitlist, or can I sign up right now?

If you really think about it, as a society we are doing these prisoners on death row a favor. I would not say that they should be kneeling down to us and kissing our feet, but they should be pretty damn close. This is because out of the kindness of our great big hearts we give them a last meal before they are executed, which is probably an inmate's only chance to ever have filet mignon. Allow me to explain; our completely unbiased justice system “coincidentally" convicts more minorities and people with a background of poverty than anyone else. I have no clue how it happens... they definitely are not easier to convict or anything like that... nonsense. One prisoner even said that as a child he “often had to go dumpster diving at night for food”. Now we are giving him filet mignon, “you're welcome”.

 

The best part about the death penalty however is the show it puts on for the rest of us! Now I regret to admit that in recent years the entertainment factor has significantly declined to the point where I had to drop its rating on Yelp down to a two. In the past with the guillotine, the noose, the firing squad, the gas chamber, the electric chair, the entertainment factor was off the charts. Especially when you viewed a botched execution, and you saw the victim suffering in extra pain and agony while their skull was blazing and their eyes were popping out of their head! Ahh... those were the good old days! Now we have to settle for this lethal injection crap which paralyzes the victim so we can’t even see the pain they have while the last excruciating drug burns through the courses of their veins. How inconsiderate it is of people! It is incumbent that people in this society are more thoughtful and sensitive, and realize that us spectators are humans too and we deserve to be treated as such. We do not need them degrading the quality of the show for us anymore than they already have. Why can they not just understand that their Broadway show is our execution chamber; everyone has their own niche. I bet if they saw an execution too they would be sold, especially considering the “mysterious” factor of it which includes way more suspenseful moments than their silly little plays on Broadway.

 

This “mysterious” factor of legal premeditated murder delivers the BEST natural high... even though there is nothing natural about putting another human to death. Do not think too much about things like that though... just remember: ignorance is bliss. So the great thing about this “mysterious” factor is that you do not actually know if you are murdering the right person or not. Since three to five percent of people murdered by the state are innocent it proves to be an amusing game with people guessing which victims are innocent, and which victims are guilty. Now I know, I know, that is exactly what the court does anyway but it still provides a great, light­hearted pastime. However, one must not be silly enough to think that a person’s conviction even has the remotest possibility of being incorrect. It is naive to think up something like that because a conviction is written in the law and the law and its process shall always be deemed correct. In addition, even if we do execute wrong people once in a while, what are a couple innocent lives worth? We should be more concerned that if we did not execute all these innocent people, the executioners would not have jobs and imagine the impact and the toll that would take on their families. This is why it is crucial to think rationally through issue such as this before drawing conclusions. One could only imagine what would happen to that poor little family of the executioner if we did not.

 

Legal premeditated murder may be a complicated matter surrounded by a lot of debate for some mysterious reason, but in the end, the choice is simple. Either stop punishment by death or let the innocent take their last breath.


The author's comments:

I was inspired to write this piece with the goal of illustrating the madness of capital punishment after a very frustrating class debate. In my opinion, capital punishment should be a non-debate, and I don’t understand how people can support it.  I recall having nightmares as a child about the subject, and in my mind if something our society does causes a small child to have nightmares, then we probably should seriously reconsider what we are doing. 


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