Jared Smith

Mr. Taylor
Law, Pd. 1
6/4/15
The Death Penalty
The article on the controversial topic of the Death Penalty talks about the pros and
cons on it. There are some people who are against it, like the man in an audience during a death
penalty trial in 1982 undressed himself and acted in a bizarre way in opposition to the death
penalty. Some other people know it isnt always the way to go about things, but agree with it as a
necessary evil. When the author of the article arrived in Helinski, Finland for the celebration of
the U.S. and Finlands fortieth anniversary of being allies, the conference that was held had
different variations of the question of why the U.S. still has the death penalty. He couldnt
answer in a favorable response to justify the death penalty being in effect here. One of the
alternatives to the death penalty would be life in prison without possibility of parole, which all of
the non-death penalty states generally use. The death penalty cannot span to every person guilty
of a murder though. For example, Nixon v. United States essentially ruled out the execution of
mentally ill criminals because of their incapacity of being able to tell between right and wrong so
they are given treatment in a mental facility for life. Criminals of 16 or 17 have been ruled out
too because of their excuse of immaturity in the case of Roper v. Simmons. Another thing to
question about the death penalty is our method, which was upheld was Baze v. Rees where they
administer three medicines to paralyze, nullify the pain, then end their life. But overall the death
penalty has been justified by our constitution and again, a necessary evil that is used.