death-penalty-essay

Are you looking for some help with writing your capital punishment essay? Before you find out how to work on this paper, you need to understand why this topic is important. Capital punishment has been a controversial issue for many decades. Whereas some people opine that the death penalty plays a particularly important role in criminal justice, others consider it highly unethical. The question of whether the death penalty ought to be implemented raises many concerns and biases in the present-day society. Although this penalty has existed since the ancient Babylonian period, many people believe that it is to be abolished due to many reasons. This practice continues nowadays even in the most progressive and civilized countries in spite of their technological, educational, and demographic advancements. The opponents of the death penalty believe that by retaining this form of punishment, society cannot get rid of its barbaric nature. Since this topic is controversial, a capital punishment essay is one of the common assignments given to students in educational institutions. Professors usually assign such tasks as they help them evaluate students` analytical skills, expertise, as well as their research abilities. If you have never worked on such an assignment before, you will take advantage of reading our guide as it includes a number of efficient tips and practices.

What Is the Definition of Capital Punishment?

In a nutshell, capital punishment or death penalty is a practice sanctioned by the government in which the person is put to death as a punishment for a particular severe crime. Being one of the cruelest forms of criminal penalty, it may be carried out in the form of lethal injection, hanging, or electrocution.

The main purpose of the death penalty is to decrease the number of horrendous crimes in the world. Being a legal punishment ordered by the court, it is not a violation of criminal law. Each state has its own methods of the death penalty. Nowadays, capital punishment is abolished in many countries because of its cruel nature and the obvious death penalty negative effects. Yet, in such countries as Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Iran, etc. it is still widely used.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment?

Positive Effects of Capital Punishment

It is not a secret that the death penalty is one of the most extreme punishments for criminals. Only those criminals, who commit the most terrible crimes can be sentenced to death. Although this punishment type is very cruel, it has some positive aspects. Find these aspects below:

  • It reduces the occurrence of crimes. Capital punishment is given to criminals committing the most brutal offense. In the countries practicing the death penalty, criminals will have to consider everything before committing the crime. Thus, it may lead to lowering rime rates;
  • It helps the victim`s family get relief. The execution of the death penalty will bring a feeling of satisfaction to the victim`s family. After getting relief, they can step on into their lives;
  • It ends the life of brutal criminals. Capital punishment is the most effective way to stop the activity of brutal criminals, maniacs, serial killers, etc. What is more, keeping them in prison for their whole life will cost a lot. Thus, the death penalty enables the state to economize money.

Negative Effects of Capital Punishment

Along with the obvious positive effects of the death penalty, one may also investigate significant disadvantages of this punishment type:

  • Punishment of innocent people. Such cases are very rare, but it is worth mentioning that some innocent people were killed because of the faulty system and jurisdiction. They were mistakenly considered guilty as they could not provide appropriate evidence of their innocence;
  • The act of killing is inhuman. Some people reasonably claim that people cannot take the lives of others even though they have committed crimes. Thus, many nations refused from it;
  • No chance for improvement for criminals. The death penalty leaves no chance for atonement. Some people can make the right conclusions after the court and dedicate their lives to serving for good.

Now you can present your view on the question: “What are pros of the death penalty?” The next step for you is to learn how to choose a good topic for your essay.

Capital Punishment Essay Writing Prompts

You already know that the capital punishment problem has been an important theme for debates for many years. Whereas some people talk about the unethical nature of this punishment, others consider it the only option to make justice. No matter what position you are going to support in your paper, we strongly recommend you choose a good topic.

Writing an argumentative essay on capital punishment can be challenging but a good topic will make the writing process enjoyable. Once you receive this task, you need to carry out preliminary research to find out what aspects you are willing to explore in your essay. By choosing the topic that matches your research interests, you will be able to make your paper look engaging, informative, and thought-provoking. In case you have no ideas for your essay against capital punishment, you may take a look at the prompts collected by our writers:

  • The description of the death penalty in media;
  • Negative effects of the death penalty;
  • Crime and punishment in the present-day world. Should the death penalty be abolished?
  • Why may capital punishment hurt poor people?
  • Are there any positive effects of the death penalty?

Consider that your essay is to be written from scratch in accordance with the instructions provided by your tutor. To avoid plagiarism, you need to cite each idea taken from outside sources following the formatting style mentioned in your prompt. Once you have selected a topic for your essay, you may start working on it.

How to Write an Essay on Capital Punishment?

Below, you will find a couple of suggestions that will help you create a good-looking essay about the death penalty:

  • Make sure to study the subject in a proper way. Even if you know what to write in your paper, you need to conduct in-depth research collecting relevant information from credible sources;
  • Create an outline. A good outline will serve as your roadmap during the writing process. This means that it will help you understand what information to include in your essay and what order to follow;
  • If you are unsure how to structure your death penalty argumentative essay, you may check some examples available online. Such an approach will help you develop your paper in accordance with the common standards and criteria of academic writing;
  • Create a strong thesis. No matter what the subject of your argumentative essay on the death penalty is, you need to create a good thesis statement that will help your target audience understand the central idea of your paper. Your thesis is to appear at the end of your introduction;
  • When suggesting any opinion, make sure to support it with appropriate evidence. For instance, if you are investigating the cons of the death penalty, you need to provide appropriate examples illustrating your viewpoint;
  • Format your paper accordingly. Each paper has to follow a certain formatting style, APA, MLA, Harvard, or any other. We recommend you study the prompt carefully to find out what formatting requirements to follow;
  • Revise your paper. Once your document is ready, you need to review it to make sure it is flawless.

As you can see, writing a student essay on death penalty is rather challenging and effort-consuming. If you do not think you can cope with this task successfully, we recommend you make a rational decision and order professional help at our service. With us, you will manage to boost your academic results without compromising your personal life. Dedicated, responsible, and hard-working, our experienced specialists can comfortably work with diverse capital punishment essay topics.

Get a Free Sample on Capital Punishment Essay

Closing statement for the prosecution

Good morning. We are coming to the close of the trial as all witnesses have given their testimony and all evidence has been presented. It has been several days since you were first introduced to the defendant and his crime, so let us briefly review what has happened. It is very important to consider all the details of this case to see that there was a plan created and a plan carried out and that plan was to kill his wife. The defendant lied to everyone about what had happened, including this court, and if the hasn’t been keen he would gone away with it.

The defendant and his wife had lived together for good length of time and even had three children together. During the decline of their marriage they both tried to resurrect what they had with little success. The evidence produced in this court suggests that they even went on a cruise ship in hope of finding their love back but this did not help at all. Certainly, their marriage had reached a dead end a separation or a divorce was on its way either soon or later. Indeed the marriage was not only on the verge of breakdown but was experiencing serious financial problems that would still haunt the spouses even after their breakup.

It was at this time that Mrs. Mathisen came in contact with another man, Bill Peloza. She started having an affair with the Peloza and in fact to her husband about it when he asked her. The evidenced provided here suggests that she probably hoped to get married to Peloza after her device from her first marriage. Mr. Mathisen must have realised that it would not be possible to restore their marriage to its previous state of glory. Indeed, after snooping on his wife and Peloza using telephone recorded communication between the two, he realised that they loved one another and as a result the marriage could not be salvaged. The defendant told the court that he went a head to delete his wife as a beneficiary of his insurance policy and replaced her with his children. Clearly, he could not withstand the pain of letting his wife go, a wife, I believe, he had already lost and was merely holding on the hope that something can be done to revert the situation.

Mr. Mathisen must have been planning on how to get back at his wife all this time. This explains why he found a reason for suspicion in her change of behaviour. He says he suspected that his wife was trying to kill him by poisoning him. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that his wife was trying to kill him. All the food and drinks he provided for poison testing contained not evidence of poison of toxins. This certainly makes his judgements of his wife’s actions very questionable. Mr. Mathisen would like the court to believe the story he has created to keep his motives hidden. It is most likely that he had been trying to find a justification for killing his wife. He plotted a plan to kill his wife and make it look like he did it in self defence. When he says that a fire had been lit in the kitchen to burn him and then put of again, it’s also ironical that his wife would have put of the fire to burn him and then put it off again. If she had intended to kill him the she would have poison one of the many beverages and meals that she had served him before.

Even in the circumstances leading to the death of Mrs. Mathisen, she repeatedly told the defendant that there had been no poison in the meal and drinks she heard served him and made it clear that she would have wished him a natural death just like everyone else. Clearly, Mrs Mathisen had no intentions of killing her husband. Mr Mathisen merely came up with a motive to kill his wife because he was going to loos her. He therefore comes up with a noble idea to depict Mrs Mathisen as a potential killer and ends up killing her then claims that it was manslaughter.

Also, according to pathological evidence provided by Dr. Chitra Rao who conducted an autopsy on the body of Mrs. Mathisen, there is adequate physical evidence on the body of the deceased to suggest that she had been murdered intentionally. Dr. Raos examination revealed that Jane Malthisen had a blunt force injury on her face and her body. She sustained bruises on her hands, chest, arms and right shoulder. She also had haemorrhages on her epiglottis, chin, eyes and cheeks due to application of pressure on her chest and neck. She had also five broken ribs on her left side. Certainly Mrs Mathisen had died as a result of strangulation and blunt force on hare body and face.

There is no evidence to justify manslaughter, there is no evidence that Mrs Mathisen tried to kill Mr. Mathisen. Therefore, this is not manslaughter but murder of the first degree. Furthermore, the judge made no mistake in his judgement in convicting Mr. Mathisen of first degree murder.

Persuasive strategies

In this statement I have used logos which rely on logical thinking to create s persuasive closing statement. It involves deductive reasoning and uses evidence to support a premises in order tom persuade the jury and the judge. Deductive reasoning begins with general information then moves to specific information. The thought that Peter had the intentions of killing his wife stems from the fact that he purports that his wife had been trying to poison him yet he went on drinking and eating all the drinks and meal that she served him. It would have been ideal for him to stop taking the drinks and the meals if he suspected ill motives on her side. Unfortunately, Peter went on taking drinks and meals and finally decided to confront his wife when he though the time was right to eliminate her. All the suspicion is a reason coined up the excusing him for murdering his wife since the samples of food provided did not test positive for either poison or toxins.

Logic is also applicable in trying to convince the jury that the defendant ha put on the fire in the kitchen trying to commit suicide and it was not his wife as he would want people to believe. It is illogical that his wife would try to light a fire to burn him and the house and put it off again. In fact, she was not around at the time the defendant claims to have been awoken by smoke. She only came in a few minutes later.

In this closing statement, ethos as a strategy has been used to point out the fact that killing amounts to murder and Mr. Mathisen is a cold blood murderer who conjured up a plan to kill his wife.

Closing statement for he defence

Good morning everyone. We have met her several for trial and now we have come to the end of this case. Hopefully you observed, throughout this trial, as I did, that Mr Mathisen a victim of circumstances. He was and is an Average Joe. Before I go any further, it is important to remember that as long as there is doubt that Peter Mathisen is truel a cold-blooded murderer as the prosecution makes him out to be, he is still innocent. Just as each of you has the right to be innocent until proven guilty, so does Peter. You must have noted that there is no actial evidane indicating that he murdered his wife. The events that occurred were blown out of proportion despite that fact that what happened was merely an accident.

It is apparent that Mr Mathisen and his wife found themselves in a rather unfamiliar state after having been a good couple and even had children out of their marriage. Things went sour along the line and they realised that they had to do something to salvage the marriage. The even went on a cruse ship with little success. Certainly, no one can put up these great efforts only to end up murdering the person he is labouring. It would be totally ridiculous and ironical. Mr, Mathisen wanted on the best for his family, he even telephoned Mr Bill Peloza, his wife’s affair partner, to try and keep of his wife because they were trying to revitalize their marriage. The evidence provided indicate that Peter is a very calm person, and was still calm during the meeting with Bill Peloza. Murderous man would have pounced on Peloza and strangled him. Peter however did not do that. He maintained his composure and calmness through out the entire meeting made his point; he did not at all try to force his will on him.

Being human Peter’s suspicion of his wife attempt to kill him was not entirely wrong. Each one of you would have suspected the same. It is difficult to explain how a wife who had not served his husband any drink or meal for a quite some time would start doing it while they are on the verge of a separation and a divorce. Furthermore, the meals and drinks served seemingly had a funny tested. Though the tests done to determine whether there was poison or toxins in the foods served revealed nothing, the poison experts revealed that it is very difficult to find anything in the sample if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. This means that there might have been poisonous or toxic substances in these samples that could not be found since their presence was not suspected and were that not tested for. Though Mrs. Mathisen said she had not poisoned the food during the struggle with her husband, she expressed her desire that he should die. This certainly shows that at one time she had tried to kill him or would try to kill him and thus Mr Mathisen’s suspicion indeed had a basis. In this regard, we can all see that Peters action were a product of fear. He feared that his wife wanted to kill him and as a result tried to get her to confess. This resulted in to a conformation that ended up claiming her life.

Also, despite Mr. Mathisen having caused the death of his wife, he had no intention of killing her and can’t therefore be branded a cold bloodied murderer. At the time of her death, Mr Mathisen had pressed her on the floor and kneeled on her chest it is this pressure that caused her haemorrhages, asphyxia and her death rather than intentional strangling. Although the medical evidence suggests that the deceased might have been a victim of strangulation, medical experts also provided information that the injuries in her face and neck could as well be a product of the efforts to resuscitate her.

We all heard that it is Mr Mathisen who calls for held; as such it would be ironic that Muthisen a cold bloodied murder would call for help instead of finishing off his wife and burning the evidence. Indeed Mr Peter Mathisen is not a murderer and had not intention to kill his wife. He was merely worried and cared for his own life. As such he wanted the deceased to tell him weather there was poison in the meals and drinks he had prepared for him.

In the previous trials, the trail judge had made several errors or judgements that were not consistent the provisions made by the law. The erroneous judgements certainly affected the verdict that was given. There were four in total and they included the failure of the trial judge to the jury with to main self defence provisions of the criminal code,ss. 34 (1) and 34 (2); according to the law the trial judge erred by failing to properly failing to instruct the jury properly on the defence of accident; the judge further left out the evidence provided by two video taped statement that Mr. Mathisen had made to the police just after his arrest; and last, the trial judge erred by failing to provide an summary of weaknesses in the testimony that had been provided by the Crown’s Pathologists.

It is wise to reconsider the sentence since Mr. Peter Mathisen is not a cold blood murderer. It true the action of Mathisen led to the death of his wife. However, it is also evident that what he did was in self defence and he did not at all harbour the intent of terminating his wife’s life prematurely. What he did was manslaughter and not murder.

Persuasive strategies

In the writing of the closing statement for the defense logos was very useful. Logically change in the behavior of a person which is contrary to the dictates of the moment can raise great suspicion. Mrs. Mathisen had not served her husband with any food or drink for a long time. However, when they are on verge of a divorce she suddenly starts to serve him. This is very strange. Mr. Mathisen’s suspicion was certainly not wrong, something fishy was going on and he had to find out the truth.

Logos is also applicable in understanding the circumstance leading to the death of Mrs. Mathisen. Her husband did not intend to kill her and it is even evident that he called for help when he realized that she was not breathing.

Also, there is evidence that Mr. Mathisen was a composed person. He was never violent and his meeting with Mr. Peloza clearly understands this. Therefore it is highly unlikely that he was trying to kill his wife, since he loved her and was trying very much to save their marriage.

Ethos is has also been useful in this closing statement. It is known that killing is not ethical and when someone tries to kill you have to defend yourself. Mr. Mathisen was certainly trying to find the best way of killing her husband. Mr. Mathisen however, noticed this before she could kill him and tried to find out the truth and defend himself. Unfortunate his wife died during the process.

All in all, the theme of capital punishment still requires further investigation. Since the topic is debatable, there are many opinions about it. If you find it too difficult to understand how to write an essay about death penalty, you may look for some free samples available on our website. Alternatively, you may order our expert writing help and one of our seasoned writers will provide you with a customized paper tailored to your instructions. Our cooperation will be maximally comfortable and hassle-free. So, why are you still hesitating? Just let us provide you with a brilliant death penalty essay example and you won`t regret your choice!

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