The following description is an account of how barbarous executions are. They come from an eye-witness that reported the experience to the ACLU. This was during the execution of John Evans in 1983. Please understand that these methods are still in use to this day and ready your stomach, it can be quite nauseating. "At 8:30 P.M., the first jolt of 1900 volts of electricity passed through Mr. Evans' body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flames erupted … from the electrode tied to Mr. Evans' left leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist clenched permanently. The electrode apparently burst from the strap holding it in place. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans' face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and declared that he was not dead.” That is all I will go into detail of this grotesque act against a human being. I must inform you that they continued with the execution on two separate accounts before they declared Evans to be dead. As a society, we cannot deteriorate into such a monstrous people. These are other human beings that we are killing. Not only are we killing them, we are putting them through tremendous pain. The Constitution of the United States does not allow cruel and unusual punishment. How can this not be classified as cruel and unusual? Based upon the torture that a human being is put through, the millions of dollars that are spent in death penalty cases, and the faulty process of sentencing a person to death is, I believe that we as a society cannot agree to the resolution that capital punishment is justified.

To support my case I offer the following definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New College Edition: Cruel: causing suffering; painful. Justice: Moral rightness; equity.

THE CORE VALUE THAT BEST SUPPORTS MY CASE IS JUSTICE.. Is it just to torture and watch other human beings suffer? Of course it is not. These prisoners may have killed a person and yes they deserve to be punished. That is how the concept of justice works. If you break the rules, you get consequences for doing so. Depending upon how serious of an infraction you make the bigger the consequence. The people that are killed by the death penalty do kill other people. However, do they burn people's skin and brain? No they do not. Also, if we kill these people we are giving them a way out of the world. The best way to punish these offenders is to stick them in prison for the rest of their lives without parole. The loss of the freedom in our society is a terrible punishment. The ideal goal in any society is to eventually reach Utopia or paradise. If we continue to allow the death penalty to be present in our society, than we are heading in the wrong direction towards barbarianism.

THE CRITERION TO MEASURE MY CORE VALUE IS EFFICIENCY. One of the key arguments for the death penalty is that it is the ultimate punishment and that it causes criminals to think twice before committing a crime. However, this is not the case. A recent study taken from five hundred random police chiefs shows that the death penalty was ranked last among the best ways to reduce crime. Since this study is proving that one of the main purposes for the death penalty is not actually working, it gives another reason why this should be abolished. People still commit crimes even with the death penalty still enacted. In a perfect society, justice would not be necessary since there would be no instances in which it would have to be applied. Since there has been no decrease in crime with the death penalty enacted, the death penalty is not efficient and is not lowering justice.

MONEY MUST BE INCLUDED IN THIS CASE. The reason for that being that it pertain to my criterion of efficiency. If our court systems are to be efficient, less money would be spent. However this is not the case as the death penalty spends more money on a single case than any other trial.

MY FIRST CONTENTION FOCUSES ON THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT THE DEATH PENALTY WASTES. All of these statistics come from the Death Penalty Information Center's website which is run by professors of law and current lawyers that practice. California has spent 137 million dollars in three and a half years and have not even had an execution in that time frame! The average money spent per execution is now totaled at 250 million dollars. If all these people were put in jail for life without parole, it would only cost 11.5 million dollars per year. The total national money spent by the entire nation is estimated to be about 2.25 billion dollars. All for only 1,150 people that were actually executed. Many other states also have astronomical numbers spent on the death penalty. New Jersey spent 253 million dollars and have not had in execution in twenty five years. Where does all this money come from? The answer to this is taxpayers. The Los Angeles Times reports that California taxpayers are spending more than 250 million dollars for all the cases, the appeals and all the other legal charges related to the death penalty. I have stats that I could go on for each state. During this time when money is so tight should we be spending all of this money on a punishment program that is less efficient and costs money?

MY NEXT CONTENTION POINTS OUR THE FLAWS IN THE DEATH PENALTY TRIAL SYSTEM. It is random and does not have any consistency to who is sentenced to it or who is not. So there is no sure way to stay off of death row if you commit murder. There needs to be a set law for which people are or are not sentenced to death. Furthermore, even if a person is sentenced to death there is no guarantee that the person will be killed! Only one in every three capital trials results in a death sentence. After that step, only one in every ten of the sentences are actually executed! It is completely unjust as there are people who are convicted who are not even actually executed and there are people who are executed. What separates the people who are convicted and executed from those who are not? There is not a reason behind it and that is unjust. There has to be one rule for all of the offenders, not just some of them.

MY FINAL CONTENTION SHOWS HOW BARBAROUS THE DEATH PENALTY IS. There are many other forms of execution that exist besides the more commonly know lethal injection that are still in use today. They include hanging, the electric chair, the firing squad, and the gas chamber and all of them are torturous. Hanging restricts the breathe in the body and kills a person for an agonizing 2 minutes before you are knocked unconscious. I already described the electric chair and the firing squad quite horrific. A squad of police officers shoots the target attached to the convict's chest. Usually, there are five or more guns. The gas chamber constricts the person's breathe a makes them foam at the mouth before knocking them unconscious. Can our society accept these torturous methods as a punishment for other human beings? We need to look past the primitive parts of our society when these methods took place and look forward to the future where we can progress as a society.

The death penalty is cruel, flawed, and drinks money like an alcoholic drinks liquor. We cannot allow this stain to continue on our society. It makes us less civilized and more like our neanderthal ancestors that came before us that only knew how to get the necessary needs to survive. Most of the world is against the death penalty. Nearly all of Europe has banned it as well as many Asian nations. The rest of the world needs to follow the example set by these other nations and we can move towards our goal as a society. That goal is to become a Utopian society. Sir Thomas Moore envisioned a world without pain and suffering. We have the opportunity to end some of that pain and suffering.

Works Cited

"The Case Against the Death Penalty |." American Civil Liberties Union. Web. 20 Jan. 2010. .

Dieter, Richard C. Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis. Rep. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, October 2009. Print.

Morris, Willaim, ed. "Cruel." Def. 2. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. New College ed. 1978. Print.

Morris, William, ed. "Justice." Def. 1. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. New College ed. 1978. Print.

"The New York Times Log In." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

"Number of death sentences falls to a historic low - washingtonpost.com." Washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

"The Supreme Court Is Wrong On the Death Penalty - WSJ.com." Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

"The Year in Capital Punishment: Sentences Down, Executions Up - Law Blog - WSJ." WSJ Blogs - WSJ. Web. 20 Jan. 2010. .