Death Penalties in the United States copyright © 2000 by Chris Feltus Death should it happen immediately or should it happen in a month to 20 years? I think it's really our choice and that we should have a choice on the death penalties in how soon they should be carried out. There are way too many people on death row that should have been killed a long time ago. There are some of the people that have been killed that should probably have been given a second trial but they weren't. (The people that are sentenced to death should all be given a second trial to make it fair.) That way if there is a tie then they can then be given a second chance for their freedom. Here is one such story that happened:
There was one day when this man by the name of Max was walking along the street. Max happened to be passing in front of a store when he looked in, and to his amazement he saw that it was being robbed. He watched the clerk trying to stop the guy from shoplifting a scientific computer device. Then Max saw the clerk hit the guy, who was black. After that he saw this other black guy from some where in the store come and attack the clerk for hitting him. What Max saw amazed him, he never thought this would happen in front of his eyes.
The piece of equipment the thief was stealing was to help the guy know how to make an attack on another country. The disk had all of the instructions on it for this to happen. It also told him how to build a nuclear weapon. The guy in the store wasn't even supposed to have this disk and obtained it illegally. The FBI had been trying to track this guy for along time. The police took the guy that stole the disk downtown to the station and started to question him.
They questioned him for a long time. They asked him where he got the disk but he said that he didn't know. They then brought in the black guy who tried to steal the disk and asked him how he knew about it. He told them that he had received information about from the clerk at the store. The clerk told him that he should come steal so that they could split the ransom for it. So the guy agreed to it and went to steal it. The FBI asked him to come and testify against the clerk and he agreed They then called Max in to testify against the guy and tell them what he saw.
They finally got around to getting a court date set for the guy that stole the disk. The first day of trial came around and they went to trial and they started with the witnesses. They first called Max to the stand to testify. They asked him to tell them everything that happened and he did. He said that he was walking by and saw that they were getting into a brawl. "Then the clerk hit him." Said
Max. The guy asked him if the guy that hit him was sitting in the defendants seat. Max said "Yes."
They then called in the black guy who was hit. They asked him how he knew about the disk in the store. He said that the clerk had talked to him and he told him if he would come steal they would split the ransom. Then he went to steal the disk and got hit by the clerk. The black guy said that he was supposed to be able to just take the disk and leave. He never said what was on the disk though.
Since the disk belonged to the government, they had to go and take the case to federal court. Also, on this disk there were some blue prints on a new legal way for the death penalties for the United States. They then went on to their final arguments. Would the jury find the guy guilty or not guilty?
The jury then went into deliberation to figure it out. When they took the first poll, it came out split. So they waited around for a few more hours they then took another poll. It came to be that he was only guilty of obtaining personal property of the government and trying to collect ransom for it. They then set the trial for a death penalty. The date came around and he was sent back into court. They then took him and set him in front of a computer and typed in all of the information about him and his trial. The computer then checked its files and decided to sentence him to death by a firing squad.
The real question is. Is our death sentence cruel? Does that not fall under the 8th amendment "Cruel and unusual punishment" or is it legal? Can a person be killed in such a way that it hurts them? Do they think of the family? Take the electric chair for example. It sometimes makes them sometimes vomit and urinate all over themselves and sometimes ti even burns their skin. Isn't that cruel and unusual? The gas chamber, for example it makes people want to try and hold their breath and sometimes will go into convulsions. The hangings aren't that bad although the rope can't be too long or the persons' neck won't break when dropped. Firing squad isn't that bad either the guns are all full of blanks except for one and they don't know who has the real bullet. If I had say in the matter, I would go back to hangings and the firing squad. These methods are simple and have been tested. The death penalty should continue in the states that want it and the methods of carrying it out should be firing squads and hangings.
You are at Fruita Monument High School's Teenfinity project, an in-class science fiction magazine produced for educational purposes. Copyright © 2000