Friday, August 11, 2017

Blog Stage 8: Comment on a Colleague's Work #2

In her July 30th post, The Circle of Killing Someone Who Killed Someone, Caitlin Burnette of Current Views on Government News argues against the use of capital punishment. My classmate argues that it should be eradicated because it is immoral, hypocritical, and doesn't serve justice. I fully agree with her stance on this often debated issue.

The death penalty is not only wrong but it is incredibly unproductive and expensive. Inmates can wait on death row for years after sentencing. Maintaining death row prisoners costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than non-death row inmates. Not only is is extremely costly in the economic sense, but as Caitlin pointed out, it's not uncommon for innocent men and women to be sentenced to death. Life in prison is not only a more economical approach for taxpayers, but it leaves opportunity to undo the damage of unfair sentencing.

Caitlin's argument is extremely solid because it effectively approaches the argument from multiple angles. Her use of statistical evidence and linking to outside sources expands and credits her argument further. By bringing in the Eighth Amendment, she brings in evidence directly from our nation's founders that supports her argument that capital punishment is immoral and flat-out un-American. Finally, by pointing out the hypocrisy inherent in the death penalty, Caitlin is offering a logical reason to support an end to capital punishment, offering a plausible alternative and effectively closing the argument.

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