Should the U.S. Abolish the Death Penalty?

Should the U.S. Abolish the Death Penalty?

The death penalty has provoked heated discussion since biblical times, and today the debate remains as controversial as ever. Is such a sentence ever justified? Capital punishment is an intensely emotional topic for everyone involved because it sits at the intersection of life, death and the very definition of the word 'justice.'

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Josh Marquis

America is NOT a Rogue State

Joshua Marquis

District Attorney, Media Commentator

Many democracies maintain capital punishment, not the least being India and Japan. The death penalty was abolished in Europe and Euro-centric countries because the European Union made abolition an absolute prerequiste to membership.


Polls of most western European counties show the people of those nations agree with most Americans that the death penalty is appropriate in the worst murders. 


Even some of the states that abolished capital punishment still reserve it as a possibility for war crimes or crimes against humanity, such as the execution of Nazi war criminals during the Nurenberg Trials in the late 1940s.

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Amnesty

The U.S. in in Bad Company

Amnesty International

Only a handful of countries still execute more prisoners each year than the U.S., including countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Is this the company that we want to keep?

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