What are your views on the death penalty?

[hlthe2b]

5. I was assigned this topic as a junior high student for an essay that we were given

the entire term to research, consider and write/present prior to the end of the school year. I took it very seriously and portions of my piece were excerpted for the then-local newspaper that published both sides of the debate. Mine presented the anti-DP POV, focusing largely on two issues: 1) whether the government--any government had the right to kill its citizens-- the risks of such authority being extended beyond any possible rationale under a non-democratic change in government; and 2) the inability to prevent wrongly accused from being executed, no matter the precautions.

I've never wavered. Since then both issues that formed my argument against the DP have not only come to pass but have become clear beyond what I could have imagined at the time. In a word, TEXAS!

So many like to conflate opposition to the DP with believing all are able to be rehabilitated OR conversely that there are not some who are truly deserving of it. Neither is true for me. My reasons now are as they were highlighted in my treatise then. The act is singularly permanent and mistakes that arise can never be made right. But even more frightening is the thought of what we those in power can unleash who seek its terrorizing impacts to control more than those presumed guilty of murder.