Beginning of Essay
Capital Punishment is an Unlawful and Ineffective Deterrent to Murder The United States is one of the few countries left in the world to practice the savage and immoral punishment of death. Retentionists argue that the consequence of death prevents people from com ....

Middle of Essay
.... behavior more effectively than imprisonment does (“Against the Death Penalty”). Although the argument may sound reasonable, in reality the death penalty fails as a deterrent. First, punishment can only be a useful deterrent if it is rational and immediately used. Capital punishment cannot meet those conditions. The number of first degree murderers who are sentenced to death is small, and of this group an even smaller number of people are eventually executed. Moreover, the possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed by requiring mandatory death sentences was declared unconstitutional in 1976 Jewett ....