According to one of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not kill.” Killing has always been considered a sin. Not just plain murder, but also suicide, genocide, and even mercy killing. This is why the death penalty is unfair. Despite the fact that killing is amoral, we allow a legal form of it called execution, the punishment for committing a certain crime or more. This is called the death penalty.
Whenever a court sentences someone to death, they are really being just as sinfiul as the criminal who may or may not have killed somebody. The court is ordering it because they just do not want to risk this type of criminal escaping prison and killing more people. At the same time, they are trying to scare the other people into not committing heinous crimes. But if this is true, then why does it seem like people are still taking the risks of committing their crimes?
It is because the death penalty, like any other punishment, is just a weak effort to prevent crime. Even prison is a weak effort, because even though they exist to scare people into not getting imprisoned jailed, or arrested, we still have prisons being filled with new criminals every day. However, imprisoning a criminal is not a sin, unlike execution. If anyone has the right to carry out a killing punishment, it is God.
God is the only one who has the right to vengeance, and execution just seems like a vengeful form of justice being carried out not by Him, but by us. However, God can be merciful, just like how His son, Jesus, forgave an adulterous woman, saying “He him who is without sin cast the first stone.” So if any human being has the right to be an executioner, or even demand capital punishment, it should be someone who has never committed sin. Nearly everyone on Earth has without a doubt committed a sin, probably without even realizing it, and besides, whoever was sentenced to death was could have been innocent all along.
There have been at least eight people from 1915 to 2004 who were executed and were later found to be innocent. For example, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for having committed arson in Texas that killed many people in 1992. But later on, the Texas Forensics Science Commission found out that the “arson evidence” was misunderstood and the fires were really just accidents. Because of a foolish mistake, an innocent man was put to death, never got to live out the rest of his life and became a victim of both stupidity and a sinful law. And at the same time, he may have had friends and family who were no doubt hurt from his death and later on horrified by the revelation that he was innocent.
Friends and family members of executed criminals suffer as a result. These criminals are forced to leave all their loved ones as they await their faith. A criminal could be the father of two children and a husband, or the son of two loving parents. Whenever someone is killed, these kinds of people are inflicted with a terrible loss that they will have to come to terms with while after spending grieving.
The death penalty is a terrible punishment that should not be done by us mortals but by God instead. A criminal may not even deserve the punishment, and loved ones would go through a terrible loss. We must learn to be merciful and just because somebody deserves a certain punishment based on opinion, it does not mean that they should get it in return.

Capital punishment or “the death penalty,” and by any other name commonly used, is fairly uncommon (though not unheard of) in modern America. The eighth Amendment, which protects U.S. citizens from cruel and unusual punishment, was ratified in December 1791. Despite this, capital punishment is protected in the constitution, because it was not ruled cruel or unusual, and left as a state’s right on decision to enact.
Capital punishment was ruled constitutional and should continue to be used for safety and authoritative reasons.
Execution makes a very serious statement on the law; some degrees of crime are not tolerated and quickly put to a halt. Because of the severity of the statement, death sentences are not doled out on the regular, and acquiring one takes a very serious form of crime usually equating to mass-murder, genocide or torture. People that are executed pose a very caustic threat to society and shouldn’t be dealt with lightly.
The alternative to punishment by death is life imprisonment, which could even be viewed as more awful. Life sentences are very restrictive and don’t allow for much movement or quality of life on the prisoner’s part. Spending life surrounded by other criminals, if not isolation, and in sub-par living conditions could arguably be worse than being put to death because of the repetition that ensues and can drive people insane. But a lot of the time inmates are given final decisions on their final moments, how they go out and what their final meal is, providing for as humane of an experience as possible.
Finally, life sentences are a drain on tax money and resources. Now statistically, the cost per execution could range anywhere from $1.1-3 million, but taking into account the money alone (about $1.26-1.5 million) on life sentences plus resources used, the monetary cost can amount to much higher, even without mention of toll on physique and psyche.
The death penalty is a statement that saves money and serves as the climax of punishment –something insurmountable and striking. Clearly there is no definite right or wrong answer on the situation, and question of morals could circle either way. Furthermore, questions concerning reform are endless and face similar problems in morality. The most probable compromise would be give death row inmates a choice on their fate.
The death penalty is ultimately a state’s right, and a right that the punitive system is given the ability to enforce. Any sort of reformative system has flaws, but removing capital punishment could mean loss of a serious asset.