1. Ending the death penalty is about putting a stop to this nation’s dark history of lynching and slavery. The government must not have the power to end a life. Our legal system should be founded on mercy. Black and brown communities have more people executed than other races in the United States.

• The death penalty is important because some people commit terrible crimes, and they need to be punished. If we have the death penalty, people will be afraid to commit terrible crimes.
• The death penalty can actually kill innocent people. So, to avoid making that mistake, we should abolish the death penalty.
• If we abolish the death penalty, then we have to keep all the criminals alive in jail and pay for their food, clothing, and other things. It will get very expensive.
• Money should not be the deciding factor if someone lives or dies. There are other ways to pay for prisoners, like asking their families for money, or have the prisoners work to make money and pay for themselves.

2. It is a difficult decision, but some crimes require the death penalty for public safety. Sometimes, even if somebody committed a murder, they can get out of jail after 25 years. So, when they get out of jail, they could kill someone again.

• The death penalty itself can also kill innocent people, like if a murderer goes free from jail. We cannot execute someone without 100% certainty, and it is very difficult to prove a crime with 100% accuracy.

3.The fact that an attorney general can decide to commence the federal death penalty after years without it, or that the United States has a century-plus-old practice of suspending it at certain points in the political calendar tells us everything that is wrong with the practice.

The death penalty is unique in the law — despite its finality, it is:

1. politically fraught, (people cannot agree about it)

2. inconsistently applied, (they execute some people with no reason, and some with a reason)

3. subject to the basest human impulses, (it’s done without deep thinking)

4. and a relic of the ugliest elements baked into our criminal justice system. (Racist)

4. The death penalty can help us solve crimes that haven’t been solved yet. For example, if someone murders someone, but we can’t find the killer, the police can arrest someone who they think did it. Then, they can tell that person “if you don’t tell us the truth, you will be executed.” Then that person will get so scared that they will tell the truth.

• Just because the police threaten the person, doesn’t mean that that person is the real killer. The person might just blame someone else, or give incorrect information.