There is a death penalty for a reason, I do think that it is terrible that a person could loose their life when convicted and sentence to death for a crime they did not commit. At the same time I do believe that there are crimes worthy of the death penalty. Capital murder or first degree intentional murder are the two main crimes that when proven guilty I think should be eligible to serve the death sentence. Beside my blog entry here I have placed a "quick Facts chart" just so that you can get the idea of what states do or do not have the death penalty.

Here are a few true stories that might sway your opinion of legalizing the death penalty...
A small sampling of case histories will leave readers shaken.Melvin and Linda Lorenz, and their son Richard were killed by Roger Stafford. Melvin stopped on a highway near Purcell, Okla., to help what he thought was a woman whose car had broken down, but instead was ambushed by Stafford and his brother, using Stafford's wife as bait. Less than a month after these horrific murders, the trio killed six employees of a steak house in Oklahoma City.

In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol. Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole authorities to release Joe from the life sentence.

When Katy Davis observed three strangers outside her Austin, Texas, apartment, she walked away. Returning later, she was attacked and forced to open the door by Charles Rector, on parole for a previous murder. The men ransacked her apartment, abducted her and took her to a lake where she was beaten, gang-raped, shot in the head and repeatedly forced underwater until she drowned.

Ruby Longsworth of Pasadena, Texas, met Jeffrey Barney through a prison ministry, then helped him get paroled from an auto-theft sentence. Her kindness was repaid when Barney raped and sodomized her, then strangled her with a cord. She had made the mistake of calling Barney "a bum" after she had gotten to know him better.

In 1965, Robert Massie murdered mother of two Mildred Weiss in San Gabriel, Calif., during a follow-home robbery. Hours before execution, a stay was issued so Massie could testify against his accomplice. Massie's sentence was commuted to life when the Supreme Court halted executions in 1972. Receiving an undeserved second chance, Massie was paroled, but eight months later robbed and murdered businessman Boris Naumoff in San Francisco.

Faith Hathaway was 17 when she was murdered by Robert Willie, whose story became the inspiration for the film Dead Man Walking. Hathaway had just graduated from high school and was leaving for the Army the next day. She was abducted after leaving a farewell party in Mandeville, La. Willie and accomplice Joseph Vaccaro had been on an 8-day murder, robbery and rape spree. Hathaway was raped by both assailants and stabbed 17 times. She was raped again after she died.

Kenneth Boyd murdered his estranged wife Julie and his father-in-law, Dillard Curry in Rockingham County, N.C. Julie and her children were living with Curry. Boyd entered the home and shot them both in the presence of his own children, then ages 13, 12 and 10.

We must think about the lives that all 1,895 murdered victims affected. Every one had families, friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors. The combined loss is incalculable.

After reading all of these stories I am not sure how anyone could think that the death penalty is in-humane...these crimes are in-humane, and the people that commit them deserve to be put to death.


Sources
Pro-deathpenalty.com
Stateline.org