@Begin
@Participants:	NS005
@Age:	28
@Sex:	M
@L1:	AmE
@FatherL1:	AmE
@MotherL1:	AmE
@AcademicBakground:	PhD
@OtherLanguage:	French=8;Japanese=3
@Topic:	death penalty
@Comments:	NoTitle
@Coder:	2006-10-19 DataInputBy MURAO Remi;
@Version:	2.0
*NS005:	The death penalty is used in many countries as a punishment for crimes such as murder.
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*NS005:	There are several arguments which can be made to support the use of the death penalty, such as its cost efficiency in comparison with life imprisonment, or its use in preventing crime through fear.
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*NS005:	I will argue in this essay, however, that the negative aspects of the death penalty outweigh the positive, and as a result it should not be used.
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*NS005:	First, there is the issue of whether the person convicted has actually committed the crime.
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*NS005:	All countries in the world aim to have legal systems which correctly determine the guilt or innocence of accused criminals.
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*NS005:	In reality, however, even the best system will fail occasionally.
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*NS005:	What if some number of years after a criminal is executed, new evidence is discovered which proves that they were in fact innocent?
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*NS005:	An innocent human being's life will have been taken due to a grievous error.
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*NS005:	In fact, this exact scenario is known to have happened multiple times in the U.S.A., and almost certainly in other countries as well.
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*NS005:	Mistakes such as these cannot be corrected, so it is best to avoid them altogether when alternatives such as long-term imprisionment exist.
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*NS005:	Second, the question arises of whether human beings should have the right to determine who lives and who dies.
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*NS005:	Those believing in a higher power would argue that only God has the right to make that decision.
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*NS005:	Regardless of whether or not one believes in a higher power, it can be argued that the decision to give a death sentence is one which human beings, with their inability to see truth impartially, should not be asked to make.
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*NS005:	Third, the argument is occasionally heard that the death penalty is necessary to prevent a string of revenge killings.
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*NS005:	For example, in Japan there was once a tradition of "adauchi", in which one killed the murderer of one's loved ones as a form of revenge.
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*NS005:	Although "adauchi" was formally abolished during the Meiji Era, the mentality of revenge remains a subject of discussion in Japan, and is in fact still a theme of television dramas today.
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*NS005:	I have heard the argument that capital punishment is necessary because only through the death of the murderer will the family of the victim be satisfied and not be compelled to seek "adauchi".
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*NS005:	In response to this I would argue that this felt responsibility to achieve revenge is a result of cultural conditioning.
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*NS005:	I believe that the solution is to reexamine cultural values, not to carry out a further string of killing.
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*NS005:	Proponents of the death penalty may argue that it aids crime prevention through fear, or that it is more cost effective than long-term imprisonment.
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*NS005:	As argued above, however, I believe that the death penalty should not be used because it is improper to kill a person who may potentially be innocent of a crime, and also because the giving and taking of life should be decided by natural forces instead of by a judge and jury.
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@End