Persuasive Speech Outline- abolish death penalty PDF

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Persuasive Speech Outline- abolish death penalty...

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Running Head: Persuasive Speech Outline

Persuasive Speech Outline Briana Holguin HCOM 100-85 December 1, 2021 Professor Wahl

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Persuasive Speech Outline Speech Topic: The topic of my speech is why the death penalty should be abolished. Specific Purpose: To persuade. Central Idea: My central idea is to show why execution should be illegal. Attention Getter: Imagine yourself, sitting in a courtroom and a judge tells you that you've been sentenced to death. Your heart rate increases, your pupils dilate and your palms are sweating because you know that you were just convicted for a crime that you did not commit. This is the same feeling experienced by inmates who are humiliated and wrongly accused for committing crimes they were never involved in, but somehow, are on the edge of death row. Introduction: The death penalty today is a highly debated issue; the argument has been going on since the 1500s and more than likely will not stop any time soon. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 1,200 criminals have been killed by the death sentence. It is clear that the death penalty should be revoked for many reasons, 1) it's cheaper for the country to keep inmates in jail, 2) innocent people have been accused and sentenced to capital punishment, and 3) there are sensible alternatives. I. It's cheaper for the country to keep inmates in jail. i. As stated by Equal Justice USA in their 2017 article Wasteful & Inefficient: The alarming cost of the death penalty, more than a dozen states have found that death penalty cases are up to 10 times more expensive than comparable non-death penalty case (EJUSA, 2017). 1. In reality, the death penalty’s complexity, length, and finality drive costs through the roof, making it much more expensive.

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a) The most rigorous cost study in the country found that a single death sentence in Maryland costs almost $2 million more than a comparable non-death penalty case. Before ending the death penalty, Maryland spent $186 million extra to carry out just five executions (EJUSA, 2017). b) Most death penalty trials are found to be significantly flawed, which leads to 68% of cases to be overturned, according to a Columbia Law School study. When prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty after a death sentence has been overturned, taxpayers have to pay for not just one but multiple capital trials (EJUSA, 2017). c) Based on a sentence term of 40 to 45 years, one inmate would cost the taxpayer only slightly more than $1 million—less than a third of what it would take to pay for the process that culminates in execution (Streib, 2003). Transition: Now that we know how expensive executing an inmate is, let me tell you how innocent people have been put to death. II. Innocent people have been accused and sentenced to capital punishment. i) In a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center in 2021 its stated that the examination of every death sentence handed down since 1973 – more than 9,600 in all – revealed that 185 death row inmates had been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted, 11 more than previously known. There have been 1,532 executions in the United States since 1976 (Farivar, 2021). 1. The death penalty is mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire an effective lawyer.

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a) Some lawyers provide outstanding representation to capital defendants. But few defendants facing capital charges can afford to hire an attorney, so they are appointed lawyers who are frequently overworked, underpaid, and inexperienced in trying death penalty cases (Troncale, 2021). 2. People of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed, especially if the victim in the case is white. a) Race still influences who is sentenced to death and executed in America today. The data in Georgia has actually gotten worse: people convicted of killing white victims are 17 times more likely to be executed than those convicted of killing Black victims (Troncale, 2021). 3. The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the most culpable. Instead, it's inflicted on the most vulnerable. a) Three years after Atkins, the Court applied the same reasoning in Roper v. Simmons banned the execution of children because “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders” (Troncale, 2021). b) Executing people with mental illness presents the same concerns about culpability and reliability that led the Court to bar the death penalty for children and people with intellectual disability. People who have a mental illness or disability that significantly impairs their cognitive or volitional functioning at the time of the offense should be exempted from capital

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punishment because they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct (Troncale, 2021). Transition: Innocent lives have been taken but there are solutions that can be emplaced that can prevent this in the future. III. Sensible alternatives. i) If a less severe alternative to the death penalty exists which would accomplish the same goal, we are duty-bound to reject the death penalty in favor of the less severe alternative (SCU, 2015). 1. A mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, with the possibility of review of sentence (CDPR, 2015). 2. A “whole life” term, also referred to as life without parole, or LWOP (CDPR, 2015).

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Conclusion: I have talked to you about various methods involved in death penalty, cases in which people were wrongly accused, oppositions to this method of capital punishment, and how expensive it is. I hope that you all are willing to get educated by expanding your knowledge about this highly sensitive issue and think more deeply about the consequences of these types of decisions.

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References Carribean Death Penalty Research. (2021). Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Caribbeandeathpenaltyresearch.wordpress.com. https://caribbeandeathpenalty research. wordpress .com/alternatives-to-the-death-penalty/ Equal Justice USA. (2017). Wasteful & Inefficient:The alarming cost of the death penalty. Ejusa.org. https://ejusa.org/resource/wasteful-inefficient/ Farivar, Masood. (2021). More Innocent People than Previously Known Came Close to Being Executed, US Study Finds. Voanews.com. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ policy-issues / innocence Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. (2015, November). Capital Punishment:Our Duty or Our Doom? Santa Clara University. https://w ww.scu.edu/ethics/focus- areas/more/re sou rces/capi tal-punishment-our-duty-or-our-doom/ Streib, Victor. (2003). Death Penalty in a Nutshell. LawJRank.org. https://law .jrank.org/pages / 5002/Capital-Punishment-COSTS-CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT.html Troncale, Bernard. (2021). Death Penalty. EqualJusticeInitiative.org. https://eji. org/issues/ deathpenalty/...