The death penalty was invented in the 18th century BC by the king of Babylon Hammurabi(Baker). Throughout the history, people used many different ways to execute people, for example, electric chair, burning people, and the most recent and common one the lethal injection(Bohm).

Although the death penalty is bloody and brutal, it should still be continued. Not because of revenge, not to make things even between the two families, but to show how powerful the government is. Showing people what will happen if they kill people, which is a really terrible thing!

According to the Death Penalty Information Center(Dunham), it shows that as years slowly went by, the people getting executed is getting less and less, this shows that the death penalty is working, thank god! But there is also something about the death penalty that angers me! It is that people with mental illness can be given a death sentence if they kill someone. I mean it’s incorrect for them to kill someone but, come on! They don’t even know what they are doing!

Let me give you an example. Abdul Awkai is a person who been through seven years of civil war in his home country and suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress disorder after that. He killed his wife and his brother-in-law without really knowing what was going on. After that incident happened, Abdul Awkai was sent to that court and was put on a death sentence. He didn’t really know what was going on so he didn’t care. Can you believe this? This guy didn’t even know what was happening(DPIC).

After that, his lawyer pleads the court to grant Abdul Awkai clemency(meaning mercy, to spare him/her), but the court declined it. This is ridiculous how can the court do this? They know these people suffer from mental illness, and can’t be cured. They're not like other people who kill other people on purpose.

A lot of people say that death penalty is wrong and that the government should not kill people to show citizens that killing people is wrong. The government should set a good example(Button), and tell the people that killing is wrong. These are some good answer, however, if the death penalty law is removed there will-will be more deaths happening because people wouldn’t get punish that severely, and the people who murdered someone could kill more people. So then the only way for this to work is if the death penalty is continued and punish those who have stolen others people’s life without any hesitation but banned the death penalty to those people who have mental illnesses. It’s time to make this right!

  “I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives.” (George W. Bush) As you can see, this quote that George Bush said tells us about how the death penalty is not to seek revenge but to stop the murderers from murdering other people once and for all. So I think the death penalty should still be allowed for those who has no mental illness.