Final Performance Topic-Death Penalty

My final performance concerns opposition to the death penalty.  After taking a class referred to as Capital Punishment over this past winter interterm, I will address the key issues pertaining to deterrence, retribution, arbitrariness, and incapacitation.  I will mention how the death penalty isn’t much more of a deterrent than life without parole and how the death penalty is arguably more appealing to the defendant (thus less effective in terms of justice) because one does not have to suffer in prison and regret past choices.  Capital punishment proves to be delayed as the average time from death sentence to execution is 12 years.  In addition, arbitrariness through race again proves the unsettling qualities of the death penalty.  For incapacitation, it is argued that execution saves lives because the dead men cannot kill again, but the people who would kill again are not necessarily the same who have been executed.  Execution is also not necessary as it is safer for the inmates to be in prison because it is harder for them to access weapons and they are more closely monitored.  The murder rate in prison is 4 per 100,000, proving that it is safer in prison that it is out.  I will supply this data in a rhyming fashion to make the presentation more engaging.  I will also mention the three men currently on Colorado’s death row to bring the issue to a more local level.  Retribution will be integrated through the inappropriateness of equating the death penalty to the principle of “an eye for an eye.”  After today’s group presentation, I would like to integrate the John hits Juan concept by showing a picture of a man on Colorado’s death row and saying what he is accused of and convicted of without giving his background.  Afterwards, I will provide the backstory and indicate he is less deserving of the death penalty than one may assume.  I will spotlight Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray in particular.  Owens was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of two people, one of whom had been set to testify against a friend of Owens, Robert Ray.  Ray was sentenced to death in 2009 for the planned murder of the witness Owens had killed.  By highlighting these two men, I hope to make it more personal and easier to understand for the audience.  I will try to include other people’s stories as well.  I will also explain how, in the state of Colorado, a defendant must have committed first-degree homicidal murder with at least one or more aggravating factor and go into depth regarding the aggravating factors.  I will also mention the financial burden the death penalty poses on the nation as a whole.  Although I may not have the time to go in depth into each of these topics, I do hope to touch on them briefly all the while conveying to the audience that the death penalty should be eliminated.