Currently, the United States is the only western democracy that still has capital punishment on the books. Even South Africa has eliminated it. The United States is left with such company as Libya, Iran, and Iraq. America, where freedom and democracy are firmly entrenched, remains committed to this brutal and dehumanizing form of punishment. The goal of the death penalty is revenge. It is not a deterrence of crime, as the death penalty has been …showed first 75 words of 501 total…

…showed last 75 words of 501 total…not to deter crime. Coretta Scott King spoke out against the death penalty saying that: As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the tacking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder