E-Resource Center: Queensborough Community: City University of NY
You are viewing this site as a QCC student. Change
Queensborough Community College City University of NY
Home Writing Tutorials Grammar Tutorials Course Tutorials CUNY Test Tutorials Major Advisement
Generating IdeasIntroduction and ThesisParagraph StructureParagraph DevelopmentConcluding ParagraphRevising and EditingWriting a Research Paper
Writing Tutorials
Paragraph Structure Back to Exercise Menu

Test What You Have Learned



Instructions: Read the essay and try to find the structural problems in the three body paragraphs. Click on the TIPS button for a general review of how to write a well-structured body paragraph. When you have read the essay, click on the START EDITING button to make changes to the body paragraphs.


Tips
In Support of the Death Penalty

     One afternoon in 1994, Megan Kanka, a little girl of 7, was riding her bicycle outside her home in New Jersey when a neighbor asked her if she wanted to see his new puppy. He then took her into his home, raped her, and strangled her with a belt. The man, a twice-convicted sex-offender called Jesse Timmendequas, was sentenced to death in 1997. For gruesome murders like this, the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment. Justice is served only when the death penalty is given to a criminal who has cruelly taken the life of another person. Besides, there is no doubt that by executing those who murder innocent victims in cold blood, society can prevent future murders. Also, the appeals system that is in place today for defendants in death penalty cases and the availability of advanced forensic technology and DNA analysis have dramatically reduced the possibility of executing the innocent by mistake. Therefore, society should continue to apply the ultimate punishment to deal with the most heinous crime.

     Capital punishment is not the way to maintain the balance of justice. This balance is disturbed whenever a criminal takes the life of another person, and it can be restored only if the same is done to the killer as he has done to his victim. Moreover, the loved ones of the victim get closure to their suffering when the cause of their pain is removed. For a crime as vicious as murder, the death penalty is the only fitting retribution. As Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma City put it, allowing predators who murder the innocent to live out the rest of their lives "in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals" is just unfair. There are some individuals that forfeit their right to life by the sheer evilness of their actions. They deserve to die.

     No other punishment deters future murders as the death penalty does because people fear death more than anything else. As Professor Ernest van den Haage, professor of jurisprudence at Fordham University, argues, people especially fear "death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts." Throughout history, there have been a variety of methods used for carrying out the death penalty, such as the gas chamber, the electric chair, and more recently the lethal injection. Society should make use of this fear and apply the death penalty in order to prevent murder. There have been some inconclusive studies which claim that the fear of being given the death penalty has no deterrent effect on murder. However, even if there is some truth to these studies, it is because the death sentence is rarely given, and even when it is, the actual execution is carried out too late to be a lesson for potential murderers. Only if a punishment is swift does it serve as a powerful deterrent. Even if one has doubts about preventing future murders by means of the death penalty, one cannot deny the simple fact that a killer that is killed will never kill again.

     Opponents of the death penalty argue that innocent people might be killed by mistake. However, advances in technology and the close review of death penalty cases by appellate courts have made that fear unwarranted. Mistakes made in relation to court procedures, evidence and witness testimony are very likely to be discovered by a higher court that handles the appeal. Furthermore, advances in forensic technology, particularly DNA testing, have provided law enforcement agencies of today with foolproof crime-solving methods. Therefore, while a handful of innocent people may mistakenly be executed each year, most of those who receive the death penalty are indeed guilty and deserving of the ultimate punishment.

     To sum up, a society that is faced with the terrible reality of senseless murders should make use of the death penalty to remove dangerous killers from its midst. By executing those who kill, society teaches a lesson to potential murderers and preserves the balance of justice. Besides, killing the killer of an innocent victim lessens the pain of the victim's family and relatives. Fortunately, we live in a time when a meticulously organized criminal justice system and advanced crime-solving technology have made the possibility of errors almost non-existent. Therefore, we should use the death penalty to punish murderers.

Start Editing
Site Credits | Site Map | Help | Center for English Language Learning

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education (Title V) and the
New York State Education Department (Perkins III)

Bookmark and Share