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<title> The death penalty- legalized murder or just punishment? </title>
Does a person who kills someone deserve to die himself? Is the state entitled to decide who is going to die and who is not? We consider ourselves cultivated and civilized, and we think of our ancestors as animals who killed for the sake of it. But, are we really that different? Have we really progressed at all? In my opinion, humans have only changed their methods and institutionalized the killing, making it even more cold and "in-human". However they put it or call it, it always comes down to the "eye-for-an-eye-philosophy". The fact that it usually befalls the most vulnerable in society, and sometimes even innocent people, makes it even more repulsive. 
	 When we look back in time and think of our ancestors who lived a couple of hundred years ago, we see them as barbaric and unchristian. We think that we are so different from the brute Viking and the Medieval man; that the world of today is more sophisticated, and that we have developed since then. I do not know whom we are trying to fool. As I see it, the human race has not progressed at all, only changed our tools and methods. Today we have more "sophisticated killing", that seems to be justified as long as it is performed without any bloodshed and by the judicial authorities of certain countries in the world. The eight amendment of the United States of America says: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Yet, they take a righteous stand condemning the unwanted of society, the murderers and rapists, to be thrown into the garbage disposal of the country: the electrical chair, the gas chamber, the poison shot, or even hanging. If that is not "cruel and unusual punishment", then what is?
 However, if someone brutally kills two people he never met before, is he still entitled to live? The bible says "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth". If someone kills my friend, I am entitled to kill the killer. The victim's friends and relatives might find this justified; that the killer has wasted his rights to live and should die himself. The hate they feel towards the person who killed someone they loved must be tremendous. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth- life for life, for life, for life... This could go on forever, in an endless, evil circle: the victim's friend kills the killer, the killer's friend kills the killer, and soon we would all end up as killers. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. The American judicial system thinks that killing should be resolved by killing, and that it is the most efficient way of preventing other people to do the same thing. The fact that there are now 3,000 death-row-convicts in the United States, and that the murders have not decreased, does not seem to effect their opinion.
In 1977, a state Supreme Court in the U.S. judged that the capital punishment for rape was unconstitutional because it was disproportionate to the crime; eye for an eye tooth for a tooth. Maybe the federal government of U.S.A. should make this into the next amendment of the Constitution. Investigations show that the majority of victims' relatives want to see the person responsible dead, but when this happens they do not get much comfort out of it. Killing can never be resolved by killing!
	 The fact that the world's leading superpower and "the big brother" of the globe, the United States of America, kills its own citizens, is both incomprehensive and scary. 
In between 1930-67 the U.S. executed 3, 859 people under civil jurisdiction. Three fifths of all the executions took place in Georgia and Texas. At the end of 1997, 38 states and the federal government were still in favor of and practiced the death penalty. In 1998 U.S.A. killed 68 Americans, again the majority of the executions were performed in the southern states. Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. for their monstrous methods.
	 A couple of years ago, two teen-age boys killed another boy in Texas. The boys blamed each other, but after the trial one of the boys, the son of a high judge, was set free, and the other boy, a 19-year-old Latin American, was sentenced to death. The boy still claimed to be innocent, but that did not help. He is now one of the 3,000 Americans in death row, standing in line to get executed. What if this boy is innocent? What if his companion, the son of the judge, is the guilty one? The case smells like corruption. In the book "Finding life on Death Row: Profiles on six Inmates" by Katya Lezin, she writes that the criminals that are sentenced to death are "not the worst criminals, but the vulnerable and the ones that are the least able to defend themselves." The people they execute are normally retarded, mentally ill or juveniles, or else they are poor without enough money to pay for a good lawyer that can emancipate them. The capital punishment is cruel, unusual, inefficient, and unjust. In short, it is barbaric.
	 Another contradiction to common sense is the tremendous amount of money it costs to perform an execution. It costs the U.S. $900 million/year to execute their unwanted citizens. Why not use this money to prevent criminal behavior instead? The state of Ohio spent $1,5 million to execute a man who wanted to be killed. That amount of money could have prevented some murders, if it was used differently. 
	 I think that most people that are in favor of the capital punishment are not aware of all the facts, and have probably not thought it through. I can understand that, but what scares and disgusts me is the fact that there are well-educated people that are in favor of it and perform it. The stupidity and cruelty of the system amazes me, and I do not understand how anyone with a common sense and an informed mind can be in favor of the death penalty.
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