FRANCO, Ruben Jr.

G
3-LM2

To convince the audience NOT to re-impose the Death Penalty

Final Draft

No To Death Penalty!!!

PREMISE

To my fellow students to our professor, ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant afternoon to all of you! Let’s
see in our mind’s eye… The imposition of the death penalty in the country has had a repressive history. For the most
part (from 1848 to 1987), it was used to curtail the liberties, freedoms and rights of the Filipino people. In recent
history, however, the death penalty was re-imposed as a knee-jerk response to what has largely been seen as rising
criminality in the country. Now adding onto this scenario, let’s just say that the government was re-imposing and
verifying it. This scenario is true, and was based on the situation of capital punishment or in other words, death
penalty. Without further delay, I would like to enlighten you why it is NOT practicable to make death penalty re-
imposed.

FACTS

 According to 88% of criminologists and Amnesty International Philippines Chairman Ritzlee Santos, the death
penalty is NOT an effective deterrent against crime; the death penalty has a negative impact on the families of both
the murder victim and the defendant; Why? It’s because it does NOT provide any additional safe guard against violent
crime, yet presents a pile of moral and financial problems to criminal justice; it could NOT lead the way in solving
the humanity’s convicts. And, it could lead to much worse ones.

 In the case of Leo Echagaray, wherein the accused, a house painter by trade, allegedly rape his 10-year-old
stepdaughter, Rodessa "Baby", was executed via lethal injection on February 5, 1999, which was later suspended on
15 April 2006. His death sparked national debate over the legality and morality of the death penalty.

 How could I or anyone for that matter, let this become legal with such moral doubt on the subject? This was my first
response and after consideration, a lot of my reasons against death penalty were hardly firm and certainly
reasonable to interdict death penalty entirely.

PREMISE

Lawmakers are working on ways to perfect the methods of punishing a convict. Mode of proposed death
penalty: Hanging, firing squad, or lethal injection. This could finally be a permanent solution to the ever-growing
demand for pure and complete justice.
However, many convicts, albeit innocent, to face justice, they must be heard and attested before being
condemned which is often NOT effective in most certain ways. In addition to this, criminal justice systems are
vulnerable to error — which could mean executing even those who are wrongly convicted but actually innocent.
Some say cases like these are when we should NOT penalize by death; to wit by decapitation or cutting of the
head, and this is Eddard Stark of Winterfell case we are talking about. This is going to disastrously affect the
world’s human diversity. And besides it would be truly a catastrophe.
 PREMISE

Base on the book of Helen Prejean entitled “Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account Of The Death
Penalty That Sparked a National Debate”, one of the most common arguments against death penalty is that,

“The death penalty costs too much. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest
moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons. (p. 197)”

Obviously, it would destroy people’s dignity and morality. Firstly, there are convicts that have lost their
dignity and morality, right? Because they are justifiable enough to stand in court but to the extent that they
would be penalized by death remains a big hole to their part. However, this is by NO means a legitimate ground
for permitting such penalization entirely. If it were to be prevented and prohibited from executing the entire
convicts, preventing it from going beyond injection, hanging or firing squad, then it could be a better solution.

CONCLUSION:

Many times unexpected practicability come from research and in order for us to adhere from it, we must
be open-minded to new ideas and procedures. I believe that death penalty has NOTHING TO OFFER. My
strongest argument here is above and beyond the moral aspects of the death penalty, our society needs to be
sure that our government, in our name, is putting the right people to death for the right reasons. That is, the
evidence put forth is certain beyond a reasonable doubt, the participants in the process are acting above board,
and that the defendant is given every opportunity to disprove the evidence.

If the integrity of the system is compromised at any point, to wit, bad/fabricated evidence, deceptive
prosecution, corrupted judiciary, poor defense, you must take capital punishment off the table as an option.
Given the recent history of justice in the Philippines, the people are best served by NOT sanctioning a flawed
capital punishment system that can take their lives for the wrong reasons. It’s up to you to decide my fellow
students. Thank you and once again, a good day to all of you.

INTERPOLATIONS:

 We punish to deter. We punish to acknowledge the harm brought to the victim, to their loved ones, to their
community. We punish to shame and to publicly dishonor the criminal. But the way we do it should embody ideals
of humanity, magnanimity, and improvement.

 Punishment thus should be as light as is consistent with the requirements of security and harmonious society. We
must learn, against the grain of our vengeful retributive instincts, to find satisfaction in justice that leaves the thief
with his hands, the murderer with his life.

 Law enforcement, courts, probation and parole agents and community/juvenile intervention programs should exist
to make us safer, period. Either through preventing crime, or by removing criminals from society, the goal is simply
to protect our life, liberty and property.

 In his dissent, Justice Breyer explained in detail how the death penalty was unreliable, arbitrary and racially
discriminatory. He said it was no longer sufficient simply “to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a
time,” because the practice as a whole “most likely” violates the Eighth Amendment which is tantamount to Art. in
our Philippine Constitution.