I. After spending ten long years on death row, today he is escorted by the warden down the dimly lit white corridor to the room in which the day of judgment will finally arrive. As he gets closer, he begins to regret leading a violent life of crime and murder that landed him on death row so long ago. The door finally opens, and there he is face to face with the “old sparky”, aka the electric chair. He is strapped in and a leather helmet containing a damp sponge is placed on his head along with a brass liner that functions as an input electrode through which nearly 2,500 volts of electricity will pass. The output electrode, a brass strip also fitted with a soaked sponge, is attached to the prisoner's shaved calf. As a final preparation, a leather hood is placed over his face. The switch is then pulled and 2,350 volts pass through the inmate's body for eight seconds, followed by 22 seconds of one thousand volts. The cycle repeats immediately. This high-voltage electrocution raises the temperature of his brain to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and fries his internal organs (Freedberg 2). The passage above describes a typical criminal execution by the electric chair, one of several methods of capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty. The death penalty has long been an accepted form of justice, but today capital punishment remains a highly controversial issue. Some believe that this punishment is cruel and unusual and therefore violates the United States Constitution, when in reality the death penalty is a fair and just punishment for murder and other extremely violent crimes. Amid these divergent views, there are also differences in state policies, with some states supporting the death penalty and others not. This is an injustice because murderers convicted in states like Texas or Florida, which support the death penalty, will actually face justice, while murderers in states like North Dakota or Wisconsin will not. will not be (Staletovich 5-6). It is with this reasoning that the death penalty should undoubtedly be carried out in all fifty states of the United States and in the District of Columbia.II. In the United States today, capital punishment is an integral part of the criminal justice system and has...... middle of paper ...... red to pay for their care. Furthermore, the cost of executing or imprisoning a prisoner for life cannot be measured exclusively in dollars. Capital punishment has moral value for society and emotional value for victims' families – both of which are unquantifiable (Smith 11).VI. The death penalty, as you can see, should not be seen as an act of killing people who kill people just to show that killing people is wrong, but as an act to protect our society from potential or past murderers and to bring justice to those who kill.Works CitedBarry, John. Is the death penalty cruel and unusual? December 4, 2000 Brown, David L. The Bible's Teaching on Capital Punishment. December 5, 2000 Freedberg, Sydney. “A bloody execution leads to stay for the second inmate.” St. Petersburg Times. July 9, 1999, Newsbank. CD-ROM. Smith, Sharon C. Capital Punishment in the United States. December 6, 2000 Staletovitch, Jenny. “The Power Struggle of the Electric Chair.” Palm Beach Post. January 2, 2000, SIRS researcher. CD-ROM. Winter 2000.