I need a good way to start off an introduction for a persuasive speech on the

[Kara]

death penalty(against)...? Have any suggestions or ideas? I guess like an attention grabber. What should I do short story, question, stastistic. I can't think of anything good.

 

[Brad]

I often have this argument with myself. I'm the type of person to debate w/ myself. Anyway, depending on how you'd like to start off, I'd like to offer a few if I may be so bold..

I would probably start with an example.

"Todd is a murderer. He murdered his ex-girlfriend in cold blood. The jury said so He was tried and the jury didn't even blink when it rendered a guilty verdict. Todd was put to death, in front of the family of his ex-girlfriend. Todd's last words were "I swear, I'm innocent." Todd, was in fact telling the truth. "

I'd follow up with things like "are the family members of the ex girlfriend now murders? what about the jury that wrongfully convicted him? etc.

or if you dont like examples, and would rather just attack the system, I'd go with

"The death penalty is as unfair and unjust as the crime it is in retribution to."
"The death penalty is a barbaric system which validates the idea of revenge, and not justice."

 

[Matty]

im not opposed to the death penalty. being in law enforcement i think it serves its purpose. however, if i were doing a paper against it, i would stick to the point that killing someone because they killed someone will not bring that person back. there are 4 goals of corrections... deterrence (specific and general), retribution (an eye for an eye), incapacitation (jailing someone to take away their ability to committ more crime) and rehabilitation (duh). the death penalty does not work as a deterrent beleive it or not. when someone is committing an act such as murder, they are NOT thinking about the consequences. therefore deterrence does not work. and as for retribution, like i said earlier, you cant bring back the victim of the murder. so why take someone elses life away. and finally, death penalty appeals are automatic in EVERY case. all the appeals they make are terribly expensive. that being said, it may be cheaper on the state to incarcerate someone for life instead of going through all the appeals. it costs approx 33K a year to incarcerate someone for the rest of their life. this includes everything. we spend more than that on appeals and stuff.

 

[Arielle]

If you want to grab attention, I would ask what justifies killing. Isn't it hypocritical to kill a prisoner when a lot of those prisoners are being held captive for that same crime? What if the person assigned capital punishment was your close relative? How do you judge who lives and who dies? And what about wrongful prosecution?

Those are questions I would ask or vaguely address(since you'd want to really get into them later in your essay). They're the attention-grabbers!

I hope this helps and good luck!

 

[sideboom]

i've had choices...since the day that i was born,they're were "voices" that told me right from wrong;if i had listened,no i wouldn't be here today living and dying with the choices i made.

 

[Shelly]

I would find a story of someone who was given the death penalty and then their innocence was discovered after their death. then i would find out the name of their mom or wife or child, or other family member, and tell it from that person's point of view, not as a famous news headline but as a personal story. for instance, with just a short search on google i found there was a man executed in Texas in 2004 named Cameron Willingham who is now thought to be possibly innocent (if you search on google there are lots of these from many states, see the site i referenced for just a few). It would be pretty easy to find out some of his family's names and write something like it was some random person, kind of like (this is just an example with a name I made up-- NOT the actual name of anyone connected)

Mary knew her son was innocent, but she also knew that if evidence was not found in time to prove that, he was going to die. She pushed and worked to get the police to investigate more, but the day came, and no new evidence had been found. She wept as she knew the hour had come and gone and her son had been executed for a crime he had not committed. It didn't matter now, no amount of evidence could bring him back.

and then tie it in with the case and give the dates and location and stuff so that you can show it isn't just some story you made up. anyway, that's what i would do if i was writing something like that.