Death Penalty # 2: Law & Politics

The 8th amendment in my eyes comes down to an opinion of whether one thinks the action is, "Cruel or unusual." Some people think that lethal injection is a very smooth and easy death, but some think it is wrong and not right. I believe that lethal injection is not cruel or unusual, but I don't think it is necessarily right. When I think of the death penalty, I tend to think first if the crime suits the punishment. If it suits the crime, then it is not cruel and unusual. If the crime does not suit the punishment, then it is cruel and unusual. I believe that the death penalty should only come into play for some second offence murders and all third offence.
I think that the death penalty is so widely supported because it has been used for hundreds, even thousands of years. The system doesn't fail and for some people it brings justice to what they think is so wrong that someone should be killed. I think the media has a role in this because the media tends to twist and shape the news to make it look worse. Because of this, people who watch the news can be turned against a person because of a report on T.V. I think it is forgotten that the media is bias and that they have their own opinion too. The public is sucked into the medias version on a black hole to where the media shapes the oipinion of their viewers. This could be used in a good or bad way, for example: the media can show positive or negative press on a politician to get their viewers to either like them or dislike them. Or, they can shape a crime scene so that it looks like the police fail to do their job and it puts fear into the publics eyes and it puts pressure on the state government. Or, finally, they can shape the public to think that the death penalty is bad or good. We are all sucked in because when we watch this on T.V, we think its just the news.