Would you be willing to put the defendant to death if you found him guilty? That is the questions that people are asking, some say yes and others say no. One big person in life that says no is Pope John Paul II. On a visit to St. Luis the Pope talked in his homily about the death penalty and said that it was "cruel and unnecessary,"" even if someone has committed great evil. The Pope stated in his homily also that they should pray for Darrell J. Mease, a person on death row in Missouri and because of this the state officials postponed the execution. They didn't explain why they had postponed it, but the Pope knew why.
In another case with a convict by the name of King and his two other friends there was a different story. People wanted these men dead for what they had done. It all started late one night when Mr. Byrd was walking home from a family gathering, on his way home King and his fellow companions forced him into a truck. As they drove down the road they stopped and beat him, then they chained him to the truck and dragged him for three miles down the road. This went on until his body hit a culvert and took off most of his body parts. Now what would the Pope have prayed for in this case? Now King is on death row with 451 other prisoners in the state of Texas.
70 percent of the nations have a death penalty and the one that don't are like Canada and most of the Western European nations. There are 39 states in the U.S. that have the death penalty. "The Death Penalty Information Center has found that 77 percent of Americans favor capital punishment. But when the same people are asked whether they think murderers should be given the death penalty or life in prison without parole, slightly more Americans choose prison (44 percent) than death (41 percent) (The Economist). .
In the last couple of years many people on death row have been found innocent. To be exact 75 people that were accused of heinous crimes where the prosecutor was under pressure to find someone to blame.