In his essay “The Penalty of Death”, Mencken states “All of us long for a swift and unexpected end” (Mencken 472). After death there is no lesson to be learned. If a crime is so heinous that death is even considered as a punishment, it would only make sense that the offender should not be allowed to take the easier punishment. “The need for revenge, for vengeance, is being curbed, the appetite is no longer there,” argues Robert Hirschorn, a nationally known Texas attorney and jury consultant. Revenge is a never-ending circle, it is train that never stops running, it is a screaming infant that can never be quieted, and it is a bloodthirsty tiger that can never be sated. While it is not wrong to want justice, it is wrong to seek revenge. This type of death sentence is one that is executed in order to make the families of those wronged feel better. The death penalty has nothing to do with justice, morals, what is right, nor what is wrong. Revenge is what is behind the death penalty. Revenge means: “to seek or take vengeance for oneself or another person” (). With this statement, it can be said that the people sentenced to the capital punishment (being that they are in fact people) should be spared on the grounds of morality.
Is it ever moral? The plain, black-and-white truth is that: no, it is never moral to kill a person. An Eye for An Eye Leaves the Whole World Blind Is it right to kill a person? Is it sensible to teach a person not to kill by killing? What makes the prison guard who fires the shot or the doctor who inserts the lethal injection less of a murderer than the person whose life they just ended? What makes the judge and jury who just sentenced that person to death row any better than the man who convinced someone else to kill his wife? What constitutes killing a person? When is it moral?