If Moussaoui was sentenced to death, it would have lead to his martyrdom, and he would be considered a hero by his people. Executing him could also lead to a loss of a “potential intelligence source” (Gray). He is currently serving his life sentence at the Administrative maximum security prison facility in Florence, Colorado (Gray).
One of the most publicized executions was that of Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was given the death penalty for the Oklahoma bombing and he was executed on June 11, 2001. He admitted to the bombing that killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City Federal Building (Execution). He is the first federal prisoner to be executed in 37 years (Poniewozik). There are also many cases involving the death penalty that not many people know about. In Ohio, Rocky Barton shot his wife and then tried to commit suicide in his front yard in 2003. Barton had just gotten out of jail after serving nine years for trying to kill a former wife. His lawyers were trying to overturn the death penalty, saying that Barton had fired his attorneys during the sentencing phase of the trial and he did not have a chance to present any evidence to persuade the jurors against giving him the death penalty. He should have been in prison for life the first time he tried to kill his wife (Death).
Many people argue “what goes around comes around.” They say that if a person kills someone, they should get the same in return. Making somebody spend the rest of their life in a little cell no bigger than ten feet wide and fourteen feet long is more torture than being given the death penalty. Giving the death penalty would be letting the person off easy. They only have to suffer for a minute, and then they will be dead. Most people sentenced to death die on death row anyways. The death penalty also costs a lot of money. On average, a capital trial costs $1,271,001 more than a regular trial. In California, the cost of capital punishment is $2,087,926 and the cost of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is $1,448,935.
