by James Kellard

Created on: May 21, 2009   Last Updated: May 24, 2009

Capital punishment is considered by some to be a clearly "black and white" issue, while many others consider it to be a topic with a great deal of gray area. On one side of the issue, a person who commits particularly heinous crimes deserves to have equal punishment. On the other side, by carrying out state and federally sanctioned executions, allowing the government to decide who should live or die; are we playing God?

Not to mention that the government does not have the best track record when it comes to efficiency. Do we really trust them to get it right every time, particularly when a person's life is on the line? As the 12th century legal scholar Maimonides said, "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."

Before deciding whether to abolish the death penalty, it is very important to look at it from both sides. There are some valid arguments both for abolishing, as well as continuing capital punishment.

People who commit violent crimes, especially particularly heinous ones, deserve to be punished and I do not think anybody would argue with that. In order for a case to qualify for the death penalty, there generally needs to be aggravating factors. For example, in Connecticut some aggravating factors would be committing an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved murder, use of an assault weapon in the offense, or murdering someone while committing or attempting to commit, or flee from a felony (I.e. murdering a teller in the commission of a bank robbery).

A person in Connecticut can also be executed if they commit a capital felony. Some examples of a capital felony in Connecticut are hiring or acting as a paid hit man, murdering a law enforcement officer, murdering someone while committing first-degree sexual assault, or murdering a child under the age of 16.

One of the situations in which the death penalty seems most warranted, is an individual raping and murdering a child or children. Take Robert James Anderson for example. On June 9, 1992, Robert James Anderson kidnapped five-year-old Audra Ann Reeves. He brought the young girl to his house and after unsuccessfully attempting to rape her, he beat, stabbed, and drowned her before putting her body in a styrofoam ice chest and throwing her in the trash.

During his confession, Anderson blamed the incident on a fight he had with his new wife, in which she told him she wanted him to move out. Anderson was executed in Texas on July

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