Presentation: death penalty as a controversial topic

1. “Texas executes mentally disabled
Marvin Wilson (54)” - GlobalPost
Death penalty

2. Outline
 Definition
 History
 Around the world
 Pros & cons
 Opponent
 Supporter
 Discrimination
 Racism
 Media
 Conclusion
 Questions

3. Definition
 Capital punishment, death sentence, execution
 Putting condemned person to death
 Serious crime
 Type
 Lethal injection
 Gas chamber
 Electrocution
 Firing squad
 Hanging
 Burning
 Stoning
 Beheading
 Poison
 Crucifixion

4. History
 Famous people sentenced to death
 Socrates (399 BC)
 Jesus (30-36 AD)
 Joan of Arc (1431)
 Mussolini (1945)
 Aileen Wuornos (2002)
 Saddam Hussein (2006)

5. Around the world (1)

6. Around the world (2)
 China
 Most executions
 Iran
 Saudi Arabia
 Iraq
 United States
 Europe

7. Around the world (3)
 USA (1)
 Decision of state
 Texas

8. Around the world (4)
 USA (2)
 17-18-19th centuries
 20th century
 Recent years
 Most executions: Texas & under George Bush’s lead

9. Pros & cons (1)
 Deterrent for prisoners serving life sentence
 Closure to the victim’s family
 Solution for overpopulation in prison system
 Parole or escape of prisoner
 Another chance to kill
 DNA testing & modern crime scene science

10. Pros & cons (2)
 Executions cost more than life inprisonment
 Innocent wrongly executed
 “executed but possibly innocent”
 Not a deterrent
 Crime rate has not gone down
 Killing is wrong
 Violation of international human rights laws
 Abolition in sophisticated societies

11. Opponent
 Martin Luther King
 Bill Richardson
 Roman Catholic Church
 Amnesty International

12. Supporter
 A lot of parents of murdered children in the U.S.
 Survey

13. Discrimination - Racism
 Mentally ill/impoverished murderers
 No good lawyer = more death penalty
 Women
 Only 3% of US executions
 Death sentence 4 x higher
 White victim VS black victim
 Death sentence 11 x higher
 Blacks kill whites VS whites kill blacks

14. Media
 Paths of Glory (1957)
 The Star Chamber (1983)
 The thin blue line (1988)
 Shocker (1989)
 Dead man walking (1995)
 The Green Mile (1999)
 True Crime (1999)
 The life of David Gale (2003)
 Pierrepoint: the last hangman (2005)
 Capote (2005)
 On death row (2012) – miniseries
 Different death row biographies

15. Conclusion
 History
 Subject of movies/series/books
 Opposing viewpoints
 Discrimination
 Mental illness, poverty, sex, race
 Abolition in sophisticated societies
 Still used in USA
CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC

16. Questions?
 My question: “Do you advocate for death penalty or
are you against it?”
 Death penalty in Belgium?
 Your question?