Replying to Death penalty

I know this isnt well written, but i wrote it in 20 minutes this morning since it was due. I just want to debate capital punishment, this is a good way to start it, whats your opinion?

Louis Miraglia 3/12/07
Government

The death penalty is a method of punishment that has been used forever, but recently has been debated in the United States. Almost everybody has an opinion on the death penalty, which is often changed throughout their lifetime. In my opinion, prior to the viewing the movie Execution at Midnight, I was against the death penalty. The movie helped me gather my thoughts and my opinion still stands, I am against the death penalty. With the way our legal system runs, any innocent man can be proven guilty, so how do you choose which criminals to execute? Another opinion that I have is that sometimes people become angry and make mistakes, these types of people can’t justify their own actions.
Throughout the movie there were criminals that admitted to their actions, however, I don’t think execution is the sentence they deserve. For example, one of the murderers on death row was responsible for the death of the guy who was responsible for the death of his brother. Of course I know murder is wrong, however there is no way he was thinking straight. He recently suffered the death of his brother, he was just looking for revenge and now a mother must suffer with the death of both her sons. Murder is wrong and I think consecutive life sentences would be a better form of punishment in this case. The government shouldn’t be able to decide who should live, and who shouldn’t.
It is proven that there are criminals everywhere, not just on death row, which were wrongly accused of a crime. So the question arises, how does the government choose who and who not to kill? There was a very famous murder that went trial many times; resulting in that Larry Griffin was innocent of murder. However before the verdict was in, he was already executed for his crimes. The government made a mistake, an innocent man was executed, this mistake just can’t happen again. The government shouldn’t be able to choose who and who not to kill, especially when there is room for error. With the hundreds of people who have already been executed, or on death row, who knows if they really deserve to die?
The government should be in no place to decide who should live, and who should be executed. If somebody gets angry and can not justify their actions, then there are other ways to handle it besides executing them. The legal system also makes mistakes and wrongly accuses a people of a crime, if this goes bad an innocent person can be sentenced to death. It is not worth it to kill one innocent person, to make sure the government executes hundreds of guilty criminals.