Times Have Changed, and so should the rules of the Death Penalty

Before watching "The Execution" my opinion of the death penalty was that it should not exist. The death penalty lowers ourselves to the criminal's standards. People should not live their life with an eye for an eye mentality. After watching the movie my opinion did not change. The film brought in many good aggravating factors that almost swayed my opinion into letting him die. Boggess killed killed two defenseless old men in a brutal way. Not only that but when in prison he threatened to kill again, which was why it seemed like he would be a threat to peoples' lives in and out of prison. This is one of the big factors for why people support the death penalty because in taking the life of a criminal, they hope that it will save the lives of innocent people that the criminal could have killed in the future. Another big reason for why people support the death penalty is for redemption. The families who lost one of their family members were extremely upset that while their family member was dead, Boggess was alive. They felt that he should pay for what he did, and the only way for him to do that was to die. In the end though, I still felt like the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors.
When put in prison, Boggess was an agressive person who was definitely capable of killing again. As time progressed for Boggess while in prison, he started to become a different person. He began drawing and writing to pen pals, who soon became his best friends. He became very invested in religion, which made him a much more peaceful man. Even though his change was so great, this does not mean that I believe that Clifford Boggess should be free from prison. It just means that he should not have to serve the death penalty and instead serve life in jail. Boggess committed horible crimes, which he should be punished for. How he decides to serve that punishment in jail, whether he wants to be an aggressive person or a peaceful person is up to him, but it does not mean that he has to die. Also it almost seemed like Boggess was happier that he was going to die because he was so invested in religion that he felt that after death he would go straight to heaven. So by forcing him not to die, it was a worse punishment for him because he would not be able to go straight to heaven, which is what it seemed like he wanted.
It is understadable for a person whose family member was murdered to want that murderer to be put to justice. In this case, Boggess would still be brought to justice by serving life in jail. Boggess did change in prison and became a much more peaceful man who would not kill again, but the fact of the matter is that he killed two men. He must pay for what he did through thinking about his actions in prison for the rest of his life, and not simply killed off. By killing Boggess, the families are just lowering themselves to Boggess previous actions. Instead they should force him to stay in jail for the rest of his life, and live with what he had done.