Pim Boden
Straat Nummer
Postcode Plaatsnaam
The Netherlands

George W. Bush
President of the U.S.
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington D.C.,20500 USA

11 December 2003

Dear president Bush

I am writing you a letter to express my concern about the way of use of the death penalty in the United States.

Using the death penalty is something what has its pro’s and con’s. I think it’s not moral, having the right to kill people whatever they had done. If someone does something horrible to you, you don’t have to do the same back just for vengeance.

I also think that you don’t punish people if they did something incorrect because they deserve it (you want to let them feel the same), but if you punish someone you do that to teach him a lesson so he won’t make the same mistake again. So you can put someone into prison and relieve him after several years, but that doesn’t really solve the problem. You have to help people with their problems and teach them how to act in normal life. If someone, in the peoples opinion, did something really worse than you can put him in prison for a long time so he never can make the same mistake again, but you must not kill that person because you think he did something horrible, he is evil so he must die.

Another very big disadvantage of the death penalty is that it can’t be undone. If someone is charged for, murder par instance, and a year after the execution the police finds the evidents which declares he is innocent, you have killed the wrong person. That is something that, especially in the United States, very often takes place, much to often. So I think that especially the United States must not use the death penalty because their prosecution system isn’t “bullet-proof”. Too much mistakes have been made. And if you are wrong, so executed the wrong person, than you didn’t only punished the wrong person but also the wrong family and other relatives.

You always see relatives of the victim and you always think how awful it is too lose someone because of crime, but to be a relative of a innocent person who has been killed by the state is maybe more worse because maybe he wasn’t even involved with the criminal offence. Think about your feeling if someone in your circle of acquaintances will be killed undeserved.

Yours faithfully

Pim Boden