Doubts on the Death Penalty

This article caught my attention because I enjoy reading people's opinions on controversial subjects. The death penalty is obviously a big one, and I was curious as to what the author had to say about it. As it turns out, both people sentenced to it, and the number of people who support it, are in a decline. The article mentions Rick Perry and his involvement with the death sentence, and how he has overseen the most executions of any govener in modern times. It also mentions a case of possible innocence, which the Texas governer still signed off on.

This author relied mostly on logos. He gave many facts and statistics about both the decline of executions and people favoring them. He also gave facts about the case in Texas involving Rick Perry and the possible innocent man he executed. Despite all this, he didn't really seem to argue the point he was making. Yes, anyone with a sense of numbers can see that they are getting smaller. Everyone can understand that less and less people agree with the death sentence. It doesn't take a genius to see the statistics and understand what they're saying; there isn't anything to argue there, numbers are facts. His real arguement was that the death penalty is wrong, and I suppose he supported that somewhat with his explanation of the possibly innocent man, but he failed to link that to the death penalty in particular; he just made Rick Perry seem like an idiot. If he had tried to show more than one case where this had happened, and show that the death penalty is endangering lots of innocent lives that would otherwise be doing good in the world, maybe his arguement would be more persuasive. All he managed to do was show a singular case where the man in question might have been innocent. In the end, he didn't really persuade me at all, although he did make me start to really question politicians. . .

"Doubts on the death penalty"
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-death-20111216,0,5961286.story