Death Penalty Saves Lives by William Otis

In his article about death penalty, William Otis, argues against abolitionists. He is obviously in favour of death penalty and not abolition. He uses different ways to convince people that it is the right thing to keep death penalty.
He starts out by telling a story about a family who got a quadriplegic boy, because of some trouble at the delivery. In compensation for the child being totally paralyzed because of the mistakes that were made at his delivery, the family got 1,7 million dollars in compensation. When the child was eight the father hired a hit man to kill his son and wife. He probably uses this story to introduce his augments because he knows that this is a story most people would get upset about, and therefore, somehow emotionally involved: “You might think I’m making up that someone would hire a hit man to kill an eight-year-old, but it’s true.” (Page 1, Lines 21-22) – it is an upsetting story, it is obviously, as he says, unbelievable that someone would do such a thing, therefore, people respond emotionally to this story. When sympathy and empathy is achieved, the arguments for the matter, is easily respected by the reader, so as an appeal he uses pathos. He wants to convince people about death penalty, and this story seems like a good starting-point, because lots of people probably would like to see that father killed, when having committed such a horrible crime. When William Otis tells the story, it is clear what his point of view is, and who’s side he is taking. In a case like this, where the child is quadriplegic, there can be more than one way to look at it on. He explains how the father wanted the child killed because he wanted the 1,7 million dollars for himself; “...that this big pile of money that had been put aside for his son could be put to a better use; namely his use” (Page 1, Lines18-19) and