Students react to recent death penalty decisions

At 18yrs old Brendan Bernard was convicted for being involved in the killing of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley in 1999. Recently the 40-year-old inmate at the federal prison in Terre Haute Indiana, was executed by death penalty on Dec. 10. 

Bernard had not played a major role in the murder and evidence had not been fully presented to the court at his trial in 2000. Regarding that, many feel he was wrongly convicted and did not deserve the consequences he had been given. Due to this, it had caused an uproar of different opinions on social media. 

“People all over social media such as Tik Tok and Instagram have been posting about how they don’t agree with the consequence Bernard had been given. I personally do not think Bernard deserved the consequence of the death penalty,” Peet freshman Kaydence Turner said. 

As Turner said, many people are talking about it on social media. A major influencer everyone knows is Kim Kardashian, and she has spoken out about how wrongful our system is and something needs to change. 

“The death penalty is wrong in so many ways, killing the convict will not bring the victims back. We need a different consequence other than killing them.” sophomore Maddy Paulsen said. 

It has brought awareness to students of how wrong the death penalty is because so many people killed because of the death penalty are wrongfully convicted. In many cases like Bernard’s pieces of evidence are overlooked and not brought to the court’s attention. 

“I do believe that Bernard deserved punishment, but with so many other people who deserve the death penalty in line, it was wrong to have given the death penalty to Bernard. Our system is very corrupt and it’s disgusting how some people can think killing is ever the solution,” freshman Samantha Horstman said.

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