Death penalty and the mentally retarded

DEBATE SPEECH Honorable judge, worthy opponents. Please picture this scene. The teacher stands in the doorway of her classroom trying to get her first grade students to line up for library. Kayla Rolland, six years old, stands patiently waiting in line. One of the boys in the class approaches Kayla and withdraws a gun from his pocket and shoots Kayla in the chest. A half-hour later Kayla is dead. This is a true story. This …

…be kept separately from the other prisoners. There these mentally retarded people should receive medical attention as a mentally retarded person not imprisoned would receive. Picture this. A six-year-old is strapped down to a bed as pellets of gas drop around him, strangling him, taking his breaths until the veins beneath his skin bursts. In the words of Senator Ellis "we must make sure that a childlike mind is not subject to the death penalty."