2. 外语
  3. In the United States, 36 states currently allow capital punishment for serious crimes such as murder. Americans have always argu

In the United States, 36 states currently allow capital punishment for serious crimes such as murder. Americans have always argu

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问题     In the United States, 36 states currently allow capital punishment for serious crimes such as murder. Americans have always argued about the death penalty. Today, there is a serious question about this issue: Should there be a minimum age limit for executing criminals? In other words, is it right for convicted murderers who kill when they are minors--i, e. , under the age of 18--to receive the death penalty?
    In most other countries of the world, there is no capital punishment for minors. In the United States, though, each state makes its own decision. Of the 36 states that allow the death penalty, 30 permit the execution of minors.
    In the state of South Carolina, a convicted murderer was given the death penalty for a crime he committed while he was a minor. In 1977, when he was 17 years old, James Terry Roach and two friends brutally murdered three people. Roach’s lawyer fought the decision to execute him. The young murderer remained on Death Row (a separate part of prison for convicted criminals who are sentenced to death) for ten years while his lawyer appealed to the governor. The lawyer argued that it is wrong to execute a person for a crime he committed while he was a minor. In the United States, the governor of a state has the power to change a sentence from the death penalty to life in prison. Nonetheless, the governor of South Carolina refused to stop the execution. Roach was finally executed by electrocution in 1986. This is not the first time a criminal was executed in South Carolina for a crime he committed when he was a minor. In 1944, a 14-year-old boy died in that state’s electric chair.
    In Indiana, a 16-year-old girl was on Death Row for a crime she committed when she was 15. Paula Cooper and three friends stabbed an elderly woman to death in 1986. They robbed the old woman to get money to play video games. At the time of the murder, the minimum age limit for executions in that state was 10. Cooper’s lawyer appealed to the governor of Indiana to stop the execution because the convicted killer was very young and because she was abused in childhood. The Indiana governor, who favors the death penalty, said that he had to let the courts do their job.
The author mentioned a 14-year-old boy in paragraph 3 to show ______.
选项 A、the boy died in an electric chair
B、Roach was not the first minor criminal executed in South Carolina
C、the boy committed a crime
D、the boy was 14 years old when he died
答案B
解析 作者在第三段提到一个14岁的男孩，以表明罗奇不是第一个在南卡罗来纳州被处决的少年犯。作者在第三段末尾说，罗奇于1986年被处以电刑。对于未成年的犯人来说，这不是南卡罗来纳州第一次处死未成年犯人。1944年，一个14岁的男孩死在该州的电椅上。
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