2014年12月英语六级听力冲刺练习20
英语六级听力部分算是同学们考试时的难点吧。听力这部分不能急于求成，需要时间来练习。对于这部分同学们平时在积累词汇的基础上多加练习就可以，听的多了就能掌握技巧，距离12月份的四六级考试还有一段时间，同学每天练习一点听力，考试时听力就能取得高分了。听力音频点击下载.mp3
听力材料：
When executions are carried out at the prison facilityin Huntsville, Texas, death penalty opponents areusually on hand to protest.
Texas carries out more executions than any otherstate-16 last year. And polls show most Texanssupport the punishment.
One is self-described death penalty advocate Dudley Sharp, who argues that executionsensure killers do not kill again and deter others from doing so.
“The evidence that the death penalty deters no one does not exist.The evidence that thedeath penalty deters some people is overwhelming.”
Sharp said most families of murder victims want proportional justice, but they find no joy in anexecution.
“All of this is in the context of losing an innocent life to an unjust murder, so none of it isgood.”
Houston attorney Pat Monks opposes the death penalty, contending that it's carried outwithin a flawed judicial system.
“It assumes that the system is perfect in one instance, maybe just in one instance, and it isnot.”
Monks cites cases in which new evidence has led to the release of prisoners on death row. Hecalls capital punishment an archaic practice that the United States inherited from a country thathas now abandoned it.
“It is from England, the common law system in which the king owns all of us, we are all subjectto the king, and so the state.It is their case as opposed to our case.”
In early December, an appeals court issued a stay in the planned execution of convictedmurderer Scott Panetti, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Houston attorney Kathryn Kase of the Texas Defenders Service, who represents Panetti, saysthe nationwide attention this case has received is encouraging.
“What we see in the stay is this emerging awareness in the United States that we don't wantto execute people with serious mental illness.”
The state of Texas contends Panetti meets its standard of competence. But Kase saysexecuting such a delusional person does not serve the purpose most people associate with thedeath penalty.
“We are supposed to be reserving the death penalty for the worst of the worst.The problem isthat when we get into choosing who that is, we are not consistent.”
Surveys show that younger respondents tend to favor life imprisonment for murderers overthe death penalty and that fewer than half of all respondents favor executing the mentally ill.
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