Death penalty (Essay Sample)

Name Tutor Course Date Outline THESIS: Death penalty is intended to protect the life of an innocent person from unlawful murder, while this “may” be achieved, there is the possibility of losing an innocent person’s life in the hands of lawful murder should there be a miscarriage of justice which has been proven to happen. On the other hand, justice can be equally accorded through administration of equally severe forms of punishment which protect the life of an innocent victim from being lawfully executed should there be miscarriage of justice. Death sentence should therefore be suspended in favor of life imprisonment until all concerns related to this shortcoming are addressed. i. Studies have not proven the deterrence effect of death penalty to be of much Value for a number of reasons such as: a. Death penalty has not been proven to deter more murders than life imprisonment. b. Murderers imprisoned for long periods of time are not deterred from killing inmates and prison guards. c. Those committing murders are not deterred as most of them are in altered states of mind or do not plan on getting caught. ii. There can be miscarriage of justice due to: a. Discrimination that can leave the accused innocent at the mercies of the law. b. Arbitrariness, i.e. not fair in that citizens residing in same country but different states can have others suffering as a result of its enactment while others where it is not exercised do not suffer from its shortcomings. iii. Retributive justice can not be achieved through death penalty as it is disproportional in nature e.g. a rapist cannot be rapped in return. iv. Justice and healing can be achieved through lifelong imprisonment. a. Lifelong imprisonment leaves no loopholes for taking away an innocent person’s life. b. Deterrence effect is presumptuous and should therefore not be relied upon to justify the implementation of death penalty. There is no established method that can be used to identify a person who did not kill because he or she was afraid of death sentence. \'Death Penalty: Wrong or Right?\' Introduction If you are against death penalty, then you must be for the protection of life. Death penalty constitutes capital punishment administered by a state upon an individual who has committed certain crimes deemed serious by the state in question. It requires the life of the accused to be put to an end. Means of capital punishment include, but not limited to, hanging, crucifixion, electrocution, stoning etc. Thesis statement The constitution states that “if life was to be taken away as a form of punishment, then it must be in accordance with the due process of the law”, this proposition is conditional and accords the government a choice to either abolish it or effect it in light of the due process of the law. For this reason, I wish to put forth arguments that would lead to the abolition of death penalty. Dissenting Claim: Those in support of death penalty like Van den hag argue that death penalty acts as deterrence against possible future murderers. Death being the most severe form of punishment is most feared and a murderer would think twice before carrying out his intention (Van Den Haag, 1986, 125). Previous studies have shown that a number of murders were reduced since the inception of death sentence. Rebuttals to the claim: Execution tends to take long periods of time before it is administered and the use of alternative equally feared forms of punishments could be used instead as forms of deterrence. Deterrence has its limitations as someone already imprisoned and sentenced to death would not be afraid to kill prison guards and inmates. Death sentence can only be effective in deterring murderers if it is carried out fast enough which is usually not the case. Death penalty is intended to protect the life of an innocent person from the hands of a murderer. However, this form of punishment lays wide open the possibility of having to lose an innocent person’s life in the hands of the law should there be a miscarriage of justice. In rebuttal to deterrence, death sentence has not been proven to deter future murderers. Most murders are committed by people who are in an altered state of mind. It might be that a person acted in moments of immense emotional imbalance due to anger or substance abuse. Also, the person committing murder does not expect to be found out. In such cases, death sentence is unlikely to deter such persons or drug abusing criminals from committing murder as they are not in a position to evaluate the possibility of life imprisonment or the death penalty itself. Concurring Life imprisonment protects the life of an innocent person from accidental lawful execution should there be miscarriage of justice which happens too often while at the same time according due justice to the victims of murder. Moreover, death penalty has not been proven to deter more murderers than life imprisonment. Long-term imprisonment being a severe form of punishment can deter any rational human being from committing murder. However, this is not possible as most premeditated murders involve a criminal who is planning on not getting caught or people who murder out of sheer feats of emotions (Anckar, 2004, 54). In rebuttal to retribution, Sanctity of life should not be compromised to death penalty. Retribution being similar to revenge should not be exercised by a civilized society. Capital punishment has so many problems and risks associated with it and the need for vengeance should not justify its existence. Sanctioning killing for revenge motives lowers the dignity of a mature society, which is supposed to uphold the highest principles possible even when faced with a challenge of this magnitude for there is a better way of solving it without contradicting its moral principles. It has been found out that most of the victims families are objected to death penalty because it is vengeance regardless of how you look at it, for instance, a sodomite is not sodomized in return. Thus killing a murderer is a punishment that is disproportional and its sanctioning unrealistic. The U.S. takes long in implementing death penalty and only a few people ever get executed. This makes it completely unreliable for administering justice for the victims. Life-long incarceration will ultimately bring healing to the wounded souls. Countering violence with violence can only lead to more violence. No amount of punishment can bring healing to the affected families, healing can happen gradually through time and concerted efforts from third parties. It is a tragedy to believe that life can be protected by taking away life (Wolfson, 1998, 167). The issue of executing the innocent accidentally in the event of miscarriage of justice seems to be taken lightly by those dissenting (against its abolition) whereas, studies show that for every seven people executed, an innocent man’s life is lost. Errors occurring in administering capital punishment are so numerous thereby making its usage completely unreliable. For instance, a study showed that when cases were retried, 7% of the defendants were acquitted and 80 % were not put to death (Bae, 2007, 53). The releases of most of the innocent victims are facilitated by external factors such as a close scrutiny of the case by the journalists that ends up finding the actual offender. The justice system many a times have declared a person guilty but DNA testing ended up proving the judges to be wrong. By handing over to the accused a life sentence without parole, the likelihood of executing an innocent victim would be lowered to zero in case of an error due to irrevocable punishment, or in the event of miscarriage of justice (Mac Nair & Stephen, 2008, 176). There is also the issue of arbitrariness and discrimination where the administration of death penalty can be skewed. It can take into account race of either the victim or defendant, quality of defense counsel and such other irrational factors. If the defendant is financially challenged and cannot afford a highly competent lawyer who is able to conduct thorough investigation, he could end up losing his life. If a Caucasian person is murdered, studies have shown that there is high likelihood of passing a death sentence especially if it the murder was carried out by an African American than the other way around. Moreover, when one person in a certain state receives a death sentence and another in a different state receives a life sentence, justice in that case has been arbitrarily administered. Conclusion Capital punishment does not deter murder since it is virtually impossible to point out the exact citizen who did not kill because he feared for his life. Therefore, the deterrence effect is presumptuous in nature. Moreover, it cannot deter crimes of passion. In addition, deterrence effect is unreliable given the relatively small number of executions and huge amount of time lags between sentencing and execution. In addition, it is prone to errors and arbitrariness. Capital punishment is meant to prevent unjustified killings a notion that is paradoxical in that the government involves itself in many omissions that threaten people’s health and safety e.g. failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, ban cigarette smoking, prevent domestic violence, control road carnage etc. All of this goes unaccounted for, as such, the government cannot claim to be protecting lives by imposing capital punishment, and therefore capital punishment is wrong in all its forms. Works cited Anckar, Carsen. Determinants of the Death Penalty. New York: Rutledge, 2004. Print. Bae, Sangmin. When the State no longer Kills. Albany: State University of NY Press, 2007. Print. MacNair, Raymond, and Stephen, Zablon. Consistently Opposing Killing. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Print. Van Den Haag, Ernest. “The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense”.A University Review Journal, 13.4 (1986): 123-136. Print. Wolfson, Bedau. The Death Penalty in America, 3rd Edition. “The Death Penalty: For and Against,”. NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 1998. Print.