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Political Power I take to be the right of making laws with the penalty of death John Locke (Sarat 1). Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as many people. Public support for the death penalty has decreased only a little in the last years. Meanwhile, many countries have outlawed the practice - capital punishment doesn't exist in the European Union countries - and strict laws about who may be executed are becoming more common. Despite of all this capital punishment is racially, socially and economically biased and allows the possibility of the execution of innocent persons, too. Furthermore, there is no benefit to society that would make it necessary to continue it.
For these reasons, the death penalty doesn't support what the ideal criminal justice system tries to achieve and therefore must be abolished. Capital punishment cannot be a collective act of revenge. It must never be allowed to become a release for collective anger. Bud Welch lost his twenty-three year old daughter, Julie, in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995. "I'm opposed to the death penalty. It's vengeance that doesn't do my heart any good... "-said Mr. Welch.
Capital punishment is no answer to the major challenges we face as a society. Moreover, it has not proven to be a deterrent to violent crime, and it has mainly occurred to the poor, and more to minority poor (Hodgkinson 78). This is not surprising, since a well-paid, high-powered defense team can make all the difference. In the United States there lives a conception of justice: a figure of a blindfolded woman holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other.
The scales symbolize the careful investigation of evidence, the sword represents the speed with which justice is dealt with, and the blindfold symbolizes the unprejudiced reach of decision. This has the message that the poor, uneducated defendant has the same opportunity for a quality defense, and has the same chance for justice as the wealthy one. Yet, this could be questioned. Wealthy defendants are able to pay for false witnesses and expensive tests that are not available to poor defendants.
The ill-paid Counsel of Defense may not really pay attention at the trial missing important evidence, so they result in their client being sentenced to death. Capital punishment is biased not only this way but also racially. The color of the skin of the accused and victim alike decides whether the death penalty will be given. The numbers vividly show race bias in connection with death penalty. Convicts who kill whites are much more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. For example, from 1769 to 1972, no white persons were executed for killing a black person in the state of Florida, though death penalty was used more often in the case of black defendants with white victims.
Could it be that not a single such crime was committed in over 200 years? It would be naive and wrong to believe this. Many advocates being on the side of the death penalty think that it frightens people away from crime and so provides a reasonable service to the society (Bed et al 134). They deeply believe that the execution of criminals will discourage others from committing similar acts. It may help in cases of premeditated crime but it is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is committed in the heat of the moment.
Most capital crimes are committed in moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs and alcohol, when they lose their logical thinking. Death-penalty countries do not have lower rates of criminal murders than non-death-penalty countries. Executing criminals cannot and does not provide a solution for decreasing the number of homicides, proving that the statement that capital punishment benefits society is incorrect. Another argument used against capital punishment is: if killing is wrong, then it also applies to the state that when they kill as a form of punishment. In other words: why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? This seems to disprove the moral ground of capital punishment.
If committing a murder is reprehensible for individuals, it must also be the same for the government executing murderers. What's more, the sixth commandment says "Thou Shalt not Kill. " All the people know that it is improper, so why would we just kill them for what they have done? That, would be two wrongs: breaking a commandment and the unwritten moral rule, too. Society has been putting people to death for years or centuries but has never stopped people from murdering. So whats the reason for executing? It has not stopped others from killing.
Or do we kill just for revenge? It gives the proof for that we are just as wrong as they are. Lastly, those criminal justice systems, which use capital punishment, are definitely imperfect because they rely on people, who are fallible. It is wrong to let such a system deal with questions of life and death. As long as a person can never be proven guilty with one hundred certainty, it is wrong to carry out executions, namely innocent people on death row is unacceptable. People are starting to realize that there's a possibility that innocent people are going to be put to death.
There is always a possibility of executing innocent persons, thus capital punishment shouldn't be allowed in any civilized societies. Furthermore, unlike all other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irreversible. Most would insist that there is little likelihood of the innocent being executed. However, if a person who killed another person for no reason is considered to be a murderer, then when the government kills a person for no reason must also be handled equivalently. There is a problem with a society that allows such a corrupt institution.
In the year of 2000, 3058 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries from which 88 % took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and in the USA (Google). These numbers are terrifying! No longer should it be believed that executing a person is the only way to ensure that they do not get released from prison and kill again. It would be more necessary to increase the prison sentences of murderers.
Imprisonment without the possibility of parole could be the sentence of those who would be sentenced to death under the current system. Such a move would help to calm down the fears of recidivism and would send a strong message to lawbreakers. The abolition of the death penalty would mean the end of executions and that the government wouldn't put any more prisoners to death. It should be recognized that murder is wrong in and of itself. Beyond that, it is wrong even as a secret plan within the heart (Manner 89). It is as old a human problem as Abel's death by his own brother, Cain.
We should really keep ourselves away from the spiral of violence because violence begets violence.
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Research essay sample on Sentenced To Death Capital Punishment
