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The issue of capital punishment cannot simply be summed up in a few paragraphs, it is an topic of great debate, over both the issue of deterrence and of conscience. There are few matters which stir such heated debate, there are both abolitionists and receptionists, there are also those in the middle, the people who can discern legitimacy from each group. Each group has a set of beliefs which do apply to this matter, perhaps some groups subscribe to the old testament and its injunction an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth (The law of Moses, The Old Testament), or possibly some simply view capital punishment as legalized homicide, whatever the case may be one must put aside personal beliefs and attempt to comprehend the facts and statistics of this issue Capital punishment in Canada effectively ended on December 10, 1962 with the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin in the Don Jail in Toronto (Anderson, 78 - 79). After these executions the government began to commute all death sentences to life sentences. Then in 1976 a bill was introduced by the liberal government, abolishing the death penalty which passed by a narrow margin of 130 to 124 (Chandler, 199). This legislation saw murder divided into either first or second degree homicide, similar to the method our current day legal system uses as a definition.
Later in the 1980 s the Canadian public began to feel that perhaps once again the death penalty should be a part of the legal system. There were several reasons that the Canadian public felt this way, one such reason was the publics perception that the vote in 1976 was not a true free vote, secondly 1984 saw a dramatic increase in the murder of police officers, which doubled from the previous year. All of these concerns and events culminated into another vote in the House of Commons, this vote took place on June 30, 1987 and was a motion to accept in principle the restoration of the death penalty, this motion was defeated and consequently maintained the norm of abolition in Canada. (McDonald, 2). This vote questioned the delegate democracy system, however when one takes into account the fact that public opinion is influenced greatly by media and emotion it becomes clear that perhaps the Members of Parliament did not fall victim to this scenario but rather to the demands of special interest groups. This surely illustrates the fact that Government at that time did indeed scorn the delegate democracy system in Canada, and in doing this illustrated the value that they put into the opinion of their One question that arises when attempting to come to a resolution on capital punishment is that of deterrence, does the death penalty play a role in the decrease of murder? Or does it have no impact whatsoever.
The receptionists will argue that the fear of death will prevent murders from committing their crimes due to the fact that they have the knowledge that they will be executed if the do commit the act. However as abolitionist argue most murders are carried out during temporary lapses in judgment, they are crimes of passion therefore the threat of death will have no impact whatsoever on their judgment (McDonald, 52). When listening to this argument it makes one think that if a person is in such a state then no punishment will control their actions, however would the fear of execution not stop the small percentage of murderers that are in a cognizant state when they commit their deed? It would seem clear that the answer is yes. And there are indeed studies no reiterate this, as shown in the 1970 's when Prof. Isaac Ehrlich found out through his research that capital punishment did deter (Van Den Haag, 210).
Another sensitive item that tends to rear itself would be the fear of wrongful death, or executing the wrong person. This is a matter of great importance, obviously society does not want to be guilty of putting an innocent person to death. It is a fact that innocent people have lost their lives due to wrongful convictions, however the number is relatively small, only two people have been proved innocent after their execution in the United States. These wrongful deaths occurred in 1918 and 1949 (Internet 11
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Research essay sample on Delegate Democracy And Capital Punishment In Canada
