Capital Punishment and The Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon

Capital punishment dates back to 18th century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. Under this code twenty five crimes, excluding murder, were punishable by death. In historical data, the first death penalty was imposed to offender who was blamed for magic in 16th century BC Egypt (Regio, 1997). Unfortunately, death penalty is still practiced in some countries. For example, in Egypt recently on 24 March 2014, Minya Criminal Court imposed death penalty to 529 followers of Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsi for their participation in violence (Amnesty International, 2014). Nowadays, United States also practices capital punishment. According to the fact sheet of DPIC (2014) 20 criminals from different states were executed this year in US. It is frustrating that in 21st century we still hear about cases of execution and new criminals being sentenced to death. Nowadays, we need to move away from this form of punishment. Death penalty should be abolished in United States because it does not decrease rate of crimes, it is immoral and it is against justice.

Those who support death penalty claim that it is an effective way to prevent crime commitment. According Van den Haag (1983) death penalty is the best way to deter murder for the reason that death is what mostly horrifies people. He believes that there is no other way, even life imprisonment can not deter murder to the extent of death penalty, and moreover he argues that in order to prevent future homicides it is better to sentence killers to death.

However, those who oppose death penalty strictly believe that death penalty is not efficient way to decrease rate of crimes. American Civil Liberties Union (2007) argues that long term imprisonment is not inferior to death penal...

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...h and guilty than if you are poorer and innocent” (as cited in Bedau and Cassell, 2004). So, poor people are more likely to be sentenced to death and some of them may be innocent, and terrifying consequence is that once death penalty is imposed it can never be taken back again. No one can guaranty that there is no possibility of discovering evidences which may exonerate an innocent person but since death penalty is irreversible process, an executed person will no longer be benefited by any new evidences. Thus, death penalty should be abolished and life which is most precious thing that a person can have should not be endangered by such punishment and one innocent life must not suffer in the place of true criminal.

The death penalty should be abolished and should never be an option of punishment. Executing murders is not getting justice, it is getting revenge.