Capital Punishment: Right or Wrong?
Capital Punishment? The question as to whether the state has the right to execute a person found guilty of murder has been debated at length for decades. As with the subject of abortion, it is one of the most controversial topics of discussion in our country today. According to the website religious www.tolerance.org, about 60 to 80% of American adults say they want to retain capital punishment (2). In fact, there are only 12 states that have chosen not to enact the death penalty since the ruling of the Supreme Court in 1976 that said it was constitutionally permissible to have capital punishment (Bonner 1). This strikes me as being rather odd since a large number of those same people claim to be Christians and the main thrust of Christianity is love and forgiveness, not vengeance. At the same time, a number of Christians are opposed to abortion, but are in favor of the death penalty. This belief does not make sense to me; if the life of the unborn is considered precious, then all life should be considered precious, including those who have allegedly committed terrible crimes.
Opponents of the death penalty believe that the death penalty is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, is racially biased, can often times be meted out to an innocent person, and is not a deterrent against future murders. Let us begin by first dealing with the issue of the death penalty as being a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Are there terrible murders being committed in this country today? Absolutely. And should these murderers be brought to justice? Here again, I would say without hesitation, of course. However, I do not know how you can execute a person for committing murder, thereby committing the same act that he is condemned for. In other words, murder is murder, whether it be by an individual or by the state. Murder is often a crime of passion and not a preplanned act. Can you say the same thing about executing someone either by the electric chair or injection? The end result is the same, a person is dead, and it is very much a premeditated act carried out in a very mechanical, systematic way. In some respects, capital punishment is no better than the actions of a serial killer; it is killing for the sake of killing. I feel that if a person is deemed to be a threat to society then he should be removed from society and not...
... middle of paper ...
...east that way, if he is innocent, he would have the opportunity to prove his innocence. Upon researching this subject, I was extremely disturbed to find that the United States is one of the few countries that still has the death penalty. We really need to take another look at our justice system and try to bring about changes. The answer to society’s problems is not to just get rid of those people we believe are a threat to our security, but try to get to the root of the problem. If we don’t, there are always going to be others who will take the place of those we have executed.
Bibliography
Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford. “Absence of Executions” New York Times – 22 Sept., 2000.
http://eyore.lcspub.psu.edu.2065/universe/document Capital Punishment; The Death Penalty – All Sides to the Topic
http://www.religioustolerance.org/execute.htm Dieter, Esq., Richard C. The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides. June 1998 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/racerpt.html. Rosenberg, Paul. “Making a Case to Stop Convicting the Innocent” Denver Post, Denver, Colo. 22 April, 2000
Will, George F. “Innocent on Death Row” The Washington Post April 6, 2000
Many people are led to believe that the death penalty doesn’t occur very often and that very few people are actually killed, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,359 people have been executed as a result of being on death row since 1977 to 2013. Even though this form of punishment is extremely controversial, due to the fact that someone’s life is at stake, it somehow still stands to this very day as our ultimate form of punishment. Although capital punishment puts murderers to death, it should be abolished because killing someone who murdered another, does not and will not make the situation any better in addition to costing tax payers millions of dollars.
Bright, Stephen B. Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty (1995). Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
The death penalty has many supporters and opposes and i would have to say i am one of the opposes because whether they did or didn 't comment the crime . I don 't think it gives us as the people of the united states the right to kill a Man or Woman that does the horrific Crime . I mean don 't get wrong i am a true believer that everyone person is responsible for their actions and that justice needs to be taken. I believe most people think that if they get justice for their loved ones it would solve everything it may for the few minutes. But killing a person for their crime is just not justice Its just revenge for the families they harmed.
Latzer, Barry. Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998.
...ed United States. U.S. Government Accounting Office. Capital Punishment. Washington: GPO, 1994 Cheatwood, Derral and Keith Harries. The Geography of Execution: The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America. Rowman, 1996 NAACP Legal Defense Fund . Death Row. New York: Hein, 1996 "Ex-Death Row Inmate Cleared of Charges." USA Today 11 Mar. 1999: 2A "Fatal Flaws: Innocence and the Death Penalty." Amnesty International. 10 Oct. 1999 23 Oct. 1999 Gest, Ted. "House Without a Blue Print." US News and World Report 8 Jul. 1996: 41 Stevens, Michelle. "Unfairness in Life and Death." Chicago Sun-Times 7 Feb. 1999: 23A American Bar Association. The Task Ahead: Reconciling Justice with Politics. 1997 United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Report. Washington: GPO, 1994 Wickham, DeWayne. "Call for a Death Penalty Moratorium." USA Today 8 Feb. 1999: 17A ILKMURPHY
Opponents of this position argue that the death penalty is a necessary evil. One of the top arguments is that you must punish offenders to discourage others from committing similar offenses (Radelet 44). Many people also feel that the victim’s families deserve closure. The prisoners have to pay for their crime and deserve the punishment that they get. Using the death penalty helps deal with the overpopulation in prisons. There are not enough resources or space to house prisoners for life. This statement can be true to a certain point. However, when talking about sacrificing one person’s life for the greater good of society, no man should have the authority to end someone’s life. One of the biggest issues that opponents argue is how much the victims suffer if the killer is not put to death. A murderer not only affects the person they kill, but also the victim’s friends and family’s life. They have to live with the grief of losing a loved one. If the killer is not put to death they could get the feeling that someone is out to get them. They will not be able to rest until the killer is tried and executed. Although this side of the argumen...
Murder, a common occurrence in American society, is thought of as a horrible, reprehensible atrocity. Why then, is it thought of differently when the state government arranges and executes a human being, the very definition of premeditated murder? Capital punishment has been reviewed and studied for many years, exposing several inequities and weaknesses, showing the need for the death penalty to be abolished.
...d the crime in some states. This is because some states in the United States do not have the death penalty but have the life sentence. This can also be for different countries. For instance, if someone in one country or state gets sentenced to the death penalty, but then someone who committed about the same crime in another country or state gets a life sentence. One man in one country or state has to die while the other in the other country or state gets to live. Finally, the death penalty is unreliable and not properly used because most trials have some serious errors. A statistic by Columbia University Law School says that two thirds of all capital trials had some major errors. It also stated that after the cases retired, over 80% of the defendants were not given the death sentence and only 7% were completely free (“Innocence (In Opposition to the Death Penalty)”).
Pasquerella, Lynn. “The Death Penalty in the United States.” The Study Circle Resource Center of Topsfield Foundation. July 1991. Topsfield Foundation. 03 Feb 2011. Web.
“The case Against the Death Penalty.” aclu.org. American Civil Liberties Union, 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2013
The death penalty has been around for centuries. It dates back to when Hammurabi had his laws codified; it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Capital punishment in America started when spies were caught, put on trial and hung. In the past and still today people argue that, the death penalty is cruel, unusual punishment and should be illegal. Yet many people argue that it is in fact justifiable and it is not cruel and unusual. Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual; the death penalty is fair and there is evidence that the death penalty deters crime.
Markoff, Steven C. "Death Penalty ProCon.org." Death Penalty ProCon.org. N.p., 12 July 2014. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
Bedau, H. A. (2004). Killing as Punishment:Reflections on the Death Penalty in America. York, Pennsylvania. Maple Press. Northeastern University Press. Print
The death penalty has been an issue of debate for several years. Whether or not we should murder murderer’s and basically commit the same crime that they are being killed for committing. People against the death penalty say that we should not use it for that very reason. They also make claims that innocent people who were wrongly convicted could be killed. Other claims include it not working as a deterrent, it being morally wrong, and that it discriminates.
Eddlem, T. R. (2004). Ten Anti-Death Penalty Fallacies.The New American. 2002. Web. 10 June 2015.