Capital Punishment Imagine your having a normal morning, eating breakfast doing your normal routine. Suddenly your phone rings and when you answer you hear the worst news possible. One of your family members has just been murdered in cold blood. You cry, mourn, then become angry. You attend the court hearing and you sit less than 20 feet away from the murderer. Do you truly believe this person deserves to live? Or should they face a punishment that is equal to their crime? Some may say Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty is an issue that has the United States divided. There are many people who both support and oppose capital punishment. As of July 1, 2015 there are thirty-one states that uphold capital punishment and nineteen states that have abolished it (Death Penalty Information Center). I support capital punishment and believe that it should be upheld throughout the nation. For reasons such as deterrence, restitution, and ethics. When a state upholds capital punishment its residents are greatly deterred from committing crimes of murder. Knowing that death is a possible punishment, and most people fear death, people are less likely to engage in a murderous act. Ernest van den Haag, a professor at Fordham University, writes about the issue of deterrence: “…capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the
Again the existence of death penalty acts as a perfect deterrence to those potential criminals who are likely to commit crimes like murder and so on. Advocates for abolition of death penalty have sighted that death penalty does not have any effect in deterring crimes. Actually, they claim that the existence of death penalty leaves the crime rates constant or even higher. However, according to a study done by Van den Haag, the crime rates have increased to more than 10% whenever the death sentence has been abolished (68). Additionally, the same report pointed out
Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, is a controversial subject which has been argued for decades due to the ethical decisions involved. People believe the death penalty is the right thing to do and that it is the perfect example of ‘justice’ while others believe that it is immoral and overly expensive. The death penalty is not a logical sentence for criminals, it doesn’t give them the right type of justice and it is immoral.
Those who believe that deterrence justifies the execution of certain offenders bear the burden of proving that the death penalty is a deterrent. The overwhelming conclusion from years of deterrence studies is that the death penalty is, at best, no more of a deterrent than a sentence of life in prison. The Ehrlich studies – which took
Does death justify the loss of a loved one? The death penalty has been around for decades, raising questions and resulting in the issue of whether it is socially acceptable or morally incorrect. Instinctively we perceive death with horror, particularly the thought of killing someone else. But as human beings we also have a barbarian instinct that wants revenge when someone has hurt us deeply. Generally people who have suffered a tragedy, in which a loved one has been taken from them, would tend to support the death penalty. While those who have never experienced such an ordeal may see things with a different perspective and debate that a criminal’s life is a human life nevertheless. Arguments of why the death penalty should exist include
The case for capital punishment can best be understood by examining the opposition's arguments against capital punishment. Opponents of capital punishment say the death penalty does not deter crime and is cruel and unusual. Opponents may also argue that capital punishment is a blood thirsty judicial homicide that benefits no one. Are they right to believe a murderer is entitled to our sympathy?
How would one react to a family member receiving the death penalty? How painful would it be knowing that a son, daughter, husband, wife, friend, etc. was sentenced to, arguably, the worst punishment given by the justice system? Capital punishment is a widely discussed and controversial topic, with a spectrum of viewpoints on the subject. Some believe it is necessary for a crimeless society, while others believe it is a very harmful view on violent crime in America. I am against the death penalty as a concept altogether, it is both paradoxical and hypocritical in nature to end someone’s life for killing someone else. The death penalty should be considered immoral because it goes against the Eighth
Capital punishment or the death penalty is punishment by death of a person who has been legally tried in a court of law for a capital crime. The morality and constitutionality of the death penalty has recently come up for debate again after the European pharmaceutical companies, who produce Pentobarbital, one of the drugs most commonly used to execute the death penalty sentence via lethal injection, stopped exporting and allowing the sale of the drugs to the United States. (Steiden, 2014) (Levitt & Feyerick, 2013) Since then multiple lawsuits have been filed by incarcerated individuals and opponents of the death penalty after several states began looking into new drug combinations or having variations of the banned drugs created by compounding pharmacies locally. (Levitt & Feyerick, 2013) Two such lawsuits were filed by Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, who were both found guilty of capital crimes and sentenced to death in Oklahoma. Both Lockett and Warner argued for a stay on their execution dates until the controversies over the new drug protocols adopted by the state of Oklahoma were cleared up. (Eckholm, 2014) Other lawsuits filed have argued that using untested drug protocols in lethal injections should be considered “cruel and unusual punishment.” (Levitt & Feyerick, 2013) The debate really heated up after Clayton Lockett’s appeal for a stay was denied and he appeared to have suffered for an extended amount of time during his execution. (Steiden, 2014)
Capital punishment has been an issue that has been debated for quite some time. The expression of, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” has become the basis for political debate over the past several decades. In the United States alone, capital punishment is currently administered within thirty two of the fifty states within the country. The Federal criminal justice system practices and carries out executions of inmates as well. Traditionally, this category of punishment is carried out to act as a deterrent, and give families and/or citizens a feeling of retribution and incapacitation. The ideology behind the practice of capital punishment is to establish that if a life is taken in malice, then so shall the malicious perish for their deed. Additionally, it is only the federal and state governments whom this authority is permitted to. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), the first constitute law for the death penalty was established in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon dating back to 18 B.C. The first recorded execution in America took place in Jamestown, Virginia in 1612. Since 1976, there have been 1,411 individuals who have been put to death under the various federal and state legislations within the United States of America (DPIC, 2015). The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution shapes procedural aspects that govern how a jury may implement the death penalty. This Amendment lays out the guidelines for how the death
“Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder…” . In a study conducted by Isaac Ehrlich , it was found that for each execution of a criminal seven potential victim’s lives were saved . This was thanks to other possible murderers being deterred from committing murder after realizing that other criminals are executed for their crimes.the most shocking protection of innocent life was in texas, who so happens to use the death penalty to its advantege,and according to jfa(justice for all) the murder rate in 1991 was 15.3 per 100,000,by 1999 the number had dropped to 6.1 and drop of 60 percent .Capital punishment also acts as a deterrent for the rate at which previously convicted criminals return to committing crimes after being released from prison . if the criminal is executed he has no chances or oputunitys to commit crimes and ruin lives ever again. Some people may argue that there is not enough solid evidence to use deterrence as an argument for the death penalty. The reason some evidence may be unsolved is that the death penalty often takes a while to be carried out, some prisoners sit on death row for many years before the procedure is actually carried out. This can
In Ancient Greece, about 621 BC, the first Athenian legal system was first written down (Robert). The death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offenses. Historically, the death sentence was often handled with torture, and executions, except that it was done in public. In this century, the death penalty, execution or capital punishment, whatever you’d like to refer it as, is the result for committing capital crimes or capital offences and it is not in public. The death penalty has been practiced by most societies in the past, as a punishment for criminals, and political or religious dissidents. Despite the fact that many countries have negated the death penalty, over 60% of the world 's population live in nations where executions still take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia. Since 2009, mostly every country has banned the placement of the death penalty for a person under the age of 18. Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. The only countries who still perform these executions are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan.
It is argued that the death penalty does not contribute to the deterrence of crime, but rather raises the crime rate. Countries use the death penalty for reasons regarding their legal, political, and religious belief systems. Capital punishment is used to prevent possible crimes, letting possible would-be-criminals be aware that they would be put to death if they committed a very offensive treason against the government. It is the ultimate warning against all crimes. If someone is thinking of committing a severe crime, he or she would be more apprehensive and hesitant in committing it due to the fact that they know that the justice system will not spare their life.
The next argument that proponents of the death penalty will espouse is that the death penalty is a deterrent to future murders. Interestingly enough there are many district attorneys who do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder, and who are opposed to the death penalty. These are people who deal with murderers and other criminals every day. In the New York Times Special Report, this article indicates that 10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average, while Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, that half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average (Bonner 1). As I stated before, the majority of murders are not preplanned, so how can they be prevented? This opinion is substantiated by Mr. John O’Hair, the district attorney from Detroit who states, “I do not think that the death penalty is a deterrent of any consequence in preventing murders.” Most homicides, he said are “impulsive actions, crimes of passion, “ in which the killers do not consider the consequences of what they are doing.”
The time in prison is meant to take the criminal’s freedom to go anywhere he or she may want to go, or whatever he or she chooses to do in the world. Which will cost the criminal to think about the crime and not want to come back. But when the person is put to death, they are taught absolutely nothing because they are no longer alive to learn from it. The penalty is nothing but a cruel murder killing someone. A murder killing a possible murder.
The death penalty also known as capital punishment is when the government decides whether or not to kill a person depending on their crime. If it’s a petty crime you won’t be considered for death penalty but when you commit a heinous crime such as mass murder or rape and murder the courts may rule for you to get the death penalty.
Capital punishment, or the death penalty, has existed for thousands of years. For as long as there has been organized society, the death penalty has existed in numerous cultures and civilizations. Throughout the years the methods have changed, but the use of capital punishment is becoming a pressing matter. Amnesty International reports that there are 140 countries worldwide that have abolished the death penalty, while over 50 countries still practice it. Over the past few decades, there has been a sharp drop in countries carrying out capital punishment. In 2014 there were 22 countries with recorded executions, a sharp drop compared to the 1995 figure of 45 countries that carried out executions.