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The Role Of The Death Penalty In American Society

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This paper explores the machination of death penalty in the American society. The history of the nation and even its political ethos are strictly directed towards freedom. The Declaration of Independence vividly expresses that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights, however, both life and the pursuit of happiness also depend on liberty as a fundamental bedrock of the country. The United States Constitution, many years until the early part of the twentieth century, was devoted to freeing society from the shackles of the death penalty. An agenda which should be embraced by all the Americans. The United States Constitution strictly avows respect for life. The restraints placed on the government in the Constitution by…show more content…
Burgess, Regehr & Roberts (2013), lamented “The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, controlled the use of capital punishment by prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment” (p. 175). The justice system has valid alternatives to the death penalty, such as life imprisonment without parole, that constitute adequate punishment even for the most repugnant crimes. Moreover, it is dangerous to engage in ethical equivalencies and hierarchically rank human beings; the point should not be to judge whose life is more vulnerable, but rather to affirm that all human life must be valued. A system that ends a human existence cannot stand in a righteous and just society. The solution is for the justice system to provide remedy to victims, not vengeance. Moreover, this view fails to give due credence to the reality that the death penalty system has not been and cannot be proven to be a successful deterrent, is more expensive than relevant alternatives because of the appellate process, is subject to human error, and is often riddled with economic and racial bias in its application. The irrevocable nature of the death penalty renders it an unsustainable and indefensible remedy in an imperfect justice system. What should be done to the death penalty is not an intellectual exercise. The death penalty can divide and damage families, due to the fact that death is final and because individuals have deeply held feelings about the morality and utility of executions, unlike any other punishment the death penalty creates irreconcilable conflict amongst the surviving family members of murder
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