Use Of The Death Penalty example essay topic

r r r 'U Capital Punishment - Injustice of Society There has been many controversies in the history of the United Stats, ranging from abortion to gun control, but capital punishment has been one of the most hotly contested issues in recent decades. Today's system of capital punishment is fought with inequalities. The commonly offered arguments for the death penalty are filled with holes. "It was a deterrent. It removed killers. It was the ultimate punishment.

It is biblical. It satisfied the public's need for retribution. It relieved the anguish of the victim's family". (Grisham 120) Realistically, imposing the death penalty is expensive and time consuming. Retroactively, it has yet to be proven as a deterrent.

Morally is a continuation of the cycle of violence and. ".. degrades all who are involved in its enforcement, as well as its victim". (Stewart 1) The usual alternative to the death penalty is life-long imprisonment. Perhaps the most frequent argument for capital punishment is that of deterrence. The prevailing thought is that imposition of the death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing violent acts.

Numerous studies have been created attempting to prove this belief; however, "all the evidence taken together makes it hard to be confident that capital punishment deters more than long prison terms do". (Cavanagh 4) Going ever father, Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Montgomery based Equal Justice Initiative, has stated that. ".. people are increasingly realizing that the more we resort to killing as a legitimate response to our frustration and anger with violence, the more violent our society becomes... We could execute all three thousand people on death row, and most people would not feel any safer tomorrow". (Frame 51) In addition, with the growing humanitarianism of modern society, the number of inmates actually put to death is substantially lower than fifty years ago.

This decline creates a situation in which the death penalty ceases to be deterrent when the populace begins to think that one can get away with a crime and not be punished. Also, the less that the death sentence is used, the more it becomes unusual, thus coming in conflict with the eighth amendment. This is essentially a paradox, in which the less the death penalty is used, and the less society can legally use it. The end result is a punishment that ceases to deter any crime at all.

The key part of the death penalty is that it involves death - something that is rather permanent for humans, due to the concept of morality. This creates a major problem when. ".. there continue to be many instances if innocent people being sentenced to death". (Tabak 38) In our legal system, there exist numerous ways in which justice might be poorly served for a recipient of the death sentence. Foremost is in the handling of his own defense counsel. In the event that a defendant is without counsel, a lawyer will be provided. "Attorney's appointed to represent indigent capital defendants frequently lack the qualities necessary to provide a competent defense and sometimes have exhibited such poor character that they have subsequently been disbarred".

(Tabak 37) With payment caps or court determined sums of, for example, $5 an hour, there is not much incentive for a lawyer to spend a great deal of time representing a capital defendant. When you compare this to the prosecution, .".. aided by the police, other law enforcement agencies, crime labs, state mental hospitals, various other scientific resources, prosecutors... experienced in successfully handling capital cases, compulsory process, and grand juries... ". (Tabak 37), the defense that the court appointed counsel could offer is puny. If in fact, a properly recognized.

Furthermore, why should he be punished for an injustice that was created by the court itself when it appointed the incapable lawyer?" Revenge is an unworthy motive for our society to pursue". (Whittier 1) In our society, there is a great expectation placed on the family on the victim to pursue vengeance to the highest degree - the death penalty. Pat Bane, executive director of the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation (M VFR), stated, "one parent told me that people made her feel like she was betraying her son because she did not want to kill the person who murdered him". (Frame 50) This creates a dilemma of morality. If anything, by forcing families to seek the death penalty, their own consciences will be burdened by the death of the killer. Furthermore, "killing him will not bring back your son".

(Grisham 402) At some point, man must stop the violence. Seeking temporary gratification is not a logical basis for whether the death penalty should be imposed. Granted, revenge is easily confused with retribution, and most would agree that the punishment should fit the crime, but can society really justify murdering someone else simply on the basis that they deserved it? Government has the right and duty to protect the greater good against people, who jeopardize the welfare of society, but a killer can be sentenced to life without chance of parole and society will be just as safe as if he had been executed.

Abolitionists say the cost of execution has become increasingly expensive and that life sentence is more economical. A study of the Texas criminal system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. This high cost includes $265,640 for the trial; and $294,240 for the state appeals; $113,608 fro federal appeals (over six years); and $135,875 for death row housing. In contrast, the cost of housing a prisoner in a Texas maximum, security prison single cell for 40 years is estimated at $750,000.

This is a huge amount of taxpayer money but the public looks at it as an investment in safety since these murders will never kill again. Retention ists, argue that these high costs are due to "the lengthy time and the high expense result from innumerable appeals, many over 'technicalities' which have little or nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence, and do little more than jam up the nation's court system. If these 'frivolous' appeals were eliminated, the procedure would neither take so long nor cost so much". (Kronenwetter 29) The moral issues concerning the legitimacy of the death have been brought by many abolitionists. They think that respect for the life forbids the use of the death penalty, while believe that respect for life requires it. Retentional ists says the Bible (Genesis 9: 6) says, "Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man may his blood shed".

This classic argument in favor of the death penalty has usually been interrupted as a proper and moral reason for putting a murderer to death. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is its secondary counterpart (Cox). Both quotes imply that the murderer deserves to die and it was his own fault for putting himself on death row. Supporters of capital punishment say that society has the right to kill in defense of its members, just as an individual has the right to kill in self defense for his or her own personal safety. This analogy is somewhat doubtful, however, as long as the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to violent crimes has yet to be proven. In the United States, the main objection to capital punishment has been that it was always used unfairly, in at least three major ways.

First, females are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though women committed 20 percent of all murders that have occurred in recent years. Second, a disproportionate number of nonwhites are sentenced to death and executed. A black man who kills a white person is eleven times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man who kills a black person. In Texas in 1991, blacks made up twelve percent of the population, but forty eight percent of the prison population and 55.5 percent of those on death row are black. Before 1970's when the death penalty fro rape was still used in many states, no white men were guilty of raping nonwhite women, whereas most black offenders found guilty of raping a white women were executed. This data shows how the death penalty can discriminate and be used on certain races rather than equally as punishment for severe crimes.

And third, poor and friendless defendants, those who are inexperienced or of court-appointed counsel, are most likely to be sentenced to death and executed. Defenders of the death penalty, however, argue that, because nothing found in the laws of capital punishment causes sexist, racist, or class bias in its use, these kinds of discrimination are not a sufficient reason for abolishing the death penalty on the idea that it discriminates or violates the 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution Opponents of capital punishment have replied to this by saying that it would be impossible to administer fairly. In the 1970's, a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions made the death penalty in the U.S. unconstitutional, it is mandatory, if it is imposed without providing courts with adequate guidance to make the right decision in the severity of the sentence, or if it is imposed for a crime that does not take or threaten the life of another human being. The death penalty was also confined to crimes of murder, including felony murder.

A felony murder is any homicide committed in the course of committing another felony, such as rape or robbery. After the 1972 court ruling that all but a few capital statuses were unconstitutional, thirty-seven states revised and reenacted their death penalty laws. In 1989 the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty could be used on those who were mentally retarded or underage (but 16 years and older) at the time of killing. A trend that the Supreme Court is following is making a cut back on the appeals that death row inmates could make to the federal courts.

Throughout history, governments have been extremely inventive in devising ways to execute people. Executions inflicted in the past are now regarded today as ghastly, barbaric and unthinkable and are forbidden by law almost everywhere. Common historical methods of execution included: stoning, crucifixion, burning, breaking on the wheel, drawing and quartering, pine for tet due, garroting, beheading or decapitation, shooting and hanging. (Kronenwetter 171) These types of punishments today are considered cruel and unusual. In the United States, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways: firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, electrocution, and lethal injection. These are methods of execution compared o those of the past are not meant for torture, but meant for punishment for the crime.

In earlier times - where capital punishment was common, the value of life was less, and societies were more barbaric - capital punishment was probably quite acceptable. However, in today's society, which is becoming ever more increasingly humanitarian, and individual rights and due process of justice are held in high accord, the death penalty is becoming an unrealistic form of punishment. Also, with ever present possibility of mistaken execution, then will remain the question of innocence of those put to death. Finally, man is not a divine being. He does not have the right to inflict mortal punishment in the name of society's welfare when there are suitable substitutes that require fewer resources. I ask society, ."..

Why don't we stop the killing?" (Grisham 404) Cavanagh, Suzanne, and David Tea sly". Capital Punishment: a brief Overview" CRS Report For Congress 95-505 GOV (1995): 4. Frame, Randy". A Matter of Life and Death". Christianity Today 14 Aug. 1195: 50 Stewart, David O. "Dealing with Death".

American Bar association Journal 80.11 (1994): 50 Tabak, Ronald J. "Report: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel and Lack of Due Process in Death Penalty Cases". Human Rights 22. Winter (1995): 36 Whittier, Charles H". Moral Arguments or and Against Capital Punishment". CRS Report for Congress (1996): 1.