Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

Bumper stickers often portray opinions on some of the toughest issues facing America today. I once read a bumper sticker that questioned “Why do we kill people who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong?” The United States is one of the few countries left in the world to practice the savage and immoral punishment of death. Retentionists argue that the death penalty prevents persons from committing the heinous crime of murder. It is proven that the death penalty does not deter persons from committing murder, nor does it serve as an example of the consequences of capital crimes to society. Furthermore, it is impossible to guarantee that the criminal justice system will not discriminate, or execute the innocent. And above all, the methods of execution are horrifying and barbaric, as well as devaluing of human life. We must realize that the life of a murderer is worth just as much as the life of the victim.

The most widely used argument in support of capital punishment is that the consequence of execution influences criminal behavior more effectively than imprisonment does (Amnesty International). Although the argument may sound reasonable, in reality the death penalty fails as a deterrent. The punishment can only be a useful deterrent if it is rational and immediately used. Capital punishment cannot meet those conditions. The number of first degree murderers who are sentenced to death is small, and of this group an even smaller number of people are eventually executed. The possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed is declining because mandatory death sentences were declared unconstitutional in 1976 (NCADP). Murder and other crimes of violence are not always premeditated. For example gang violence, drive by shootings, and kidnapping are serious crimes that continue to be committed because the criminal thinks they are too clever to be caught. Most capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment during times of great emotional trauma or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking is in no doubt absent (NCADP). In such cases, persons will commit a crime of violence regardless of the consequences. The majority of the evidence shows that the death penalty is in no way effectively deterring criminals.

Evidence of past use of the death penalty establishes reasonable doubt that the death penalty does not deter murder, and there is no evidence to prove otherwise. In a thorough report on the effects of criminal sanctions on crime rates, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that it is misleading to justify the use of capital punishment on such “fragile” and “uncertain” results (NCADP). Also, there are clinically documented cases that reveal the death penalty actually provoked the capital crimes it was intended to prevent (NCADP). These cases involved the so-called “suicide by execution syndrome” in which a person who wants to die but fears taking their own life will commit murder so the state will execute them. The use of the death penalty obviously guarantees that the criminal will never commit another crime, but there is no evidence that capital punishment deters another individual from committing murder (Glover 139).

An alternative, one that is far less inhumane, is a policy of life imprisonment without the possibility or parole. It is commonly reported that Americans approve of the death penalty. But, more careful analysis of the attitudes of the public shows that Americans prefer alternatives (Smart). In fact, they would oppose the death penalty if convicted murderers were sentenced to life without parole and required to make some form of financial restitution. In a 1993 nationwide survey 77 percent of the public approved of the death penalty, but the poll dropped to 41 percent when the alternative no parole plus restitution was offered (Smart). Only a minority of the American public would favor the death penalty over other alternatives.

By law it is required that the trial and sentencing of the accused must be conducted with the utmost fairness, especially when incorporating the irreversible sanction of the death penalty. It has been noted that courts have sentenced some criminals to prisons while putting others to death, which clearly demonstrates uncertainly, racial prejudices, and extreme unfairness. In his classic American Dilemma (1940) Gunnar Myrdal reported that “the South makes the widest application of the death penalty”, and sadly ” Negro criminals are in for much more than their

share of the executions” (Warner). Recently a study of the death penalty showed that the current capital punishment system is an outgrowth of the racist “legacy of slavery” (NCADP). Between

1930 and 1996, 4,220 prisoners were executed and more than half were black. (Cite) A disproportionately large number of African Americans have always occupied the nation’s death row (Dieter 144). During the past century, blacks were more often executed for what were considered less-than-capital offenses for white criminals, such as rape and burglary (Dieter 145). A large percentage of the blacks who were executed were juveniles, and the number of executions without having one’s conviction reviewed by a higher court was inflated for African Americans (NCADP). In recent years, there has been wide belief that racial discrimination is a thing of the past. However, since the renewal of capital punishment in the mis-1970s approximately half of the death row population, at any given time, has been black (Smart). When those under the death sentence are examined more closely, it is apparent race is a factor after all. A statistical study of racial discrimination in capital cases in Georgia, showed that those convicted of killing a white person were more likely to receive the death penalty in all indicted cases. Further evidence proved unfairness in capital cases as reported by the U.S. General Accounting Office. The GAO results of its review concluded that of the 28 studies there was a “pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty. And that the “race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process…” (Dieter 144). One can conclude then, that in the courts of the nation, even today, the murder of a white person is treated much more severely than the murder of a black person. Therefore, it can be noted that our criminal system reserves the death penalty for those murders (regardless of their race) that kill white victims (Dieter 145). 88 percent of all executions since 1930 have been for murder (Warner). Gender and socio-economic class also aid in the discrimination of who will receive a death sentence to be executed. Only one percent of those on death row were women, although women commit about 15 percent of all criminal homicides (NCADP). Only 33 women,

of whom 12 were black, have been executed in the United States since 1930. Fairness in capital cases requires most especially, a competent counsel for the defense. Yet, about 90 percent of those on death row were not able to afford a lawyer when tired. The most common characteristics among death row defendants are poverty, lack of social community, and inadequate legal representation at trial or on appeal (NCADP). The above flaws in the actual administration of capital punishment are only one of the clear reasons for abolition. In the judgement of the fair- minded and unprejudiced “capital punishment is a power that cannot be exercised fairly and without discrimination” (Smart).

Therefore, we cannot put human lives in the hands of flawed system, for society will suffer the consequences, as well as the victims. Unlike all other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irreversible. Once a criminal is put to death no one can bring back the human life taken if a mistaken is discovered after the fact. Although some supporters of capital punishment argue that its advantages are worth the sacrificing of innocent people. Nevertheless, there is evidence showing that from the 1980s to the 1990s innocent people have often been convicted of capital crimes as well as executed (Amnesty International). Since the 1990s there have been an estimated four cases a year in which an innocent person was convicted of murder, in addition to the many that were sentenced to death (Amnesty International). Those wrongful convictions have occurred in almost every jurisdiction in the nation. Furthermore, despite the new penalty statues approved by the Supreme Court, the numbers of wrongfully accused has yet to decline. Unfortunately, the innocent persons convicted of crimes they did not commit are not always saved from execution or released from their sentences. There are several other cases in which evidence that would have released the convicted was discovered after the execution, or evidence was blatantly ignored. These examples explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never make mistakes. To retain the death penalty and overlook the serious flaws in

the system is unacceptable, especially since there are no strong overriding arguments to favor the death penalty (Glover 145-146).

Among the flaws of the justice system, we must remember that the taking of a human life is immoral. The methods used to perform these violent executions are barbaric. But, prisoners continue to be executed in the United States by any one of five methods listed below. In a few jurisdiction the prisoner is allowed to choose which fate he or she prefers. The methods of capital punishment in use in mid 1997 included hanging, firing squad, electrocution, suffocation in the gas chamber, and lethal injection (NCADP). The traditional execution by hanging is still used in a few states today. It is a precise execution because if the drop is a little off death becomes slow and agonizing. This makes it a less desirable means for execution. Two states still use the firing squad method, in which the condemned is hooded, strapped into a chair, and a target is pinned on the chest. Five marksmen take aim and fire (NCADP). During the twentieth century, electrocution has been the most widely applied form of execution in the United States, and still used in eleven states. The prisoner is placed in the death chamber and strapped into the chair with electrodes strapped to the head and legs. When the chair is activated the body strains and jolts as the intensity of electricity is raised or lowered. It is not known how long the prisoner retains consciousness. In some cases, as with the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama, it takes more than one jolt of electricity to kill the prisoner. An eyewitness illustrates the “barbaric ritual” in which it took three charges at thirty second intervals and ten minutes before doctors pronounced Mr. Evans dead (NCADP). The gas chamber method begins with strapping the prisoner into a chair with a container of sulfuric acid underneath. The chamber is then sealed and cyanide is dropped into the acid to create a lethal gas. As with electrocution, suffocation by inhalation of a lethal gas is not always a quick and clean way of death. The latest mode of infliction of the death penalty is lethal injection. Some believe that this method is more

humane (NCADP). The U.S. Court of Appeals stated that there is “substantial and uncontroverted evidence…that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel,

protracted death…Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation” (NCADP). As with the other methods of execution, death by lethal injection does not always proceed smoothly as planned. After witnessing an execution, Journalist Susan Blaustein said, “We have perfected the art of institutional killing to the degree that it has deadened our natural, quintessentially human response to death” (NCADP). Most people who observe an execution are mortified and disgusted. Society must insist that the law not encourage such violent crime. Especially when the government ceremoniously carries out the cruel execution of a prisoner. Even if the death penalty is useful it is still and example of the very brutality and violence that the death penalty is supposed to prevent. Such methods of human torture and killing is allowed by retentionists to be hidden in the system we all call justice. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Godberg wrote, “the deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation of the dignity of the human personality” (Amnesty International).

There are countless other reasons why the death penalty is not a reasonable answer to the problem of crime. The cost of an execution is a large reason why the death penalty should be abolished. Justice often insists that the death penalty is the suitable punishment for brutal crimes. It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the “eye for an eye” principle or the ideal of making the punishment fit the crime. If this rule means that punishments are unsuitable unless they are like the crime, then the principle is unacceptable. Because such an ideal would mean that we must rape a rapist, kidnap those who kidnap, and inflict other degrading punishments on the convicted (Nathanson 133). We would have to betray traitors, and kill serial killers again and again, which is impossible to do. Since we cannot reasonably punish all crimes according to this ideal, it is

irrational to impose execution as a required punishment for murder. Criminals do deserve to be punished, and the severity of punishment should be appropriate to the harm they have caused the

innocent. But the severity of punishment must have limits-limits enforced by both justice and our common human dignity (Barzilai).

Although it may sound impossible, the right to live belongs to all members of society regardless of what crime one has committed. It is not the right of the government, nor the rights of any individual to inflict such cruel and hateful punishments onto another human being, for we are like them. There must be limits to the power that a government has, as well as the power of individuals in society. As sane people with a respect for human life and dignity, we must not turn into the barbarous murderer some of us fight to kill. According to Stephen Nathanson, we must set an example of the behavior we find acceptable in society. He goes on to say that “even though this person has done wrong and even though we may be angry, outraged, and indignant with him, we must control ourselves in a way that the criminal did not. We will not kill him” (137). We must not contradict the principle that murder is wrong, including the murder of a criminal. We must not kill, nor allow any government to hold the power to take a human life, no matter what the crime.

Amnesty International. “Against the Death Penalty.” http://www.amnesty.org

Barzilai, Harel. “The Death Penalty.” http://www.hartford-hwd.com

Dieter, Richards. “The Practical Burdens of Capital Punishment.” Mappes 144-149.

Glover, Jonathan. “Deterrence and Murder.” Mappes 138-141.

Mappes, Thomas A., and Jane S. Zambaty, eds. Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy. United

States: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1997.

Marshall, Thurgood. “Dissenting Opinion in Gregg v. Georgia.” Mappes 121-124.

Nathanson, Stephen. “An Eye for an Eye.” Mappes 132-138

NCADP. http://www.ncadp.org

Smart, Christopher. “Innocence Found on Death Row.” http://weeklywire.com

Warner, Ralph. “Killing Carelessly.” http://www.crimemegazine.com