Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

Capital Punishment

Each year more and more people are added to death row. The death penalty is currently

the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United States. The death penalty and its methods

have become a controversial issue as death row becomes very populated. Important aspects of

Capital Punishment are the methods of execution, costs, and the pros and cons. The death

penalty’s interesting history has made it what it is today.

People who are against the death penalty say that it is “immoral and no person should be

sentenced to death” (Winter 61). It has no place in a civilized society, and since the death penalty

cannot be racially biased it should be banished. But people who favor the death penalty say that

the criminals deserve it, and it is the only way for justice to be served.

Major costs have always been an important factor when debating capital punishment. The

death penalty is more expensive than life imprisonment. Lawyers are paid an extensive amount

of money to keep appealing to the courts. These appeals delay the date of procedure, costing

more money for taxpayers, but if there were a limit on the number of appeals allowed, the cost of

the death penalty would be greatly reduced. In the end, it would cost even less than life

imprisonment.

It is irreversible and can be inflicted upon people who are innocent and there is no chance

to make restitution to the victim and/or the victim’s family. Those people, who did commit

felonies, deserve to be executed, and if not for capital punishment then they would be let off

without paying fully for their crime. Most of the people executed are rightfully prosecuted, and it

is very unlikely to make that mistake.

There have been many problems concerning capital punishment. The process of

convicting a felon and sentencing them to death is very long. With the conviction and

sentencing always comes appeal by the convicted. “The constant appeals can lead to years in

court, which costs millions of dollars. This is where the problem with a convict not seeing the

death penalty as a punishment for their actions. Some people might say to give the murderer life

in prison. This is hardly a punishment at all. (McCuuen 28)” Today, due to overcrowding in

prisons, many prisoners do not serve their full sentence.

Another thing about today’s prisons is that the prisoners get free meals, clothes, bed,

electricity, air conditioning and heating, cable and many other luxuries that make it a

comfortable place to live if you get used to the people. The death penalty should be given the day

after conviction. Many people believe that criminals live in prison off other peoples hard earned

money. The cost keeping a person on death row and the many years, sometimes as many is

twenty-five is excessively high. With new methods of presenting evidence of D.N.A., the

process needs to be sped up to make the death penalty to be a more effective deterrent.

Deterrence is defined, as “the punishment should fit the crime.”(Draper 72) Under this

concept, the individual committing the crime and society are prevented from committing this

action again. In the case of the death penalty, an individual kills another human and he is

“punished” for it by death. Punishment is supposed to be a temporary penalization for a wrongful

action. Death is far from temporary. One is to learn from one’s mistakes. By imposing the death

penalty, the individual does not learn from their mistakes and neither does society.

Race continues to play an unacceptable and powerful role in capital punishment. In

state death penalty cases, the race of the victim is much more important than the prior criminal

record of the defender or the actual circumstances of crime. More than half of those inmates on

death row are people of color, although they represent only 20% of the people of the U.S

although they are about 6% of the U.S population, about 40% of those on death row are African

American (Cole 33).

The last problem that should be observed is that of innocence. At least twenty-three

people in America have been executed who did not commit the crime they were accused of

(McCuuen 50) . That is only those that people know of and here lies an inherent danger of capital

punishment…when the state execute an innocent person. The real killer is still on the streets,

ready to victimize someone else, but when an innocent person is arrested, he is often the driving

reason behind further investigation. If he is executed than the case remains closed forever. On

the other hand, at least, until someone else is killed by the real perpetrator.

There are certain standards that are followed in giving out capital punishment. The

defendant cannot be insane. In addition, “minors very rarely receive the death penalty because

they are not fully mature and might not know the consequences of their actions” (Winter 87).

Finally the mentally retarded are very seldom executed. The reason for not executing the

retarded is that they often have difficulty defending themselves in court, have problems

remembering details, locating witnesses, and testifying credibly on their own behalf.

There are seven main types of execution: Hanging, where the prisoner is blindfolded and

stands on a trap door, with a rope around his neck. The trap door is opened suddenly. The weight

of the prisoner’s body below the neck causes traction separating the spinal cord from the brain.

The second most widely used technique is shooting, where a firing quad shoots the prisoner from

some meters away. Another method is Guillotine, a device consisting of a heavy blade held aloft

between upright guides and dropped to behead the victim below. Then there was garroting, in

which a tightened iron collar is used to strangle or break the neck of a condemned person. One of

the more recent is Electrocution where the prisoner is fastened to a chair by his chest, groin, arms

and legs. Electrodes are placed around a band around the head, and then jolts of 4-8 amperes at

voltage between 500 and 2000 volts are applied at half a minute at a time. The newest forms of

execution are Lethal Injection where a lethal poison is injected into the prisoners arm or the Gas

Chamber where the prisoner is placed in a room with Sodium Cyanide crystals and left to die.

All of these procedures are done fast, and with the least amount of pain possible, if any at all.

For anyone to say that these methods are not humane would be unrealistic. The convicts whom

have been sentenced to walk the green mile have really gotten off easy in my eyes. Many of

them have committed cruel, torturous acts on innocent human beings. “Why do they deserve to

die in a peaceful, humane way? They do not, but because under our constitution no one shall

under go cruel and unusual punishment, though that is what they have done to others (Winter

17).” Felons should feel lucky that capital punishment is so humane.

By 1967, legislation efforts were under way to persuade the U.S Supreme Court that the

death penalty violated cruel and unusual punishment prohibitions of the eight amendments. The

court responded by staying execution by the court order pending outcome of the suits (Bedau

21). On July 1972, the Supreme Court again ruled on the death penalty and issued five opinions.

One decision stated that capital punishment for the crime of murder was not cruel or unusual

punishment. They also ruled that to be constitutional a procedure for imposing the death penalty

must provide standards for sentencing authorities. The Supreme Court rulings indicated the court

would hold the states to strict standards in imposing the death penalty (Bedau 24). In 1988, the

U.S Supreme Court ruled that persons less than 16 when they committed the crime might not be

sentenced to death. Currently in 14 states not including MO and as well as the federal

government ban the execution of those who were younger than 18 when he killed (Bedau 28). In

June 1992, the court decided that the erratic selection of offenders singled out for the death

penalty resulted from lack of standards (Bedau 30).

People in America should all be for Capital Punishment. If you kill someone you should

be given the death penalty. The death of the killer would give family and friends a bit of ease

over the death. In addition, the death should not be prolonged and should be done immediate. By

giving the death penalty to someone, it is fair and very just. If you kill someone, you deserve to

die and not stay in jail. If a man kills a man and is convicted he should be ready to die next.

When you give a killer the death penalty, it would reassure the people close to the victim it

would not happen again. In addition, it gives them the feeling that the death has been avenged. A

family will feel less pain if the killer dies like he should. The death penalty should be give the

day after conviction. When a killer stays in prison, he takes up space in already over crowded

prisons. Most people would want this so murderers can live in prison off other peoples hard

earned money.

The position for the death penalty is clear that people should think it is a good idea. If

you kill someone, you should prepare to die the next day. They should also think that multiple

rapists should be put to death. If they are given a chance to put their life together and they

commit the same crime again, and rehabilitation was unsuccessful, they should be terminated.

This may sound like a Nazi speaking of the Jews in the early 1930s, but they based the killing on

a religion, not on a case-by-case basis, as we do in this country. America’s legal system is meant

to rid society of evil, and by killing the murderers and rapists it clears them out of the genetic

pool and gives an example to others of what not to do. Although it may seem cruel to

systematically kill people based on one act in their life, it is justifiable because those people have

the potential to kill again, and if they are going to hurt someone, they should be kept from

society. If ex-killers have the potential to kill again, whether it is another prisoner or a person

walking the street, they should be taken away from humans.