Capital Punishment And Church Essay, Research Paper

Crime is inevitably one of the biggest problems that faces the modern world

today. It can be found all over the world, whether in large cities or small

villages. Over time, society has tried to find ways to deal with crime. Such

methods include community service, paying a fine serving some time in prison,

and in the case of more serious crimes, the death penalty. This is the case in

some states in the U.S. where persons have been executed for aggravated assault,

rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, sabotage and espionage. Advocates for capital

punishment feel that it deters criminals from committing crime and that if the

criminal is not executed, the risk later extends to the community as such

persons may escape or be pardoned or paroled. Although believers in the death

penalty feel that it deters people from committing violent crime and is a

variable solution for protecting society , capital punishment is immoral, it

cannot be proved to be a deterrent, it violates the principle of double effect,

it is often applied with inequities, is condemned by the Church as heresy, and

should be eradicated. Before an actual argument in favour of the eradication of

the death penalty it is important to define what capital punishment actually is.

Capital punishment is the execution of a criminal under death sentence imposed

by competent public authority. It is derived from the Roman word,

"caput", meaning the head, the life or the civil rights of an

individual. Unlike the revenge of a single person, this penalty is a

manifestation of the communities will to vindicate its laws and systems of

justice. The death penalty was used in ancient times as well. The earliest

historical records contain evidence of capital punishment. It was mentioned in

the Code of Hammurabi, a collection of laws and edicts by Babylonian king

Hammurabi that date from the first half of the 18th century BC. The Bible

prescribed death as the penalty for more than 30 different crimes, ranging from

murder to fornication "Whoever hits a man and kills him is to be put to

death."( Exodus 21:12) The Draconian Code of ancient Greece imposed capital

punishment for every offense. It also existed in the legal codes of the Ancient

Middle Eastern Kingdoms. These codes commonly prescribed death for murder,

religious and sexual offenses. The Israelites listed capital crimes as homicide,

bearing false witness in a capital charge, kidnapping, insult or injury to

parent, sexual immortality, magic, idolatry, blasphemy and sacrilege. During the

reigns of King Canute and William the Conqueror in the 11th century AD, the

death penalty was not used in England. However, the results of interrogation and

torture were often fatal. By the end of the 15th century, English law recognized

seven major crimes: treason (grand and petty), murder, larceny, burglary, rape,

and arson. By 1800 more than 200 capital crimes were recognized, and as a

result, 1000 or more individuals were sentenced to death each year (although

most sentences were commuted by royal pardon). In the American colonies before

the Revolution, the death penalty was commonly authorized for a wide variety of

crimes. African Americans, whether slave or free, were threatened with death for

many crimes that were punished less severely when committed by whites. In the

early days if death was prescribed, the sentence was often carried out by

stoning hanging, beheading, strangulation or burning at the stake. Today, there

are different methods of execution such as the electric chair, the gas chamber,

lethal injection or death before a firing squad. All of the methods of

executions above are all highly immoral. Not only are they brutal and savage,

but they are destroying the person?s basic human good of life, therefore,

violating the principle of morality or moral action. This principle states that

when freely choosing human goods and avoiding what is opposed to them, one

should choose in a way that does not directly damage, destroy or impede any one

of the basic human goods in one?s self or in others. The basic human good of

life refers simply to the preservation of life and to various aspects of health,

safety and the removal of pain. It is relatively obvious to see, that killing a

criminal his basic human good is being destroyed. It is easy to say, it is easy

to say "he/she is a criminal and deserves the death sentence", but

he/she is still a human being, and Human life is sacred because from its

beginning it involves ?the creation of God?, and it remains forever in a

special relationship with the creator?[N]o one can in any circumstance, claim

for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human being. (Pope John

Paul II, 94) Furthermore, God himself proclaims that He is the absolute Lord of

the life of man, who is formed in His image, giving human life a sacred and

inviolable character. As far as the right to life is concerned, every human

being is equal to all others by virtue of the simple fact that they are humans

and nothing else. Similar to the right to life, advocates of the death penalty

feel that it deters criminals and potential criminals from committing violent

crimes, thus lengthening their own lives, and the lives of others. There is a

problem, however, with this line of thinking because all of the empirical

evidence is ambiguous and can have alternative explanations. For example, during

the 1980?s, the states that employed the death penalty averaged seven and a

half homicides per one hundred thousand people, while eradication states

averaged just under seven and a half homicides per one hundred thousand people.

There is no solid evidence that capital punishment deters crime. In fact

majority of the police chiefs surveyed all across America feel that the death

penalty is not to be a effective deterrent. In some cases, the death penalty may

have the opposite effect altogether. For example, in England, when public

hanging was the punishment for a pickpocket, the other pickpockets found it a

good time to pick pockets when everyone?s attention was on the pickpocket

being hanged. Those who believe in capital punishment think that "?[a]

would-be murderer [would] think twice before taking a life if he [knew] that he

may well forfeit his own in doing so." (Sorell,32-33) This theory makes

sense, but it is hard to prove because it assumed that all criminals use

rational thought. It excludes those who murder in a fit of passion, or those who

plan to kill others and themselves . Other things besides the death penalty

could cause more murders, for example, tensions within families, or factors as

diverse as adultery and unemployment. Advocates also argued at unless murders

are execute they might some day be free to kill again and others may be tempted

to kill. With this philosophy, a human life is intentionally taken as a means of

achieving a hoped for but uncertain end, a reduction in deadly crime. The end,

deterrence, justifies the evil means execution. This is a violation of the

principal of double effect. The principle of double effect is a principle that

recognizes that moral decisions often have two effects, a good one and a bad

one. In order to obtain the good we must have no choice but to tolerate the bad

one. Self-defense is a good example to illustrate how the principle works. The

good defender intends that removal of deadly force that is threatening his/her

life. This is inseparably linked to the evil that he/she must commit, which is

the death of a person. This principle, however, does not apply when the state

executes a criminal for murder or another capital offense, but first we must

distinguish between two parts of good and evil effects. First, both effects,

neither of which causes the other, resolved from a single act or procedure.

Secondly, the evil effect produces or induces the good means to an end. When the

second part is examined, it is important to realize that "?a good end, no

matter how compelling, never justifies an evil means. Never, in other words may

[one fundamental human good] be intentionally sacrificed? for the sake of

another" (Campbell,17). Only in the first case can the principle of double

effect be invoked. Capital punishment is similar to the second case. It violates

the principle in that through evil means, the execution of a human being, can a

good end, the protection of the common good, be obtained. Another example how

the principle of double effect works can be shown through a person who has a

deadly tumor in his leg which must be removed, but may cause a problem with

mobility. The procedure, there for, has two effect the preservation of life

which is intended, and the crippling which is not intended. In this case,

neither effect causes the other, but both are a result of the operation. One

good, mobility, is denied by which another is affirmed, life. The benefit must

be proportional to the harm. It would be wrong, however, to give consent to a

procedure that cripples in order to attain money because the good end must not

be obtained through evil means. The principle of double effect is similar to the

argument that stresses the whole is greater than the part. For example, there is

a hockey team with great potential, but there is one selfish player that hogs

the puck, takes stupid penalty?s, and takes long shifts. The selfish player

must be dropped from the team in order for the team to progress, even though it

means playing with one less player until they get use to it. I is not, however,

a mater of obtaining a good end through an evil means, but rather curtailing the

same team we intend to help. This makes the death penalty seem just, wrong. Once

this criminal is behind bars, he is no longer an immediate threat to the larger

part of the community, and therefore, the death penalty serves no purpose. The

purpose of the death penalty is to "? redress the disorder caused by the

offense." (Catechism, para.2266) This is done by public authority when they

impose an adequate punishment for the crime. It is hard to defend these

executions on the grounds of simple retribution. Those who advocate capital

punishment for murder on retributive grounds must face the objection that

sometimes the death penalty is more inadequate. For example, how does in the

electric chair, gas chamber or firing squad match as retribution given the

savage, brutal, heedless characters of so many murders. If the idea of lex

talionis, "a life for a life", were to be embraced literally, then

those who believed in the death penalty would bind themselves as cruel and

savage as the criminals they are executing. Perhaps even worse, is the fact that

they would be doing this through the light of reason where as a criminal commits

such crimes "?impulsively or in hatred and anger or with an insane or

unbalanced mind." (Bedau, 246) For there to be an equivalence, the death

penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at

which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward,

had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in

private life (Bedau, 247) Life imprisonment, on the other hand, does fit the

crime of murder and can even be claimed to be the proper one because it is

retributive, but not in the literal sense of the lex talionis. Another way in

which the death penalty has been applied with inequities is that all

sociological evidence points to the conclusion that the death penalty is poor

man?s justice. They either have poor defense at trial; they have no money to

bring helping witness? to trial; no funds for an appeal or for a transcript of

the trial record; or they are strangers in the community in which they are being

tried. Capital punishment is also radically sensitive. "every study for the

death penalty for rape (unconstitutional only since 1977) has confirmed that

black male rapists (especially where the victim is a white female) are far more

likely to be sentenced to death than a white male rapists." (Bedau,247-248)

similar studies show that black murderers are more likely to end up on

"death row" than other killers. Even killers of whites rather than

non-whites , are more likely to end up on "death row". Persons are

executed not because they are found to be uncontrollably violent or likely to

escape, but because they are victims of prejudice and discrimination. A

punishment as severe as death should be fairly enforced and applied if it is to

be used. The use of the death penalty was condemned by Pope John Paul II last

year in Missouri in front of one hundred thousand people. He even urged the

people to spare even those who commit "great evil". According to the

Pope, "modern society has the means of protecting itself without definitely

denying criminals the to change to reform."( the star, Jan. 28/99) What he

was really doing, however, was "?renew[ing] the appeal [he] made most

recently at Christmas (1999) for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is

both cruel and unnecessary." (the star, Jan. 28/99) He declared that

"the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of

someone who has done great evil." (the star, Jan.28/99) The Church strongly

believes that " if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives

against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons,

public authority must limit each other to such means?" (Catechism,

para.2267) Not only is the death penalty cruel and unnecessary, but it is also a

grave act of disobedience to the moral law and to God Himself, the creator of

the Law. Does the fifth commandment not forbid directly and intentionally

killing a human being on the grounds that all life is sacred ? it does, and all

those who do advocate the direct and intentional killing of a criminal are

sinners in the eyes of the Church. In short, the Pope established the Church?s

position on the controversial issue of capital punishment in saying that

"[He] confirm[s] that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human

being is always gravely immoral." (Pope John Paul II, 101) although the

death penalty may seem to be excellent solution for deterring violent crime and

protecting society, it is quite obvious that it is immoral, has no empirical

evidence to support the fact that it may be a deterrent. It violates the

principle of double effect, is often applied with inequities , and is condemned

by the Church and the Pope as heresy. Rehabilitation and life-long incarceration

are two effective solutions to the problem that has been facing the whole world

for centuries. Unfortunately there is no way to bring about a complete halt to

violent crimes, but measures can be taken to ensure that the punishments are

morally upright and acceptable.

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Wekesser, Carol. The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, Calif.:

Greenhaven Press,?1991 Tushnet, Mark V.. The Death Penalty. New York, NY: Facts

File, ?1994 Sorell, Tom. The Cambridge Companion To Hobbes. Cambridge:

Cambridge University, 1996 Schabas, William. The Abolition of the Death Penalty

in International Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997 Baird, Robert

M. & Rosenbaum, Stuart E.. Punishment and the Death Penalty: The Current

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Corporation. All rights Reserved Catechism of the Catholic Church/ Austin

Flannery,. O.P.copyright?1992, Costello Publishing Company Inc.