Capital Punishment 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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Steins, Richard. The Death Penalty: Is It Justice ?. New York: Twentieth Century Books, ? 1993

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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 Debate. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, ?1995

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Microsoft? Encarta? Encyclopedia 99. ? 1193-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights Reserved

Catechism of the Catholic Church/ Austin Flannery,. O.P.copyright?1992, Costello Publishing Company Inc.