Capital Punishment, Should It Or Should It Not Be Used In Today’s Criminal
Judging System Essay, Research Paper

Capital Punishment, Should It Or Should It Not Be Used In Today’s Criminal

Judging System

While Capital Punishment has been one of the most feared things of our

time, it is still being questioned if it is unconstitutional. The Death Penalty

is being enforced in more than 100 countries in the world and are usually in

used in politically-related cases. Although it has been the case in many

countries throughout the world it has been said that the Death Penalty is “cruel

and unusual punishment” which is a direct violation to the Bill of Rights.

Capital Punishment is a certain copy of the earliest days of slavery, when you

had no rights or any different opinion, and like then, executions have no place

in our civilized society. The Death Penalty, throughout it’s years of existence,

has always been against the views of the people, either because of it’s

brutality or because of it’s lack of effectiveness.

The Death Penalty has been opposed by the people since the beginning of

it’s era, which was around 1976, when the United States Supreme Court declared

that the death penalty was not against the Constitution. But if read directly

the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “prohibits cruel and unusual

punishments” and not only that but abolitionists also think that Capital

Punishment ensures Americans equality for all . The abolitionists also did a

poll which ensured that there was “no support for the view that the death

penalty provides a more effective deterrent to police homicides than alternative

sanctions. Not for a single year was evidence found that police are safer in

jurisdictions that provide for capital punishment” The highest homicide rates

were also in Death Penalty states with executions: 9.7 homicides per 100,000

people as compared to 5.1 in states without the Death Penalty . It has also

been shown that the Death Penalty is racially biased and unfair.

There has been substantial evidence to show that courts have been

impulsive, racially biased, and unfair in the way in which they have sentenced

some persons to prison but others to death. In 1944 Gunnar Myrdal reported in

his book American Dilemma that “the South makes the widest application of the

Death Penalty, and Negro criminals come in for much more than their share of the

executions” Between the years of 1930 and 1940 the African Americans only made

up about 12 percent of the United States’ population, but between those times

they also made up about 51 percent of the people that were executed. Juries are

more likely to impose the death penalty on blacks than on whites accused of the

same offense (Administra- tion Office of the Courts). Of the 145 cases studied

by the Administration Office of the Courts it was shown that whites would have

received the death penalty at a higher rate since they met the criteria for

capital punishment more often. Yet, the case studies revealed that this was not

the situation. Is the value of a white life worth more than a person of color?

When Capital Punishment is put into a case and the person has been

killed there is no way to get back from that if they are later found to have

been innocent. If a person is sentenced to life without parole and is later

found to be innocent, that person can still be released, but if the person was

put to death there is no way of giving life back to someone who’s been executed.

For example, a man about 5 years ago was set free after he was in jail for 12

years and after he was 72 hours from being executed. In his case, the

prosecutors used perjured testimony and suppressed evidence which imprisoned him.

The witness that set him free was a sixteen year old who while imprisoned for a

separate murder conviction, confessed to killing the officer whom Randall Adams

was in jail for killing (”The Case”1). For us to kill those people who have

acted outside the boundaries of acceptable human behavior puts us in the same

position as they are in-we become killers. It is also a view that people must

take because the people on death row did not get there on their own, their

families and communities share the responsibility of making those people who

consider committing the brutal acts they committed, so why should they be the

individuals to take the punishment (”Talking”2). Executions give society the

unmistakable message that human life no longer deserves respect, they are also

irrevocable and can be inflicted upon the innocent. Why did the U.S. Supreme

Court change their minds about the Death Penalty?

In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under then existing laws “the

imposition and carrying out of the death penalty…constitutes cruel and unusual

punishment in violation of the eighth and Fourteenth Amendments” This was found

to be “constitutionally unacceptable” But then in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court

ruled that the death penalty is not unconstitutional. “The court ruled that

these new statutes contained “objective standards to guide, regularize, and make

rationally reviewable the process for imposing the sentence of death”

Although some of the law imposing the administration and regulation of

capital punishment might be in violation of the constitution. This idea was

best quoted by Hugo Adams Budeau:

“Opposition to the Death Penalty does not arise

from misplace sympathy for convicted murderers.

On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of

respect for human life. For this very reason, murder is

abhorrent, and any policy of state authorized killings is

immoral.”

So is our Supreme Court trying to “get rid” of human lives, is this why the

government proved the death penalty to not be unconstitutional. Scholars

against the death sentence assure that all doctrines of religion, ethics, and

morality are clear that “human beings must not harm one another, nor should they

do to others what they would not have other do to them” (”Taling” 2). The Death

Penalty would be put into a court case based on the appeal and the jurisdiction

of the judge?

The only manner in which the Death Penalty may be justified is when

those convicted have acted outside the boundaries of acceptable human beha-vior.

But not even then would it have to be necessary to do so, sequential

punishments may include life in jail without parole which is not only 6 to 10

time less expensive but also give the accused a chance to make meaningful

changes in his/her life, to make contributions to society, to relate to family

or to even have a chance to be proven not guilty. Because there is no way to

give life back to an innocent bi-standard. States also spend resources that

could be spent doing other things that will benefit them more than a death

penalty.

States such as Florida have spent an average of $3.2 million per person

since 1972. California spends almost $100 million per year n capital cases and

New York can start looking at something withing that range once the death

penalty, which was signed into law by Governor Pataki in 1994, takes place. The

state has yet to announce how and when executions will be carried out, but the

sure thing is that when it does go into effect the cost will come from takes,

which were also supposed to be decreasing as passed by the state legislature.

The state of New Jersey has also had the Death Penalty for over 13 years and

it’s costing tax payer money, but why have the penalty if not one person has yet

to be executed. If this was the case would they have thought of the expense?

Capital Punishment is uncivilized in theory and inequitable and unfair in

practice; so why should we stoop to this level of murder?

The Death Penalty is ultimately cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment

and violates the right to life. Since 1977 the methods used to “exterminate

criminals” since 1977, out of the 220 inmates 106 were electrocuted, 103 by

lethal injection, 9 by gas chamber, 1 by firing squad, and 1 by hanging.

Abolitionists believe that this society cannot mirror the brutality of the crime

committed by the convicted person because it is judicial murder. Capital

Punishment is a brutal act that does not enhance respect for human life; it

cheapens and degrades it . Abolitionists also believe that “the state is a

teacher and when it kills, it teaches vengeance and hatred. If the “barbaric

practice of execution has been abolished in most major industrial countries,

even in south Africa, so can the United States (”Death”2). “An execution is a

dramatic, public spectacle of official, violent homicide that teaches the

permissibility of killing people to solve social problems–the worst possible

example to set for society” Will society put money into schools, rehabilitation,

community services, and jobs, or will it bankrupt itself with more prisons and

more victims? The death penalty is no solution to violence.

Works Cited

“The Case Against Capital Punishment”.Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.

Computer Software, Sept.1995.(http://www.bdt.com/home/mwood/

deathpen.html).

“The Death Penalty”.Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.Computer Software,

Sept.1995.(http://www.peacenet.org/prisons/pubs/out-of-time/sept95/

dp.html).

“New Jersey’s Racist Death Penalty”.Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.

Computer Software,Feb.7,1996.(http://www.cs.oberlin.edu…t-Death-

Penalty.html).

“New York State Death Penalty”.Prodigy-Worlwide Web-Software.

Computer Software,Sept.7.1995.(http://www.peacenet.org/prisons/

archive/articles/distro-list.html).

Stevens, Leonard A.Death in the Balance. Lexington:Heath and Company,

1989.

“Talking Points on the Death Penalty.”Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.

Computer Software, Sept.1995.(http://www.weber.u.washington.edu/

~lursa/wcadp/talkpt.html).