An Argument Against the Death Penalty Essay

An eyewitness to the execution of John Evans in Alabama describes this thought from the final moments of a last penalty sentence being carried place The first jolt of 1900 volts of electrical energy passed through Mr. Evans body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flame erupted from the electrode laced to his leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist prehend permanently. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from chthonian the hood that covered his face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothes began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and decl atomic number 18d that he was non dead. It took three jolts of electricity and 14 minutes in advance John Evans was declared dead (Radelet, confront the demise Penalty).Throughout history, various forms of executions such as this wholeness take taken place as a penalization for crime. In 1976, the United States reinstated the terminati on penalty after having revoked it in 1972 on the railyard that it violated the Constitutions ban on cruel and erratic punishment (MacKinnon, Ethics 289). Since its reinstatement, the lessonity of such punishment has been extensively debated. I moot that the dying penalty batch non be virtuously justified on the basic grounds that killing a human being as a form of punishment is hurt.A major argument support capital punishment is that it serves as a stay to crimes specifically, murder. However, this argument requires that the would be sea wolf would take at least a moment to carry what the consequences of murder within our legal governing body are. This assumes that the killer is capcapable of such conclude, and that the crime would be considered before it occurred. In fact, those who commit violent crimes ofttimes do so in moments of passion, rage and fear times when irrationality reigns ( cultivation, big(p) Punishment 107). Whether or non a murder or crime is prem editated, there are statistics existing that cause us to chief how supportive an argument of deterrence quarter be.In 1989, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee said that if we look at other western democracies, Not oneness of those countries has capital punishment for peace of mindtime crimes, and yet e very one of them has a murder rate less than half that of the United States (Information, detonating device Punishment 110). The Information Series on capital punishment alike says that states that FBI statistics from 1976-1987 show that In the twelve states where executions take place, the murder rate is scarcely twice the murder rate of the thirteen states without the dying penalty (111). The deterrent value of capital punishment is certainly in question.Killing a human being as a deterrent to crime is, in essence, victimization a human being as a style rather than an ends. Kantian ethics state that we are to treat nation as having i ntrinsic value and not simply instrumental value. battalion are valuable in themselves regardless of whether they are useful or loved or valued by others (MacKinnon, Ethics 56). Also, as MacKinnon states, using the concern for life that usually promotes it to make a case for final result life is inherently contradictory and a violation of the categorical exigent (133). If we hold that killing is wrong (except in self-defense) and therefore a killer needs to be punished, to find out with the conclusion that the killers punishment is to be killed is completely contradictory. Some would argue that the execution of a receiver is in the self-defense of society itself.This is a distortion of the definition of self-defense. self- treasureion is when your life is in immediate peril and a reaction is requisite in order to prevent your in venire or close. I view that self-defense could to a fault apply to situations where the awaits of children or others who could not defend themselv es were in immediate danger and someone else had to react in order to protect them. The key phrase in each of these definitions is immediate danger and, in the trial of a receiver, there is no indication or stop up that the person is going to kill again, and there is no immediate danger or threat that requires reaction. This is not self-defense and does not justify killing. only when because a crimey verdict requires that the murderer be punished, it does not follow that the punishment should be death on the grounds of self-defense.The determination of guilt within our legal system is alike in question. Legally, criminals are to be innocent until proven guilty, but in reality they are often guilty until proven innocent. Unfortunately, our legal system is not always just or accurate. Innocent people are convicted. This bottomland happen due to inconclusive evidence, the socioeconomic status of the accused, or jury/judge bias and prejudice, among other factors. A criminal who is convicted and sentenced to imprison housement and accordingly later proven to be innocent plunder be released. much(prenominal) is not the case once the irrevocable death penalty has been carried out.The Information Series on capital punishment cites the work of Michael Radelet of the University of Florida who counted since the turn of the deoxycytidine monophosphate 343 cases in which a defendant facing a possible death penalty was wrongfully convicted. Of these, 137 were sentenced to death, and 25 were actually executed. Sixty-one served more than 10 days in jail and seven died while in prison (77). If even one innocent person is wrongfully killed, how give the bounce we occupy that this is justice? Racial and socioeconomic factors also come into play in the trial and conviction of the accused. The Information Series states that since the death penalty was reinstated, six White defendants have been executed for murdering a char person, while 112 Black people have been exe cuted for the murder of a White person (105).Samuel Jordan of Amnesty International also points out that in 1998, although African-Americans count for 50 percent of homicide victims in the nation, 82 percent of death row offenders have been convicted for the murder of Whites (Information, Capital Punishment 104). In the 1970s the Baldus Study piece that defendants charged with killing White persons received the death penalty in 11 percent of cases, but defendants charged with killing Blacks received the death penalty in only 1 percent of the cases (Information, 46). The Baldus Study also found that prosecutors sought the death penalty more in cases where a Black defendant was charged with killing a White.Samuel Jordan pointed out that distress as well as race often determines the allocation of the death sentence. Inadequate, inexperienced representation for indigent defendants characterizes some legal litigation (Information, 104). speckle the unfairness and in alludeity of our legal system does not show that the death penalty itself is wrong, I would argue that because of the judicial disparities shown in the statistics above, we know can never be 100 percent certain of the guilt of an mortalist. due(p) to this measure of uncertainty, it is virtuously wrong to determine a punishment that is as irreversible as death. We cannot put ourselves into a position of divinity fudge.Some impart say that the killers actions are irreversible and that such a crime deserves an equal punishment. These same people would cite the biblical conversion that exhorts an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. However, if a crime deserves equal punishment, then why do we not rape the rapist or burn the arsonist? A train society must be based on values and principles that are higher than those it condemns. As I stated previously, to punish killing with death is inherently contradictory. Biblically we are called to live by higher values. In the New Testament, Jesus said th at we may have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but he instructed us to turn the other cheek (Matthew 538-41) to love even our enemies (Matthew 543-45), to obey the Ten Commandments which tell us not to kill (Exodus 2013) and not to put ourselves into the position of God by judging whether others live or die (John 87). avenging and retribution are to be left to God, who is the only one with the immaculate capabilities of judgment. If the argument is that serious crimes deserve equal punishments, it is interesting to note, as MacKinnon states in her text, that the death penalty is also assigned as punishment for trick and rape. Capital Punishment is obviously extreme and unequal to such crimes. on that point are also certain times when the death penalty is not sought for murder cases (297). The inconsistencies in application seem morally knotted in themselves. Burton Wolfe quotes Albert Camus as sayingWhat is capital punishment if not the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal act, no matter how calculated, can be compared? If there were to be real equivalence, the death penalty would have to be pronounced upon a criminal who had forewarned his victim of the very moment he would be put to a horrible death, and who, from that time on, had kept him wrapped at his own discretion for a period of months. It is not in private life that one meets such monsters. (Pileup 419)Camus goes on to say that the devastating, debasing fear imposed on the condemned man for months or even years is a punishment more terrible than death itself, and one that has not been imposed on his victim (Pileup 419).A Utilitarian might argue in support of the death penalty based on the moral premise that the goal is to increase the great amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. Often the victims family and others in society go forth claim that the death penalty is justice and that therefore they are happier when it is applied. I would a rgue that this happiness is often more of an appeasement a very shallow form of happiness that is actually wrapped up in anger and revenge, and not what Utilitarians would classify as true happiness. John Stuart torpedo would classify this as a lower pleasure or happiness as described in MacKinnons text (37).I would also argue that such happiness would be of short duration. The killing of the murderer does not bring back the life of the victim, and the sorrow from that death is not eliminated by adding the death of other. It would also need to be taken into banknote that the murderer may also have friends and family who would be caused pain and paltry by the death of the person they care for. It also seems morally dodgy to apply The Greatest Happiness Principle to the determination of whether or not another human being lives or dies. Using this type of reasoning a killer could be able to justify his actions if he were able to prove that greater happiness was produced through the killing of one individual than if they would have lived. The intrinsic value of life itself does not allow for this liberal of reasoning for ending it.Killing a human being hinders them from stint their goal of mature potential. As MacKinnon states when discussing Natural Law Theory, the innate repulse toward living is a good in itself (133). Other human beings should not choose the time of another human beings death this is not natural. To argue that the killer has done this does not make it morally justifiable for us to do the same to the killer. Killing an individual robs them of the hazard to rehabilitate and to live a good life.Whatever the reasons might be that would determine that a person should be sentenced to death, there can be no argument that we are prematurely ending the life of another with no foreknowledge of what their future may have held. We have no means beyond mere hypothesis to determine what the future actions of an individual will be. This is not to argue that certain actions do not morally require punishment, but simply to argue that the death penalty itself is an wrong form of punishment because of the way that it devalues life itself.As members of a civilized society made up of morally responsible individuals, I tang that we are required to consistently value human life. There can be no fair judgment of which lives have more expense than others and we cannot, as a society of moral beings, be saying that it is wrong to take a life and at the same time jeopardize that if you do, we will take yours. The existence of the threat itself within our legal system contradicts the value we are trying to uphold. Gandhi was a strong proponent for peace and nonviolence within society and throughout the world. Eknath Easwaran quotes Gandhi as saying, Violence can never bring an end to violence all it can do is provoke more violence (Gandhi 49). He also said that nonviolent resistance is the law of our species as violence is the law o f the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The high-handedness of man requires obedience to a higher law (Gandhi 152). No arguments can outweigh the intrinsic value of other human beings and of life itself. Capital punishment cannot be morally justified.Works CitedEaswaran, Eknath. Gandhi The Man The Story of His Transformation. Tomales Nilgiri Press, 1997. dedicated Bible New International Version. Nashville Broadman & Hloman Publishers, 1995. MacKinnon, Barbara. Ethics theory and coeval Issues Second Edition. New York Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998. Radelet, Michael. Facing the Death Penalty Essays on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment. New York, 1989. The Information Series on Current topics. Capital Punishment. Cruel & Unusual? Wylie Information Plus, 1998. Wolfe, Burton H. Pileup on Death Row. New York Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1973.