Death
penalty is the most arguable and notorious practice today. This concept of
capital punishment as a way of deterrence,
retribution, restraint or incapacitation rehabilitation and restoration is not
new and it is very much understandable from the way
human psychology is molded by the fear of happening the same with themselves.
The idea a of deterrence associated with capital
punishment has weight and sense, making capital punishment a public example
serves it purpose but any judicial system which
works on any other principal than the principal of justice cant be trusted.
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The general moral question of whether government has the right to punish
wrongdoers by killing them has long plagued philosophers and theologians.
Supporters of the death penalty often argue with those who oppose it about the
implications of certain verses in scripture and about the general question of
whether people forfeit their right to life when they commit murder. Similar
moral arguments focus on whether it is ever legitimate to execute someone for a
crime committed as a juvenile or to execute the mentally impaired. Many
opponents argue, moreover, that it is senseless for government to kill to show
that killing is wrong. (Lawrence C. Marshall, Why the Death Penalty Should be
Abolished) In the present day, what is required is a better and
more influential judiciary system rather than just sentencing people to death or
even long lifetime sentences. It is accepted that one must pay for his ill
doings but for that the difference should be made at the level of justice.
Justice should be equal for all. The
Arguments against capital punishment are many and convincing and very
influential rather than the ones, which are in its favor, they are not just few
but are fallacious.
Arguments against death penalty
Anthony Porter, thought as a killer, was found guilty in a case of murder of two
people back in the year 1982 and was to be
sentenced to death in 1998. Just 48 hours before the implementation, a stay
order was approved based on issue about his mental
proficiency.
A team of journalism students from Northwestern University took the interest and
began to examine the case against Porter and
after interviewing many witnesses who had testified or were somehow related to
the case. After several months of investigation,
what came to light was an astonishing fact that Anthony Porter was absolutely
innocent and had nothing to do with the killings.
On the contrary, the real culprit was found to be Alstory Simon not Anthony
Porter. He himself admitted of his crime after his wife
told that she was there when he killed them. Even after wards the chief witness
confessed that he had not seen the face of the
killer, he just mentioned Ported because the police forced him to do so. Later
in February 1999, based on these new facts,
Anthony Porter was released and Alstory Simon was charged with murder. Taking
this example, we won’t be wrong to say that in
the case of Porter Anthony his luck was there to save him, but is this the case
of all the innocents being killed, just because they
were bound to be killed?
There are many arguments against the capital punishment, and on the other hand
many people prove the arguments wrong, but
what is the point here is how the punishment is enhanced. If we look at the
previous record, it is quite cleat that most of the
punishments were under the influence of prejudice.
Is Death Sentencing The Deterrent?
The death penalty may not deter but aggravate the crime; it is true with all
such acts where justice is over come by discrimination.
Death penalty was once practiced in most of the nations, but has been sanctioned
by many till yet. In the late 20th century, some
countries abolished the death penalty, imposing life sentences instead. Which is
another debate?
Is the capital punishment is actually a reason for a better social and judicial
system? We don’t find any evidence supporting this question. The nations or
states were death sentence is prevailed are at the same rate of crimes where
there is no death sentence, but if we look at the figures we would see that in
the past 20 years taxes, America, was the state with highest rate of crimes and
is also the state with most death sentences given, infect taken into action
hence it is not persuasive thus its practical value to society appears to be
zilch. If we look at the other side of the image we would find that the fear of
being caught and punished makes a person become very keen in doing what he wants
to do, but the equality in the judiciary is a must. Still there is a lot of
evidence that the decision making process in capital cases is egregiously
inaccurate. The courts have reversed more than two thirds of the death sentences
that have been appealed; on retrial fewer than 20% of these defendants were
found to deserve the death penalty, and 7% were found to be innocent of the
crime itself (Leibman, Fagan, & West, 2000).
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It is far a debate that in our system, race, wealth, status, geography and cast
play a determining role of who should be charged or not. Harry Blackmun once
declared, “Race continues to play a major role in determining who shall live and
who shall die.”
The judicial system is so biased that we find that when a person has power he
will get away; the one with more power is seldom seen paying. The one with low
status and race is the first one to be paying for what he has done, and even for
what he hasn’t done. This difference of color, creed, status, race and language
make the decision of death sentence so fake that it seems mandatory to be
stopped. If their cant were full justice it shouldn’t be improved and enforced
of the suppressed. Apart from the racial difference what is the other fact
hindering in the way of justice is the fact that legal orders designed to inform
the jurors' decision between the death penalty and a life sentence are
inexplicable, resulting in decisions that are capricious or legally wrong. The
death penalty is discriminatory. Wealth, social status, race and geography play
an obvious role in determining who is charged with a capital crime, convicted,
and sentenced to death (Bright, 1994, Costanzo, 1997). Decades of research have
failed to produce any persuasive evidence that the death penalty is more
effective than life imprisonment as a deterrent to murder (Bailey & Peterson,
1981)
Punishment is supposed to be for the protection of society, and for the
reformation of the wrongdoer. A punishment should make the person get cautious
and should give others the sense of protection. Capital punishment though
removes the culprit but is unable to remove the problem, and what is the use of
just killing someone when one can’t make the problem solved? Taking a pain
killer may stop the pain for the time but won’t make the problem vanish; it will
reappear with time and with a much worse effect. Death sentence will no doubt
remove one person but would not fill up the flaw, what is needed is to fill the
flaws, not to make the flaws. Homicide rates from 1907 - 1963 in New York
(which carried out 692 executions during the period) showed an average of two
additional homicides in the month following an execution. (Bowers and Pierce
1980)
Taking into account the extremity of the punishment, wee know the life has been
cut short, devoid of what the person, innocent in real or not, has in mind, he
is not given a chance to reform himself. He may become a better person if given
a chance, but it is on chance, but life itself is on chance. It is normal
practice that kindness prevails; if once a person is given chance he may
overcome his faults. But it is again on chance. The people committing murders or
very much offensive crimes are mostly mental patients. So if they are patients
in real, their fate should be treatment not death sentence. In a 1987 study
covering a period between 1900 to1985, it was found that 350 people were wrongly
convicted and sentenced to death; 23 of these people were executed.
(Radelet, Bedau and Putnam, 1992)
Capital punishment is irreversible, and the errors of justice cannot be
resolved. All possibility of reassessment is taken away. What if an Innocent
person is hanged, or given a lethal injection and has been punished for
something he hasn’t done. Then who should be the one paying for his life? The
jury? The witness? The society? Or whom? He was innocent too. “In view of the
very uncertain and unequal character of our merely human endeavors to mete out
justice, no proceedings of ours should be of this irrevocable character. So
complex and uncertain is the process of sifting whereby finally a few
individuals are sorted out from the mass and consigned to punishment, that the
selection seems largely arbitrary, and we find that the actual convicts are no
worse, and some perhaps even better, than many whom the hand of the law never
reaches. What principle of equity or reason can justify us in singling out for
our harshest treatment, by so haphazard a method, a few individuals who for the
most part manifest no particular reasons why they and they alone, should be so
treated?” (To Abolish Capital Punishment: A Plea to the Citizens of every
Country, Point Loma, 1914)
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What is a fact is that, destroying a body wont make the sin vanish from the
scene, it would go remain there just one person would go away, the real thing to
be done is to make that person realize how bad is the effect of what he did, or
what is awful. Just giving a death sentence would take away all hopes of many
people. The only way to destroy a criminal is by changing his inside and the
only way to do that is to give him time, this process may be long, but is far
more influential that death sentence. And the duty of judicial system is to
isolate such criminals so that there crime is washed away not their life. It is
also a fact that when we cut short the life of a criminal, we just prompt the
crime rather than giving it an end people who are found guilty are mostly found
saying that “something came over mean I don’t know why I did it?” this shows
that with the end of a culprit physically the crime prevails, the real end of a
crime is to make people strong enough to take over everything which tries to
overcome them.
Mercy is what makes others to over view what he has done, and this is the basic
theme of every religion too. If one has done zealous crime, he must be punished,
but not giving him a chance to amend is notorious.
The role of the government has been very important but unfortunately it has done
actions to take care of culprits but not to treat them as human beings. They
have aright Io live, and being humans they have their full right to avail the
human rights. If one does a wrong act the other should not repeat it would only
enhance its effects rather than suppress it. The best way would be kind enough
to make the other person realize of the severity of the crime. It should be
included in the course and educational system to make the children aware of the
hazardous effects of crimes. But should given them the difference at childhood
so that when they grow they know the difference of good and bad, rather them
just enforcing the laws. No one is perfect, every one sins, but why is it
that we take our own sins for granted but when we see any other person has
committed a crime we forget all laws and just want him to be punished,
forgetting that every man commits sins, this is why he is human.
For those who find themselves hysterical over these habeas corpus reform
efforts, who believe that speeding up the appeals process will threaten the
lives of those convicted and innocent, please contemplate the following
question: What innocent or otherwise improperly convicted inmate would wish to
linger a bit longer on death row as their attorney, snail-like, labored to
prolong their wrongful stay on death row with a series of delayed and frivolous
appeals? (http://www.jfa.net)
Conclusion
"The
movement to abolish the death penalty needs the religious community because the
heart of religion is about compassion, human rights, and the indivisible dignity
of each human person made in the image of God." -Sister Helen Prejean
The government should immediately call on to halt executions just to make sure
that the unjust justice is checked. Capital punishment has been eradicated by
most modern industrialized nations; it is not a deterrent to murder. Though the
terror of being killed makes a man give a second thought to what he is doing,
but the death penalty itself is engraving devastating effects. Even it has been
observed that though with the severity of this crime, it is not the deterrent.
It isn’t the end there are ways to make others realize their faults. And make
them pay for it. But death penalty is not the disincentive.
What we assume as an end in not the end, it is merely the beginning. Death is
not the end of every crime; it is rather the way to more destruction. Giving
time and attention to many prisoners have proved a very positive effect of them.
If we want to amend the faults we all must take steps to stop the barbarous
punishments as death penalties. And even if it is to be enhanced, it should be
fully just, apart from prejudice, race, color, and creed and all such
differences. Justice is for everyone not just rich or powerful. All that is just
has a good effect, and even if justice would be enhanced to treat the real
culprits, and to eradicate the crime our judiciary system needs amendments not
death penalties. It is a well-known fact that when one is guilty and he is
ashamed on that thing, then his half of the crime is washed a way. What is the
flaw here is that the judiciary system does not give a loophole, for those who
don’t have anything to prove. But on the contrary there is not just one but many
ways for those who have power, race and a status. This proves to be a big flaw.
Justice is for everyone devoid of cast creeds and colors and this is what is
needed to prevail justice.
Hence we
can finally conclude that the deterrent power of the death penalty can never be
proven with absolute certainty. The question still remain, is death penalty the
solution? Or we should make amends in the justice system so that better and more
influential judiciary system can be established.
