Capital punishment - Essay Example

They presented the argument that capital punishment was the cruel form of punishing the criminals which is most often applied on innocent people. However, there are many counter-arguments against it supporting the death penalty. This paper intends to support the statement that capital punishment is cruel and should be abolished, and discusses the application of this unjust punishment on Hispanic community and minorities living in Texas. Ethics do not allow a government to take lives of its nationals.

There is good number of chances that innocent lives will be put to death under this punishment and there can be no compensation for this. It is possible that capital punishment converts to manslaughter by killing someone convicted of murder, when the murderer says that it was not murder but an inadvertent killing like killing in self-defense. An example is the open and shut case of James McNicol who was put to death in December 1945. Although James did not oppose the conviction of murder, but after his death, Elaine Merrilees, his niece discovered that he was only guilty of manslaughter and not murder.

Also, in Texas, death penalty has deepened its roots strongly and the victims are often Hispanics and the minorities who are killed due to racial discrimination. Marquart et al. (1998) affirm that: Rather than systematically sentencing younger minorities to death, murderers of all racial categories who received death tended to be younger than the larger pool of imprisoned convicted murderers- although the difference in age between Hispanics sentenced to death or those imprisoned was not statistically significant (p.86). The family of the one being put to capital punishment suffers very badly.

Negative impacts are inflicted on their innocent minds because they have to come to terms not only with the sentence of their loved one but also with his death, and that too so cruelly. Therefore, the agony of the murderer’s family and relations should not be ignored. The lawyer, John B.S. Edwards (1959), writes in the Rotarian magazine that many countries have now abolished the capital punishment because “society in those countries is more shocked by the death penalty than impressed with the need for it” (p.10). Also, the criminals are also human beings and it is necessary that their feelings toward their family should not be ignored when the crime is not that violent.

This can be better understood by the example that China shot an 18-year-old girl in 1998 who was convicted of drug trafficking. There is not a single humane method of killing the murderer in law. Kronenwetter (2001, p.3) calls it deliberate, cold-blooded, brutal and uncivilized killing. And when it is about minorities like the Hispanics in Texas, it is the responsibility of the government to consider that they should not be left feeling that they are being treated violently just because they are minorities.

Marquart et al. (1998, p.24) give statistics that minorities which included blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be put to capital punishment as compared to whites. Many researchers argue that the capital punishment is proved in Bible because there are statements in Bible which say that whoever shed man’s blood should be done the same. Researchers talk about the biblical aspects of it and come to the conclusion that it is supported by God. However, the scripture can be interpreted in several different ways.

The statement may also mean banishment of the murderer from