Theoretical Arguments of Capital Punishment - Case Study Example

Running Head: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Capital Punishment Introduction The case of Gregg v. Georgia (1976) dealt with the issue regarding whether the death penalty for crime violates the Eight Amendment which forbids inflicting cruel and odd punishment for criminal offences. Pollen Stewart, Lewis F.Powell Jr., John Paul, Thurgood Marshall were the judges in the U.S court who reviewed the case of Troy Gregg who was charged with offences of armed robbery and followed murder. Gregg was imposed with death sentence. The judges reviewed the petition of Gregg and majority of the court supported that death penalty does not violate Eight Amendment because it is in accordance to standards of dignity but Marshall and Brennan opposed the idea and argued that life imprisonment accomplishes the purpose of punishment and as for appeal to retribution they argued that death penalty is not consistent with human dignity (Reading.12, n.d., pp 200). The Eight Amendment includes the fact that a penalty should be in accordance to the dignity of man and the punishment should not be excessive in the sense that it does not inflict unnecessary pain to the guilty and the punishment should not be misfit to the severity of the crime. This Amendment acts as a restriction on judge’s legislative power. The judges argued that death penalty is not excessive and it carried out two social purposes regarding retribution and deterring other criminals (Reading.12, n.d., pp 201-202). Theoretical arguments Immanuel Kant’s retributive theory asserts that criminals must pay for their crime or injustice is being done to the victim. To him the only punishment for murder is the murderer death. As per him the punishment should be in accordance to the nature of the crime. The convict must first be proved guilty and then by punishing him justice should be accomplished or else there will be no value for human life. If a man of high social rank commits crime by assaulting the innocent man of lower rank then not only the former will have to apologize but also will also undergo solitary and imprisonment. For a person who steals form others makes everyone’s property insecure and in process makes himself insecure in property terms. State then will inflict punishment on him by making him serve the state in penal labor (Reading.13, n.d., pp 144-145). For Van den Hagg death penalty is not an excessive punishment for heinous crimes and it is not inconsistent with human dignity. He admits that there is no conclusive evidence which can prove that death penalty can deter someone more from committing crimes than the punishment of life imprisonment. But he believes that a criminal mind fears death penalty more than imprisonment. He is in support of death penalty because it saves the lives of innocent people who are more valuable than criminals. The problem with capital punishment arises with discriminatory or capricious distribution among the guilty but this problem is unable to justify the abolition of capital punishment. Discrimination between white and black skin colored criminals on the infliction of capital punishment or if the death penalty is imposed on guilty via lottery, then this does not make the penalty unjust (Reading.14, n.d., pp 212-214). Jeffrey H. Reiman distinguishes between lex talionis and proportional retributivism and the two retributive approaches to capital punishment of Hegel and Kant. He argues that death penalty should not be inflicted even for crimes like murder because it is horrible thing to be used by civilized people. He rejected van den Hagg’s argument that death penalty deters more than life imprisonment. Reiman believes that the execution of murderers by not killing them can also have deterrent effect. Innocent people lives are always at a risk in spite of what is being done with the murderer. The concept of lex talionis says that a criminal deserves in return the injury that he has inflicted on others and proportional retributivism implies that the retribution does not require the equality of injuries inflicted between crime and punishment but it is required that the society’s worst crime should be matched proportionately with the society’s worst punishment but it does not mean that the worst punishment is the injury of the worst crime (Reading.15, n.d., pp 218-223). Theorist’s hypothetical view Kant’s view for punishment would have in accordance with the biblical principle of retaliation which says “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life”. To Kant if Gregg was proved guilty for his crime of robbery and murder so Gregg should be punished by death penalty. For Kant guilt is both necessary and sufficient condition for justifying the punishment. Kant as an example has put that if a wealthy person does a verbal injury to the non-wealthy person then the later can inflict the same pain on the pride of the former and if the former is condemned by court then he has to apologize and had to enter some gratification act like kissing the hand of the injured person. Van den Hagg would have also supported the death penalty because to him all that mattered is whether the convicted Greggdeserved the punishment or not and if its morally justified then the distribution of death penalty is irrelevant. He asserted that cost of death penalty is not important than the idea of doing justice and death penalty is fitting retribution for crimes like murder. Reiman would have not supported the death penalty of Gregg and would have opted for life imprisonment for him. He is against the idea of Kant which implied lex talionis i.e rape the rapist and torment the torturer. To Reiman this is uncivilized behavior. Reiman has provided evidence that there might be deterrent effect by not inflicting death penalty. He said murder rate is higher in South where more execution is carried out than in Northeast where only few are executed (Reading.11, n.d., pp 197-198). Analysis The weakness of Kant’s and Van den Haag’s approach is that it is not taking into account the background under which the crime has been committed. It should be thought upon that under what circumstances Gregg committed the robbery. Sometimes unjust situation can be created if the death penalty is given to the convict who has committed a murder under self-protection or a fine is levied on a convict without taking into account his financial background. The strength in these theories is that the fear of death penalty will deter many from committing heinous crimes. To Reiman justice can be provided via giving lesser punishments also. The strength in the theory is that it focuses on building a better society with less idea of taking revenge but the weakness in the theory is that many convicts who performed brutal acts of murder or rape will have a punishment with lesser impacts. Conclusion Reiman has the best position in the sense that he started with Hegel and Kant’s approach of victim’s right to punish the convict in the same way the later has committed towards the former, and assuming that retributivist principle is true, he justified that how lex talionis can result in cruel and monstrous punishment. He gave the example of punishing a cold blooded murderer by killing him the number of times he has killed the victim. He focus on bringing progress in civilization by asking people to show lower tolerance to one’s own pain and that suffered by others and if we refuse to do horrible things to those convicted then we are on the path of civilization. Execution is killing a defenseless person who has subjugated himself to other fellows. Even physically painless execution is psychologically devastating to a convict. Convict can foresee his death in execution and it is worse than sudden death. Therefore execution should be avoided as imparting physical pain to someone will not lead us to civilized nation (Reading.15, n.d., pp 222-225). References 1. Reading.11,Capital punishment 2. Reading.12,Gregg v. Georgia 3. Reading.13, The Retributive theory of Punishment 4. Reading.14, The Ultimate Punishment 5. Reading.15,Justice, Civilization and the Death Penalty Read More