Cases For and Against Death Sentence - Essay Example

Cases For and Against Death Sentence Death penalty is a legal punishment in which an individual is executed for capital offences or capital crimes committed. This takes place in two steps; first, the individual is given death sentence by a judge through a court hearing, then the actual enforcement (execution) is done. Death sentence has been practiced by almost all communities as a severe punishment for criminals as well as religious and political dissidents. Historical records show that death sentence was made by public beheading, and was accompanied by torture (Smith, 23). The capital crimes that resulted to death sentence include murder, military crimes (such as espionage, mutiny, cowardice, insubordination, desertion and treason), sexual crimes (such as sodomy, incest, adultery and rape), religious crimes (such as renunciation of nationally accepted religion in Islamic countries), drug and human trafficking and the Chinese-renown serious corruption crimes. This form of punishment is less common in the world with 58 nations still practicing it, abolished by 98 countries and 7 countries using it for war crimes and other special crimes. Additionally, amnesty international has estimated that 140 countries are abolitionist in practice and law since more than 90 percent of death executions takes place in Asia. International law prohibits death executions of individuals who are minors (individuals aged below 18 years at the time they performed the crimes). This has been implemented by almost all nations except Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The death sentence is subject to cultural and political controversy of a given country or a given state (Hull, 15). For instance the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the member states of the European Union from the use of death sentence. Furthermore, the council of Europe also prohibits its 47 member states from use of death sentence. However, a bigger percentage of the population still live in nations that allow death sentence. These include highly populated nations such as China, the U.S., India and Indonesia. The United Nation General Assembly has adopted several resolutions that mandate global suspension of death execution and abolition of the death sentence. In this case of Furman v. Georgia (1972), a resident woke up at night, only to find that William Henry Furman in his house committing robbery. In the court trial Furman said that, he tripped and the weapon on his alms fired accidently killing the resident as he tried to escape (Hull, 15). This was in contradiction to an earlier statement to the police in which he had explained that he had blindly shot the victim while escaping. Since Furman attested to the shooting while committing a crime, he would have been culpable of murder and death sentence under the then existing State law based on the felony-murder rule. However, Furman was tried and found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, based on his statement, but the execution was not carried out. The ruling was made by U.S. Supreme court decision which requires consistency in the way the death sentence. This case resulted to the de facto moratorium on death sentence throughout the US. In Coker v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court further consolidated the Furman’s decision together with the court decision on Jackson v. Georgia case and the Branch v. Texas, to nullify the death sentence for rape (Schabas, 55). Additionally, in the case of California v. Anderson, the Supreme Court of California decided that death sentence had violated the constitution. This dismissed Aikens v. California case since all death sentences had been overturned in California. In the case of Jackson v. Georgia, Jackson unlike Furman had tried to commit armed robbery and additionally ended up committing rape. In the ruling, the supreme court of Georgia found Jackson guilty and convicted him to death sentence. Though the Furman v. Georgia case declared death sentence unconstitutional, in 1976, the case of Gregg v. Georgia reverted this and permitted the death sentence on certain special circumstances. In the case of Atkins v. Virginia, the limitation placed on death sentence was that it was unconstitutional for people with intellectual disability (Schabas, 55). Additionally, the Roper v. Simmons case the death sentence was unconstitutional if carried out on minors (individual under the age of 18 at the time of committing the crime) Prominent judges and chief justices have had differing opinions on the justification of death sentence as a method of punishment (Hull, 15). In this regard, Chief Justice Burger, Justice Harry Blackmun, Justice Lewis F Powell and Justice William H Rehnquist have argued the importance of maintaining death sentence as an appropriate method of punishing capital crimes based on Anglo-American Legal Traditions and The Constitutional Provisions that implicitly authorizes death sentence due to the reference of the 14th Amendment that explains more on “taking life” Many advocates of the death sentence base their arguments in its favor since the sentence enables to deter capital crimes and is therefore a good tool to be used by police and court prosecutors in making their bargain plea to ensure that the individuals convicted of such crimes do not repeat their crimes again (Smith, 25). This argument is meant for capital crimes with dreadful results such as child murderers, torture murders, mass killing, cop killing, multiple homicide, massacre, genocide, terrorism and serial killers. John Stuant Mill, in his speech against the amendment to the abolition of capital punishment for murder, explains that death sentence will enable the criminals appreciate human life and that the adoption of death sentence presents an idea that an individual who commits murder forfeits his life and by doing so, his crime deprives him of the right to live. This case a person forfeits his right to live by starting a murder attack, in which the victim has no alternative but to kill the attacker. Death sentence has been acknowledged as acceptable on basis of retribution and punishment. This is because real justice requires that criminals should be punished and should suffer in a way that is proportional and appropriate to their crimes (Hull, 20). Each criminal should get a punishment that he deserves and in the case of murder the most appropriate and fair punishment is the death execution. This is because the criminal, in most instances, takes advantage of the unprotected and defenseless nature of his victim and therefore, the criminal should not be punished ‘neither too severely nor too leniently’ However, this argument has been criticized since it considers the aspect of vengeance instead of retribution and therefore morally wrong. It also fails to consider the psychological suffering of criminals who are incarcerated on death sentence for many years as well as heavy criticism by individuals and organizations against retribution; even when applied in the fairest manner. The deterrence approach of death sentence as a punishment that deters criminals from committing murder crimes has also been criticized on the grounds that a) It lacks statistical evidence that proves the efficiency of the method (it is difficult to prove statistically that deterrence minimizes murder occurrence or not). b) It may be difficult to deter executed criminals due to mental incapacitation since they are more prone to committing same crimes again. c) The criminal might have committed the crime in a given emotional state in which at the time of committing the crime, never thought of his consequences d) There is no adequate proof on the deterrence due to life imprisonment and that due to death sentence. Some law analysts suggest that deterrence is most effective when death execution takes place soon after the crime occurs. In addition, deterrence would be more effective if the punishment is public, painful, humiliating and horrifying. This method was applied in historical times where the death sentence was publically conducted. However, the present day legal systems require that death execution in private places and require the use of painless means. This makes the deterrence argument to be less efficient, ambiguous and less prohibitive. While other sociologist argue that the death sentence, though having minimal deterrence effect is still beneficial since it results to death of “a bunch of murderers” who would have otherwise killed “a bunch of innocent victims” in this case the death execution ensures that criminals do not commit further crimes (Smith, 27). However, this has been criticized since there are other alternatives such as life imprisonment without possibility of parole in which the criminal enjoys full life in prison and the society is fully protected. This again is subject to the chance of the criminal escaping the prison. The death sentence also has rehabilitation effect on the prisoner. This is because numerous cases of individuals under death sentence take advantage of the time to seek repentance and forgiveness, as well as seek spiritual rehabilitation to strengthen their faith. Through this the criminal has the opportunity to influence his fellow inmates on the need to change as well as enable him prepare for the afterlife. In addition the death sentence has been argued that it provides closure and vindication of the criminal’s family. However this argument is baseless since some families don’t consider the death of one of their family members as a source of closure and his argument fails to provide the justification of the death sentence. In conclusion, while death sentence is approved by some individuals, several organizations, such as Amnesty International and religious groups have highly criticized the move on the basis of depriving an individual his fundamental right to live (Hull, 25). There have been instances of innocent execution due to the flaws found the justice systems. In this regard, the mistakes of prosecutors and case investigators, corruption and racism have resulted to execution of innocent civilians. As a result of this various states and international organizations have prohibited the death sentence as a form of punishment for capital crime. Works Cited Hull, Elizabeth. "Guilty On All Counts". Social Policy. 39.4 (2010): 11-25. Schabas, William. The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law. Cambridge University Press. 2002. Smith, Stephen F. "The Supreme Court and the Politics of Death". Virginia Laws. 94.1 (2008): 23-27. Read More