Death Sentence - Term Paper Example

Death Penalty Introduction to the question of death penalty Death penalty is capital punishment. Punishment is defined as an evil afflicted by person in position of authority upon another person who is judged to have violated a rule. It has been questioned so much. Sad am Hussein one of the then leader of Afghanistan, John Michael Lamb a serial murderer in Texas and indeed many others were subjected to death penalty as prescribed by the law of their land with the latter being injected a lethal toxin in the body as form of justice to his or her victims. Death penalty in simpler terms is where one is punished by death or gets a sentence of death for the unjust deeds to the others. The question along the corridors of courts has been: is it justice to social crime or the legalized murder? This paper tend to unravel and demystify that mystery and misty condition that surround the entire question of death sentence or penalty. It will tend to opinion of those pro-death penalty enforcement and those anti-death penalty enforcement starting with the later. Factions’ pro-death penalty laws The following are six people and proponent of death penalty in whom survey was done on the issue of death sentence and their view and reaction are still of use in formulations of the laws: 1. Immanuel Kant (Germany Philosopher), 2. Herbert Morris (diplomat and Philosopher) 3. John C McAdam 4. Saqib Ali (Democrat Delegate Maryland) 5.Bob Enyart(Pastor) 6. Bill Mayer (political commentator) 1. Immanuel Kant Probably one of the most quoted person of all the time under the sun when it comes to death penalty is Immanuel Kant who uttered the following philosophical words: “What kind and what degree of punishment does public justice takes as its principle and norm? None other than the principle of equality in the movement of pointer of scale of justice, the principle of not inclining to one side more than the other. Thus any undeserved evil which you do to someone else among the people is an evil done to yourself. If you rob him, you rob yourself, if you slander him, you slander yourself, and if you strike him you strike yourself, and if you kill him, you kill yourself. According to Immanuel Kant, death penalty is something done in return and deserved to what the victim got undeservedly. Those pro death penalty put it that the act which is good to others in the society, the society goes ahead and in fact beyond to praise it and reward it. But should the act be evil, dehumanizing and perhaps that one that puts a shame on the face of society as norm goes it should not go unpunished. The punishment should be according to the gravity of the dehumanizing and evil act with death being the capital punishment. According to Bohm, (2011, p4). To know the notion of punishment and even the so called capital punishment, one must examine and inquire under what conditions, if any, criminal punishment is justifiable. Death penalty can be examined in three robust and most convincing approaches as follows. According to Kant and classic retributivist position in general, the justification of punishment be it a petty crime or grave crime punishable by death is derived by one is that the guilty of any crime is being in necessary condition for judicial punishment; that is only the guilty may be punished. Two is that guilty is a sufficient condition for judicial punishment; that is, all the guilty must be punished. If you have committed a crime, morality demands that you suffer an evil for it. Finally, is that the correct amount of punishment imposed upon the morally (or legally) guilty offender is that amount which is equal to the moral seriousness of the offence. The trifecta gives as the fabric of arguing these theses 2. Bill Mayer “The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment in deterrence and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes — outweighs the risk of error. It is no proper part of the business of this court, or of its justices, to second-guess that judgment, much less to impugn it before the world …” Bill Mayer is pro-death penalty who argue along these lines of arguments. Just like Kant, the receiver of capital punishment is seen as a self-inflicting person with those capital punishment that’s why he says the offender lies, steals and unjustly strikes or kills himself. That is, by universalizing the maxim of such acts, the offender will a like action on himself. This is the law of retaliation. So Kant in simpler terms is saying that the undeserved evil which anyone commits on another is to be regarded as perpetuated on himself. The receiver of the death sentence deserve to suffer the same way that he harmed another. If not, then the suffering should be at least equal and similar to the suffering caused to the victim. This is best known as strict equality. 3. Herbert Morris Another way is by applying the Herbert Morris and Davis dicta. They argue in accordance with or in terms of social equilibrium. They put it that a criminal has violated a mutually beneficial scheme of social cooperation, there by treating law abiding members of community unfairly. Punishment restore the scale of justice, the social equilibrium of benefits and burden. This is also another way of arguing the question of death penalty. In advancing the Morris and Teal argument, one can say that in breaking the rule of society, a person obtains an unfair advantage over the others. The unfair advantage should be redressed by the society if possible, the punishment is in form of redressing the unfair advantage and therefore we ought to punish the offender for breaking the primary rule and in accordance with the gravity of crime. So in the event the capital punishment may be the eventuality of some form of crime. 4. John C Mc Adam  “If Capital Punishment is state sponsored murder, then any lesser punishment is a state sponsored murder of Justice…. It is Justice, not Laws that cures the society. And Capital Punishment is the only Justice that suits a murderer.” The punishment restores the social equilibrium of burden of benefits by taking from the receiver what he or she unfairly got and now owes, in other words exacting his or her debt. So if the offender is guilty of slander he or she should pay by nothing less or more of slander and if a murderer is the he she should restore it by death penalty. This rule holds that society has a duty to punish the offender, since the society has a general duty to punish the offender or to redress the unfair advantage in society if possible. Morris maxim compared to Kantian, is that the former focusses on the unfair advantage in the society. This fair play focuses on the unfairness of the offence. The latter, Kantian interpretation focuses on the gravity of crime but all lead to the capital punishment. That is their common denominator. Many of the pro-death opinionated fellows put it that courts of law will be doing injustice to the victim of murder if they do not execute their murderers. So to redress the matter, the murderer should repay back to society the pain that they have caused. 5. Bob Enyart (Pastor)  “I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again.” Bob Enyart a pastor argue that death penalty is necessary to deter future potential murderer. In this perspective is not only that we are eliminating or flashing out the potential murderer of future but also doing justice the future victims of murder by this very murderers. Observing these trends of justifying death penalty, it seems that they take the trend of retribution that is a pay back to the misdeed or murder committed to their victims. Second capital punishment is mend for the fairness that is maintaining fair distribution of civic burden by imposing a burden on one who has tolerated the burden of complying with the law. Finally, capital punishment will serve the purpose of deterrence that is punishment is an evil necessary to prevent greater future evils by giving potential criminal a disincentive to commit offences. 6. Saqib Ali “I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.” Other pundits like Saquib Ali argue that the capital punishment is not form of murder but incapacitate murder, death sentence or death penalty, serve the purpose of incapacitation in other words is to say that locking or putting the criminal in a quarantine so as to protect us, the law abiding citizens, from their future crimes. Opponents of death penalty The following are the opponents of death penalty whose work were surveyed and their views and reaction against death penalty immortalized for the purpose of law formulation: 1. Auberon Waugh (Century British author & journalist) 2 Lord Russell-Johnston (British President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 2001). 3. Wendell Phillips, (19th Century US lawyer & politician) 4. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, (U.S. Supreme Court Justice 2001) 5. Charles B Blackmar (former senior judge of Missouri’s Supreme Court 2003) 6. Elie Wiesel, (Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1986) Those are the view of the proponents of death penalty, turning to the opponents of death penalty the statistics are startling at the onset. On the court of public opinion, the abolitionist have lost it. Gallup poll in October 2002 found that 70 % of Americans favor death penalty while a trifling 25 percent opposed it. The Gallop survey asked a generic question: “Are you in favor of death penalty for person convicted of murder?” The support is even higher when asked for their views not in abstract but in regard to a particular case touching their family member to an extent that it turns the result to 92% in favor of death penalty. These is a very clear indication that death penalty has few sympathizer or the burden of complying with the laws of the land are heavy to an extent those who break in their favor attract a lot of hatred to an extent it will be unfair to go scot-free. Considering the 25 percent of Americans who are against the Capital punishment, these are the views they share in abolishing the harsh law. The logic of death penalty being a deterrence of the same in future suffer several flaws according to case of Gregg v. Georgia, where it was explicitly stated that “The are carefully contemplated murder, such as murder for hire, where the possible penalty of death may well enter into the cold calculus that precedes the decision to act.” This in other words is to say that only the first degree murder, those committed with premeditated plan and malice. With this in mind, it cannot prevent or bring out the issue of deterrence in sense that a hire “criminal” is a second degree murderer and are not eligible for capital punishment. That punishment should be ultimately a reserve of first degree murderer. 1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg According to Ruth the seemingly justice in death penalty is delusion of court and absence of fairness to the entire process. She was quoted as saying the following: “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored…to develop…rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor…” It seems she observed death penalty reasoning to have found the flaws on laws favoring the punishment as ‘just denied to victim’. Many support death penalty by the fact is the justice denied to the victim. Life by life principle. This stand usually taken by many in support of death penalty brooks no argument and suggests little differentiation. Such attitudes are unlikely to be swayed by arguments based on factual information. The support for the death penalty by most of pundits according to Thurgood Marshall is based on ignorance. He says there are two hypothesis in support of his argument. One is that the public is generally unaware of several unhappy “fact” about capital punishment: one is that it does not deter homicide more than long term imprisonment, and that the operation is inhumane, and that its administration is discriminatory, that convicted murderer are rarely executed and pose future threat to society( Bohm. 2011 pp. 364-367 2. Lord Russell-Johnston “If any society has only the right that the individual has, she has no right to inflict the p Penalty of death, because she can effectually restrain the individual from ever again committing his offence.” If the facts were known, capital punishment would be rejected according to Lord Russell Johnson argument if other means can be used such restrain of the perpetrators. This is an expression that exudes democratic optimism: Knowledge persuades. It’s clearly demonstrated that facts about death penalty are not neatly balanced. On the important factual issues that have been in dispute that is deterrence, cost discrimination and consistency. The entire truth is on the side of anti-death penalty arguments. Some citizen have feeble opinion on capital punishment or entirely undecided. Such subjects tend to emotionally decide about the death sentence without the critical thinking perspective. 3. Wendell Phillips Wendell observed that capital punishment operated on the demand and supply fashion . “Those who are executed when the crime rate are high normally they don’t get fair trial.” It is a product of necessity being mother of invention in a way that when crimes goes high in a country then there is a tendency of coming with harsher laws to bring down the crime without bearing in mind the effectiveness of the same. This argument put forward by Page and Shapiro both the opponent of capital punishment. So the support of death penalty will tend to be low when the crime rate are low and mild. 4. Elie Wiesel A lot of doubts have been casted about the effectiveness of death sentence in according to Ellie Wiesel and public opinion interwoven with researches. First the cost of the death penalty and completely absence of the deterrent effect of the executions. Elie is quoted saying: “Those resources could be spent in better ways if death eligible killers were sentenced to life without parole. Law enforcement programs that work might have prevented the tragedies we suffered at only a fraction of the cost. A legal system free from the resource drain of the capital punishment system could find, prosecute, and sentence countless other criminals and even take dangerous people of the streets before they commit murder.” The strongest of the doubts, however, is that despite the death penalty being effected the wave and crime rate incessantly continue to get to the new heights. These could imply that may be the innocents could be the one under the noose of the executioner on behalf of the criminals or may be the second degree (Bohm, 2011, pp324-327). Murderer, those who are hired, are the one being killed instead of the first degree murderer who finance and have the motive. 5. Auberon Waugh Another argument raised by swamp of researches after an article of Auberon Waugh on alternative of death penalty. Researches revealed that the countries or states that practice life imprisonment without parole have lower rates of first-degree crime compared to those that practices death penalty. This is to suggest that alternatives of death penalties are effective than the so perceived harsh punishment to cause deterrence of criminal offence in the future. 6. Charles B Blackmar Others like Charles B Blackmar views ironically capital punishment being inadequate when on placed an in-depth analysis. This rather fascinating and ironical observation is interesting in that a second degree criminal can be punished in a myriad of form such as getting 10 strokes, community service and hard work and if that is not enough life imprisonment caps all that. While a serious criminal that is seemingly seems to be getting adequate punishment by being placed under the noose of executioner only is punished in second an all the pain is over forever while the victim still suffer the product of crime. The many ethical chaos with only one solution is inadequate and unsustainable. Death sentence too can tend to polarize a country. For the countries that have rich diversity may experience polarity. In United States for example in the early days so many of the criminal being distinguished by ethnic background, class or even race. Many of the executed were those from African American origin. Surprisingly, the whites made a major majority of the population meaning they contributed more in crime rates than African American. Such trend increased tension and polarity between the whites and the black Americans (Bohn. 2011, pp. 471-473). Religiously death penalty is a cruelty of highest order under the sun. Its equivalence to the jury coming to the judgment of death sentence as equating themselves to the almighty God who is the sole creator of human kind and is the only one who has the ultimate power to judge and take life. As He as the maker of life, He is the taker of the very life. Any other person or law purporting to override the will of God is seen as a blasphemy to God the creator. The religious and follower of Christ find this laws of death penalty being insensitive to God. So if consideration could be given across the board taking in the views of those affiliated to the teaching of God then death penalty will have a fair share of criticism. Considering the views of Thurgood, is that the poor people are deprived of the material benefits of cooperation, and the frequent result of this that they are deprived of security benefits as well as, they have little choice but to live in crime ridden neighborhood. Where police are able to keep violence from getting, out of hand, and barely incapacitated to provide real protection for all citizen. In other words the benefits of obeying the law are not distributed equally to all, neither is the duty of to obey the laws, nor the debt incurred for disobeying, the same for all citizen. Consequently, while punishment may be justified in principle for taking unfair advantage, instituting such punishment is unjust to the society, is unjust to in practice according the values underlying the fairness view: It punishes people for defaulting on payment for the benefit they haven’t received. So in executing, by principle one is justified but in practice it’s being unjust both to the society and the individual. In the long run the death penalty will have no reason other than ridiculing, disparaging and debasing the very fabric of the society. Kantian argument on death penalty threw a lot of weight on the deterrence of future crime. But ideally it’s not prevention but a form of self-defense. It does not turn on the notion of equal worth or personal responsibility. One is morally permitted to kill a homicidal maniac in defense, even though there is no assertion that he is responsible for his act or killing him affirm anything about his worth compared to anyone else’s. Thus deterrence does not justify the death penalty. Personal Views It seems that having in place an unjust policies would not necessarily count against instituting that policy if all the feasible alternative were worse. Basing on the plentiful argument aforementioned interwoven with my own arguments, I will, given the opportunity, abolish capital punishment and rather replace it with the seemingly mild laws such as life imprisonment yet very effective. Reference. Bohm, R. M. (2011). Death quest: An introduction to the theory and practice of capital punishment in the United States. Amsterdam: Anderson Pub. /Elsevie Read More