Category: Capital Punishment

The ongoing discussion of whether Capital Punishment is useful or not needs to understood how it is a problem that forever will be relevant. Understanding that there are numerous supporters of this neverending topic of capital punishment, there are additionally a lot of people who also believe a death sentence is wrong. In my opinion, I accept that capital punishment should undoubtedly be legitimate in the United States of America. You can understand that there are numerous ethical reasons with respect to why I accept that sentencing an individual to death should well be legitimized in every state in this country. For example, this includes reprisal, deterrence, and ethical quality. Moreover, in my paper, I will invalidate several ethical viewpoints that capital punishment is by far unconstitutional. Also that many unalterable missteps are made and I will explain how race also plays a role in capital punishment. I am certain that the utilization of the death penalty incredibly hinders United States citizens from carrying out violations, for example, murder, rape, etc. What is everyone’s fear of life? Numerous individuals’ biggest dread in life has to be death. In this way in the event that they realize that passing is a potential ramification for their unlawful activities, they are less inclined to perform these activities if they know that they will be sentenced to death.

The death penalty likewise goes about as an impediment for recidivism. In the event that any random criminal will get executed, the individual has no chance to perpetrate wrongdoings once more. I found that in “a Gallup poll from May on the topic found that about an estimated 61 percent of Americans view the death penalty as morally acceptable, and only 29 percent disagreed. Even though foes of capital punishment have for years been increasingly vocal in their opposition to the death penalty, Americans have consistently supported capital punishment by a 2-to-1 ratio in murder cases. They are wise to do so”(Muhlhausen,2014). Several individuals sure could contend that there isn’t sufficient solid proof to utilize prevention as a contention for capital punishment. I have some explanations that some proof might be uncertain. For example, capital punishment frequently requires a significant stretch of time to be done for various reasons. It is known that few detainees sit in their awful cells waiting to be called to die at any moment. It can take years. When you are finally called upon for execution, the prisoner requests their favorite meal to eat before they get executed. It can impact the viability of prevention. This is because many consequences that are done quickly are better guides for other people to follow. Despite the fact that capital punishment is very powerful at discouraging these potential lawbreakers in society, it would be a lot more ethical if these inmates did not wait to be executed for as long as they do.

The neverending discussion of the death penalty has been relevant for decades. Before registering for this course, I’ve always had the same mindset about the Death Penalty. I have always believed that if you are found guilty of murder then you should get executed for that murder. Also, from committing further murders in the future. Why should you not be executed if you are found guilty of murdering some innocent human being? Now that this course is coming to an end I still support capital punishment.

Referring back to the tragic event that took place in Boston known as the “Boston Marathon Bombers” is evidence that those two terrorists should be executed without even thinking about the situation. Both Tsarnaev brothers, responsible for the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and his brother Tamerlan died that same day following an intense shootout with the police. In case you do not know the Bombing during the Boston marathon was a psychological assault that happened on April 15, 2013. Two bombs went off during the marathon. Unfortunately killing three innocent individuals and injuring in excess of 260 others. Evidence found that the Tsarnaevs were inspired by radical Islamic convictions. However, the brothers arranged the bombings all alone. Furthermore surprisingly were not associated with any terrorists. They purportedly utilized the Internet to figure out how to fabricate their explosives. Dzhokar was sentenced to death on June 24, 2015, two months after he was convicted and rightfully so. Referring back to the text about this situation “if the accused is guilty, then he should get the death penalty because of the devastation and fear he created in that community”((Hatch & Walsh, 2015). It doesn’t make a difference what race or monetary status an individual is in society. On the off chance that you are blameworthy, you should certainly get the proper discipline, which now and again might be capital punishment.

Talking about in the case of condemning a person to death can without a doubt be a troublesome subject. A few people will, in general, have outrageous perspectives on it. It definitely is an important asset in life. Capital Punishment honestly without a doubt surely deters criminals. It is ethical to make sure that our country has the same opinion, as opposed to a few states utilizing the death penalty while other states don’t. Capital punishment can be an amazingly valuable instrument in condemning lawbreakers that have carried out a portion of the most exceedingly awful violations which have unfortunately occurred in life therefore punishment should be certain.

While talking about the opinion of Plato on death penalty, what comes to understand is that he is aversive to retributive punishment which has the sole purpose of making the guilty suffer for earlier crime that he had committed. capital punishment discussion goes long way back in history and it traces can be assimilated in the Greek literature, precisely in the speech given by Diodotus.

The idea that comes across through his dialogue is that human beings are selfish and their nature cannot be changed even by enforcement of fear of death. what Plato thinks of death penalty as a form of punishment as the simplest form of punishment and infant according to it’s the least vicious. Plato addresses the concept of capital punishment in number of dialogues and particularly in Punishment in Plato’s” laws “.it comprises of ideas of education, jurisprudence and ethics etc.

The” laws “have a practical element attached to it. the discussion over Socrates trial holds an imperative part. in Socrates –on Life and Death – (Plato, Apology -) what Socrates claims is that he has no reason to fear death. according to him death is a good phenomenon and in any case it’s the “worst of evils “Socrates who had died a convict’s death by having a cup of hemlock, holds relevance while considering morality of death penalty. Socrates also gives a further evidence to prove that death is good, he introduces a ‘constructive dilemma ‘. the traditional notion that was a part of Plato’s eschatological myths that one’s a person dies in his afterlife some of the dead are punished for their unfair acts and others are incentivised for their positive acts. Plato tries to argue that a person’s ill –deeds never go unnoticed and rather will be subsequently punished. but what Socrates is trying to say is that death isn’t bad, it just leads people to” dreamless sleeps “. The major argument that comes is that can be giving death to something really punishing them for their deeds not maybe what it just does according to Socrates is give them sleep, so how can then giving death penalty be a morally just act on the part of the judiciary. giving death penalty is just removing the offender from the society but not actually punishing the person guilty of an offence.

A utilitarian approach to death penalty

While death penalty is considered to be one of the most controversial topics of the present day, it’s a severe form of punishment and is considered to be barbaric and inhumane. The arguments around capital punishment remains highly polarised. the utilitarian theory can be applied because it produces both positive and negative effects.

Firstly, due to its deterrence aspect: under this view its considered to more ethical. since the people can enjoy peace and stability in the society Secondly, incapacitation the idea of permanent incapacitation, it is taken as probability that if the offender is removed from the society, it will bring about justice stability and peace in the family .it also advantage of reducing emotional stress to an extent. Thirdly retribution, it is thought to be providing maximum retribution for the crime.

John Stuart mill was the first utilitarian to defend capital punishment, it’s interesting to ponder on the fact that mill in his speech which he gave in opposition to the proposal to ban capital punishment. He had given this speech in the parliament in 1986. According to him punishment is supposed to have deterrent effect on criminal behaviour.

Mill thinks its humane to give death penalty to the criminal and he compares death penalty to life imprisonment with hard labour and this was only possible in his time but today the alternative in life imprisonment without parole. Mill considers the argument that we cannot teach respect for life by destroying life. Death penalty has a biggest problem that is of error of justice, considering accidental executions, here mill argues that this problem is like a bonus for the other countries to be careful and provide complete evidence for the guilty. There is significant problem with Mills claims that is that death penalty has a deterrent effect which clearly doesn’t have. even today in states of America the cases of homicide have increased quite significantly. Mills distinction between higher and lower pleasures, he says comparing the two needs a group of experts who have personally experienced both higher and lower pleasures then in that scenario it also becomes necessary for a group to have experienced both death penalty and life imprisonment but that not possible. then lastly the sanctity of human life is an important aspect, giving death penalty violates that. Hence what comes across through the above claims is that Mills ideas to retain capital punishment is non relatable.

Jeremy Bentham

In the key text principle of moral and legislators. he begins with claiming that human beings are ruled by two sovereign masters they are pleasure and pain. his ideas of utilitarianism draw out focus on attaining happiness. for him utility means happiness. happiness is considered a whole vision of good .this can be measured by maximizing pleasures .for him morality of law is very important ,it’s an egalitarian way of thinking .Bentham’s critique of death penalty is very interesting .Jeremy Bentham provides with an extensive discussion in his book Rationale of Punishment .his attempt to give enough utilitarian grounds against death penalty fails to an extent .for Bentham punishment must morally justified in terms of its conduciveness ,according to him morality of law forms an essential part of utilitarianism .he is of the view that the main idea behind the establishment of a law is happiness of the community ,and this could only be ensured by awarding rationale and justifiable punishments for a society and bringing happiness for its members . his general theory of punishment proposes multiple criteria so that there is fair and proper appropriation of the punishments. Bentham gives these criteria in terms of direct connection with death penalty.

While presenting case against death penalty he is puts emphasis on the theme of pardon which means mercy. So the argument that he is proposing is that mercy is the greatest virtue of morality and hence it justifies and helps in achieving the maximum happiness for all.

What Bentham tries to point is the fact that giving capital punishment is ensuring justice and fairness in society because giving punishment brings happiness to the society but is this happiness long term perhaps not because it only brings temporary joy in the society. what we need today is a society free of offenders but giving death penalty is necessarily not the way out as crimes continue to take place.

Capital punishment is the most disputable legitimate discipline forced by the Criminal Justice System of our nation. This type of discipline stands apart from the rest because of its brutality and seriousness. There is general understanding that the death penalty is the most serious discipline that a judge can give a guilty party. Capital punishment is the authorized killing of someone as punishment to a heinous crime. Capital punishment is done in prisons to inmates that have committed the most dangerous of crimes that cane ever be committed. Capital punishment is also referred to as the death penalty or execution of an offender that is sentenced to death by a convictions by the court of law.

The predominance of the death penalty in ancient time is hard to find out, however it appears to be likely that it was regularly evaded, once in a while by the option of expulsion and here and there by installment of pay. In some countries, numerous guilty parties who carried out capital wrongdoings got away from capital punishment, either on the grounds that juries or courts would not convict them or in light of the fact that they were acquitted, for the most part on condition that they consented to expulsion; some were condemned to the lesser discipline of transportation to the then American states and later to Australia.

From ancient times until well into the 19th century, many societies administered brutal types of the death penalty. In Rome the denounced were heaved from the Tarpeian Rock. For parricide they were drowned in a sealed bag with a dog, cock, ape, and viper; and still others were executed by forced gladiatorial combat or by crucifixion. Ancient China death penalty consisted of painful methods. The condemned were sawed in half, flaying while still alive, and boiled. Europe definition of the death penalty consisted of “breaking” on the wheel, boiling in oil, burning at the stake, decapitation, and drowning. By the end of the 20th century many areas had adopted lethal injections as the death penalty. Although this was put in place there were some areas including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan that continued to behead their offenders and stone them to death.

Executions were made public events for everyone to see. Large crowds would attend these events to witness the offenders be sentenced to death. The mutilated bodies were left on display until they rotted away. Public executions continued to take place until the 1930s in the United Sates. By the end of the 20th century there was a debate to whether or not the executions should be broadcast on television. In many countries death sentences are not administered right away. Inmates that are waiting to be executed live on what is called, “death row”. In the United States some inmates have been executed as late as 15 years after they have been convicted.

Moral Arguments

The death penalty has since quite a while ago induced impressive discussion about the two, its ethical quality and its impact on criminal conduct. Contemporary arguments for and against the death penalty fall under three general headings: moral, utilitarian, and practical. Supporters of capital punishment accept that the individuals who submit murder, since they have ended the life of another, have relinquished their own entitlement to life. Moreover, they accept, the death penalty is simply type of reprisal, communicating and strengthening the ethical era of the unfortunate casualty’s relatives as well as of honest natives as a rule.

On the other hand, adversaries of the death penalty, following the compositions of Cesare Beccaria (specifically On Crimes and Punishments [1764]), contend that, by legitimizing the very conduct that the law tries to stifle murdering, the death penalty is counterproductive in the ethical message it passes on. Besides, they encourage, when it is utilized for lesser violations, the death penalty is corrupt in light of the fact that it is entirely lopsided to the damage done. Abolitionists additionally guarantee that the death penalty damages the sentenced individual’s entitlement to life and is on a very basic level brutal and debasing. Despite the fact that demise was endorsed for violations in numerous holy strict archives and truly was drilled generally with the help of strict progressive systems, today there is no understanding among strict religions, or among divisions or organizations inside them, on the profound quality of the death penalty.

Utilitarian arguments

Supporters of the death penalty additionally guarantee that it has an interestingly intense impediment impact on possibly rough guilty parties for whom the risk of detainment is definitely not an adequate limitation. Rivals, in any case, point to look into that for the most part has exhibited that capital punishment is definitely not a more viable hindrance than the elective authorization of life or long haul imprisonment. An utilitarian way to deal with defending the death penalty requests just to the outcomes or impacts of death being the punishment for genuine violations.

An utilitarian methodology, at that point, is a sort of consequentialism and is regularly said to be ‘forward looking,’ as opposed to retributivists’ ‘regressive looking’ approach. All the more explicitly, an utilitarian methodology considers discipline to be demise as legitimized just if that measure of discipline for homicide best advances the absolute bliss, joy, or prosperity of the general public. The thought is that the inborn agony and any negative impacts of the death penalty must be surpassed by its helpful impacts. Wrongdoing counteractive actions through debilitation and discouragement and the all out impacts of capital punishment, great and terrible, for guilty party and every other persons’ must be more prominent than the all out impacts of option correctional reactions to genuine unfortunate behavior, for example, long haul imprisonment. An utilitarian way to deal with the death penalty is inalienably relative along these lines of it basically being attached to the outcomes of the work on being best for the all out bliss of the general public. It pursues, at that point, that an utilitarian methodology depends on what are, on a basic level, observational, causal cases about the all out minor impacts of the death penalty on wrongdoers and others.

Practical arguments

There are questions about whether the death penalty can be regulated in a manner consistent with justice. “Those who support capital punishment believe that it is possible to fashion laws and procedures that ensure that only those who are really deserving of death are executed.” On the other hand, adversaries maintain that the historical application of death penalty demonstrates that any endeavor to single out specific sorts of wrongdoing as meriting will definitely be subjective and oppressive. They additionally point to different elements that they think block the likelihood that the death penalty can be genuinely applied, contending that poor people, ethnic, and strict minorities regularly don’t approach great lawful help, that racial bias rouses overwhelmingly white juries in capital cases to convict black and other nonwhite respondents in unbalanced numbers, and that, since blunders are unavoidable even in a well-run criminal justice system. A few people will be executed for violations they didn’t carry out. They contend that, on the grounds that the interests procedure for capital punishments is extended, those sentenced to death are regularly pitilessly compelled to persevere through significant stretches of vulnerability about their destiny.

The battle between the individuals who support the death penalty and the individuals who restrict it is fairly basic contrasted with numerous different discussions. Those on the side of the death penalty trust it stops wrongdoings and, as a rule accept that specific violations wipe out one’s entitlement to life. The individuals who restrict the death penalty accept, above all else, that any individual, including the legislature, has no privilege to end a life in any capacity whatsoever. They frequently accept that living with one’s violations is a more awful discipline than biting the dust for them, and that the danger of the death penalty won’t dissuade an individual from carrying out a wrongdoing. They likewise accept that the danger of executing a blameless individual is excessively high. This debate goes as far as protestors protesting outside court houses and jails during high profile cases.

Everybody thinks human life is significant. A portion of those against the death penalty accept that human life is significant to the point that even the most noticeably awful killers ought not be denied of the estimation of their lives. They accept that the estimation of the guilty party’s life can’t be decimated by the wrongdoer’s terrible lead regardless of whether they have murdered somebody. A few abolitionists don’t go that far. They state that life ought to be saved except if there is an excellent explanation not to, and that the individuals who are agreeable to the death penalty are the ones who need to legitimize their position.

Everybody has a natural human right to life, even the individuals who commit murder; condemning an individual to death and executing them disregards that right. This is fundamentally the same as the “estimation of life” contention, yet drew closer from the point of view of human rights. The counter-contention is that an individual can, by their activities, relinquish human rights, and that killers relinquish their entitlement to life. Another model will make this unmistakable an individual relinquishes their entitlement to life in the event that they start a dangerous assault and the main way the unfortunate casualty can spare their very own life is by murdering the aggressor. The medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas made this point very clearly: “Therefore if any man is dangerous to the community and is subverting it by some sin, the treatment to be commended is his execution in order to preserve the common good… Therefore to kill a man who retains his natural worthiness is intrinsically evil, although it may be justifiable to kill a sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as Aristotle points out, an evil man is worse than a beast and more harmful.”

Those favoring the death penalty battle that society should support those practices that will achieve the best parity of good over malevolence, and the death penalty is one such practice. The death penalty benefits society since it might prevent brutal wrongdoing. While it is hard to create direct proof to help this case since, by definition, the individuals who are prevented by capital punishment don’t submit murders, sound judgment discloses to us that if individuals realize that they will bite the dust in the event that they play out a specific demonstration, they will be reluctant to play out that demonstration.

Capital punishments provides a deterrent against violent crime within a society. The objective of a law is to give somebody a hindrance against a wrongdoing they wish to submit. As a general public, savage wrongdoing is something to be evaded no matter what. To get that going, the most grounded obstruction is required. That is the reason the death penalty regularly applies to instances of first-degree murder or issues where the wellbeing of a whole nation was risked. By telling individuals they’ll pass on, whenever sentenced, for these genuine violations, the objective is to keep the wrongdoing from occurring in any case. Capital punishment allows for a deserved punishment for a horrific crime.

There is a point in time when somebody who carries out an awful wrongdoing is past the point where recovery is conceivable. Not exclusively does the death penalty make a merited discipline that it is equivalent to the wrongdoing submitted, it gives a security net to the remainder of the general public. A sentence of death keeps that individual from carrying out another awful wrongdoing. It additionally lessens the impact that individual would have on jail populaces, which may impact practices and decisions of peaceful guilty parties upon their discharge.

By capital punishment being implemented it reduces the rate of prisons being overcrowded. In the United States, there are more than 2.3 million individuals being held in state and government penitentiaries, local jails, Indian Country jails, juvenile correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and military jails. Around 443,000 individuals have not been sentenced and are anticipating trial. Another 41,000 are in confinement in immigration centers without conviction. Then again, 704,000 prisoners are marked as guilty parties in state jails. The death penalty laws make space for potential recovery without managing issues of jail over-population.

The death penalty brings closure to families that are affected by the horrific crimes that the criminal has committed. Some relatives of victim may take years or decades to recuperate from the stun and loss of a friend or family member. Some may never recoup. Something that rushes this recuperation is to accomplish some sort of closure. Life in jail just means the criminal is still around to haunt the family of the victim or the victim themselves. Capital punishment brings finality to a horrific chapter in the lives of the family members that were affected by it.

Defenders of the death penalty contend that justice demands that those indicted for egregious wrongdoings of murder be condemned to death. Justice is basically a matter of guaranteeing that everybody is dealt with equally. It is unjustifiable when a criminal intentionally and wrongly inflicts more prominent misfortunes on others than the person can bear. On the off chance that the society on lawbreakers are not exactly those the criminals forced on their innocent victims, society would support offenders, enabling them to pull off bearing less expenses than their exploited people needed to hold up under. Justice requires that society is forced on criminal losses equivalent to those they forced on innocent people. By inflicting death on the individuals who intentionally perpetrate demise on others, capital punishment guarantees justice for all.

The case against the death penalty is frequently made on the premise that society has an ethical commitment to secure human life, not take it. The taking of human life is allowable just in the event that it is an essential condition to accomplishing the best parity of good over evil for everybody included. Given the worth we place on life and our commitment to limit enduring and torment at whatever point conceivable, if a less serious option in contrast to capital punishment exists which would achieve a similar objective, we are compelled by a solemn obligation to dismiss capital punishment for the less extreme option.

Capital punishment isn’t important to accomplish the advantage of shielding people in general from killers who may strike once more. Locking killers away forever accomplishes a similar objective without expecting us to take one more life. Nor is capital punishment important to guarantee that offenders ‘get what they deserve.’ Justice doesn’t expect us to punish murder by death. It just requires that the gravest wrongdoings get the severest discipline that our ethical standards would enable us to force.

Finally, capital punishment hurts society by ruining the estimation of life. Enabling the state to inflict death on its residents legitimizes the taking of life. The demise of anybody, even a sentenced executioner, decreases all of us. Society has an obligation to end this practice which causes such damage, yet delivers little in the method for advantages. “To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice”, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

It has already been the 21st Century and science and technology have reached the zenith of success. Man has been a part of this sophisticated society with all the comforts at his finger-tips. Despite of all the advancements, many people are getting dragged into the vicious cycle of crimes and murders. There might be infinite number of reasons for a person to do so be it jealously, anger, frustration, and what not. In the Contemporary society, as humans tend to lack moral values in many ways, the rate of wrong doings in India keeps on increasing day by day. Especially in extremely severe cases happening, there needs to be something that can provide Justice to the innocent one who suffered, and the best possible way in our opinion is the “Death Penalty”.

Death penalty, also called the Capital Punishment, is the execution of offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offence. It is the highest penalty awardable to an accused; generally, it is awarded in some specific cases of murder, rapes, treason etc. India, being a country with the second largest population in the world, is practicing secularism for years now and it started even before it was legally introduced by our constitution. Punishment conveys the message to criminals that what they have done was wrong, and even gives them an opportunity to apologize and reform with their behaviors.

All around the world religious groups have varying views on the death penalty. Despite an unambiguous commitment to non-violence in both Hinduism and Buddhism, there is ongoing controversy within those traditions about the permissibility of lethal punishment among scholars. There is a rather common Old Testament, that is, to take a ‘eye for an eye,’ while the New Testament exhorts us to “turn the other check”. And while Islam is generally regarded as compatible with the capital punishment, the Quran’s emphasizes on forgiveness and not on Retaliation. While many European countries urge an ethic of Rehabilitation in their criminal justice systems, many jurisdictions in the United States stand firmly in favour of capital punishment for serious crimes committed.

The first ever hanging in Independent India was in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case in, back then, 1949, that of Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte. There have been a total of thirty executions since 1991, the most recent of which for the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case were carried out in 2020. This is one of the cases which reinforces the role of those who are rooting the death penalty for cruel crimes. There is no better example than this. Even now the level of violence involved in the crime is shivering us. This is the first thing that comes to mind just after hearing the word ‘Rape’ from any Indian. No one in this world can imagine the helplessness, sorrow and anger of the girl who was raped and succumbed to death after enduring hardships, and of her parents who are fighting to get Justice for their child for prolonged years. After 8 years of the incident, finally the accused were executed and the whole nation celebrated. The satisfaction we all felt and the complete lack of compassion in our hearts for the rapists is evident about the importance of capital punishment. This verdict, of the widely known “Nirbhaya case”, gives hope to many more parents, relatives and people for rightful judgment of the other pending cases.

Even in this pandemic scenario where we are facing lots of difficulties each and every day but cases of sexual harassment exponentially rising. A teenager of 13-year-old Sundargarh district girl has recently been gang-raped by Biramitrapur’s inspector-in-charge, Anand Chandra Majhi, along with other police station officials at the police station. She had come to see a fair in Biramitrapur region on March 25 but as it was cancelled at the last minute due to the lockdown so she failed to return home and roamed near the bus stand when a police patrolling team spotted her and took her to the police station. She was dropped at her home the very next day. Yet she was called everyday to the police station, and was assaulted by them over and over again. She later got pregnant following which Majhi forcibly terminated her pregnancy. Director General of Police Abhay had filed the case against them. He was suspended one day after a lawsuit was brought against him and five others, including the doctor who had performed the abortion at a community health centre, stepfather of the girl and two local youths, on June 22.

The above discussed issues are few examples from the never ending list. To sum up our point of view, death penalty is not against humanity in any case. People should definitely pay for the sins they committed in the right amount, no more, no less. Also, by proper justice, we make sure the deterioration of would be wrongdoers. According to the famous Italian philosopher Thomas Aquinas, by accepting the punishment of death, the offender is able to expiate his evil deeds and so escapes punishment in the next life. It demonstrates that the death penalty can lead to some forms of rehabilitation. So, at last but not the least, we would like to conclude by quoting- ‘We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged!’

Capital Punishment: The Good Side in the Evil

Imagine your family murdered horribly by a serial killer, who eventually gets arrested, but the judge sentences him to only 12 years. How would you feel? Would you feel satisfied with the punishment given to the murderer? Or would you feel vengeful at the significantly weak punishment that was given to the criminal? This is where capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, comes into play. It gives closure and emotional relief to the victims’ families, saves the lives of innocent citizens, and is, in truth, crucial for maintaining society and national security. Whatever people’s perspectives are toward the death penalty, one thing most people will never know is the pain experienced by the families when their loved ones are brutally abused and murdered. However, when the death penalty is given to criminals, it gives some form of closure to the victim’s family members and can lessen that pain.

On October 11, 1993, 18-year-old Julie Heath (June 11, 1975 – October 11, 1993) was driving on U.S. Highway 270 between Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas, to visit her boyfriend in Hot Springs when she was raped and murdered by 45-years old sex offender, Eric Nance. He was sentenced to death by a federal judge of the Eastern District of Arkansas. Given a lethal injection, he was pronounced dead at 9:24 p.m. in 2005. Although the family members had to go through extreme pain and suffering, the death of the criminal gave them some sort of closure as Belinda Crites, one of the cousins of the victim said, ‘It brings closure that he is gone, but it will never bring back Julie – what he’s done to our family, I hope that he did say he’s sorry to someone for what he had done…We want to make sure the devil dies. He’s gone now so I hope they can rest in peace.’ As a human being, when a person takes another person’s life away, it is logically fair that he or she would be put in a correctional facility and have their life taken from them similarly as they ended the life of another. Hence, it is evident that the death penalty attains the goal of providing closure in some form of way to the victims and their families emotionally. Putting certain people to death for committing murder subsequently makes other potential killers reconsider murdering someone, saving the innocent lives of citizens.

According to a dozen studies, for each inmate put to death, 3 to 18 murders are prevented. Economists in the past decade compared the number of executions in various jurisdictions with homicide rates over time and stated that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. “I am opposed to the death penalty, but my research shows that there is a deterrent effect,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University who was the first to discover that for every execution, five people live. The reason why murder rates tend to fall as executions rise is inconclusive. However, Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University stated that whenever an inmate is executed, other prisoners serving a life sentence tend to reconsider killing a guard or committing other capital crimes he continued, “Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most,” which is death. Although some economists approached the studies with sharp criticism, stating that the logical theories of economists do not apply to the world of capital punishments, Mr. Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 said the studies have convinced him that the death penalty does deter crime as he said, “the evidence of a variety of types, not simply the quantitative evidence – has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.” Moreover, Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, law professors at Harvard, stated in their Stanford Law Review article, Deterring Murder: A Reply, “… the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” One of the strongest studies states that capital punishment does deter the crime rate as a 2003 paper by Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt and Ellen Shustorovich published in The American Law and Economics Review discovered “a strong and robust negative relationship” between the prison conditions, as measured by the number of deaths in prison from any cause, and the crime rate. The authors stated that 30 to 100 violent crimes and a similar number of crimes were deterred per prison death.

Consequently, it is evident, based on the studies and reviews, that capital punishment does deter and in return saves the lives of innocent people. The death penalty is frequently protected from its condemnation because society has an ethical commitment to the security of the well-being and welfare of its people. According to the composition, “A just society requires the death penalty for the taking of a life: Agree”, “When someone takes a life, the balance of justice is disturbed. Unless that balance is restored, society succumbs to a rule of violence,” which eventually disrupts the stability and security of the nations. Whenever a criminal is sentenced to death, it inevitably means that he or she has carried out espionage, treason, murder, mass murder, and other horrific capital crimes. These types of criminals threaten the safety and welfare of the nation, and thus, putting them to death ensures that they will create no more victims.

According to the NYC Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in a New York Post article, “Record number of killers and rapists being released from upstate prisons, many returning to NYC”, between 1985 and 2005, when 568,397 state-incarcerated offenders were released, 4.2 percent of them committed new violent felonies. Those included 1,471 murders, attempted murders or manslaughter convictions, and 1,013 rapes or other sex crimes. “This is an issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College and a former cop. “You certainly want to give people a second chance, but almost inevitably someone in that group is going to become a repeat offender.” For instance, according to the NYC Department of Correction, a convicted rapist-killer who strangled a teen in 1981 and was suspected of cutting out the eyes of an earlier victim has been arrested on a new rape charge, six years after he got out of jail. He was sentenced to 25 years to life for abducting, raping, and killing 19-year-old Doreen Vitale on Oct. 15, 1981, before he was released on Aug. 20, 2013, after more than 30 years in jail. Hence, it seems equitable to take an ‘eye for an eye’ and a life for a life. Robert Blecker, JD, Professor of Law at New York Law School, during an interview, ‘Q&A: Death Penalty Proponent Robert Blecker,” said ‘We have the responsibility to punish those who deserve it, but only to the degree they deserve it…We should only execute those who most deserve it. And not randomly. Refine our death penalty statutes and review the sentences of everyone on death row. Release into the general population those who don’t deserve to die. The rest we should execute, worst first.’ Furthermore, James Thayer, who wrote in a piece called “In Defense of the Death Penalty,” stated, “So from a utilitarian stance, it is more moral to utilize the death penalty, and take the chance of executing roughly 120 innocent people every 30 years, than to not employ it and take the chance of murdering roughly 30,000 people in the same period,” which argued that the value in executing murderers outweighs the potential harm of innocent people facing death penalty. For the past decades, highly heinous, minacious criminals have evaded capital punishment and have been released back to society, which is significantly perilous and menacing to the public.

One iconic, famous criminal in history is Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord and the leader of one of the most powerful criminal organizations ever assembled. According to an article, Biography of Pablo Escobar, Colombian Drug Kingpin by Christopher Minster, Escobar made billions of dollars, ordered the murders of hundreds of people, and ruled over a personal empire of mansions, airplanes, a private zoo, and his army of soldiers and hardened criminals. He ran his organization, the Medellin Cartel, from 1976 to 1993, and at the height of his career, he supplied 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the US, which was eventually worth over $30 billion by the 1990s. Unfortunately, this made Colombia one of the most dangerous places in the world, and the country fell into a civil war between the Narcos and the government. At the height of the conflict in the 1990s, Escobar decided to turn himself in instead of being extradited to the US. He negotiated to stay in Colombia in a prison he designed himself called La Catedral, which became his luxury resort. However, Escobar was still running his operation from La Catedral, but in July 1992, it became known that the drug kingpin had ordered some disloyal underlings brought to his “prison,” where they were tortured and killed. Eventually, the Colombian government decided to transfer him to a standard prison. Fearing he might be extradited, Escobar escaped and went into hiding.

In the end, he died during a shootout between Escobar and Colombian security forces On December 2, 1993. If Pablo had executed earlier in any possible way before he started to kill people in La Catedral, countless lives would have been saved. Another case that threatens the security and welfare of the citizens in society is about a Canadian serial killer couple Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo. According to an article, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka Case by The Canadian Encyclopedia, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo met each other when Homolka was 17 and Bernardo was 23. After marriage, both soon discovered that they shared sadomasochistic inclinations. Paul quickly took on the role of a leader and Homolka willingly became his partner. Both had raped, drugged, tortured, killing young teen girls, including Homolka’s younger sister, whom she offered to her boyfriend Paul Bernardo as a gift, as they videotaped the sexual assaults. Homolka eventually broke up with Bernardo after months of constant physical abuse. In mid-February, Bernardo was arrested and charged with the rapes and the murders of Mahaffy and French. However, Homolka was only sentenced to 12 years in prison for her participation in gathering evidence and arresting Bernardo. After a period, when Bernardo’s ex-lawyer viewed the videotapes that Homolka and Bernardo had made, Homolka’s true involvement came to light. Regardless of the evidence, she was released from prison in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec in 2005. From then on, Canadian citizens and the victim’s families have accused her of involvement in the crime with Bernardo. However, she has been managing to keep herself out of jail which disrupts the Canadian citizens’ security and welfare. These cases imply that for the most remorseless and heinous crimes, the criminals deserve the worst punishment under the system of law for the protection and welfare of the nation, and that is capital punishment. It is evident that the death penalty brings closure to the ordeal for a victim’s family, prevents murders in the future, and ensures the safety of the welfare of citizens and national security. 58 countries retain the death penalty whereas 102 countries do not. 102 nations need to approach the death penalty differently and take another look at the positive side of it.

Arguably one of the most controversial aspects of prisons around the world, the death penalty poses an interesting question to society; is it morally permissible to take a life as punishment for a crime? In my opinion, capital punishment is not a good fit for modern society, as proven by many statistics throughout the decades. First of all, the cost of sentencing someone to the death penalty is far greater than housing them in Canadian federal prisons, costing the government and taxpayers extreme amounts of money, which is not necessary. Secondly, executions can go wrong in many ways, making it a worse experience for everyone, rather than using life sentences. Finally, capital punishment does not deter crime better than other punishment methods, nor does it effectively stop others from committing similar crimes.

To start, the cost of sentencing someone to the death penalty, housing them on death row, and executing them, is far greater than keeping inmates within the Canadian federal prison system for life. This extra cost is unnecessary, and it could be eliminated by getting rid of capital punishment. Canadian federal prisons held 14,310 inmates in 2017, and each of those inmates cost on average about $314 each day, or $114 587 a year. Although this number may seem high, according to data from California, inmates on death row cost taxpayers $ 122,700 (CAD) more each year than a general population inmate. To put all these numbers into perspective, the average salary in Canada is only $ 51,000 a year, and it costs four times that amount to house a death row inmate each year. Not to mention that even the trials for people facing the death penalty cost significantly more than life sentence trials. The same California data shows that cases seeking the death penalty cost $1.7 million (CAD), while trials seeking life in prison cost an average of $1 million (CAD). On top of those extra costs, the cost of the actual execution is estimated to be about $ 133,000 (CAD). This includes fees such as the wages of staff, and transportation of the inmate, etc. Overall, although it may seem that a lifetime in prison would cost more than seeking and executing the death penalty when all the charges are added together, capital punishment is the more expensive, yet unnecessary option.

Another reason that capital punishment is not a good fit for modern society, is that there are many possible errors to be made during the process of the death penalty that increase the difficulty of the situation for everyone. One main fear of establishing capital punishment is the chance of false accusations, which can either result in exoneration or an incorrect execution. 164 people in the United States have been exonerated since 1973, meaning they were incorrectly sentenced to death. Some of the reasons for all these wrongful convictions include; false accusations, false or misleading forensic evidence, inadequate legal defense, false or fabricated confession, and mistaken eyewitnesses. These are risky factors to allow the conviction of a person’s life for a crime that in the end they didn’t commit.

On top of wrongful convictions, another error that occurs during the death penalty process is the actual execution of the inmate. In the United States 10 executions, that have already happened, have had their cases changed to be referred to as “executed but possibly innocent” along with at least 39 more executions that have evidence of innocence. When an execution inevitably goes wrong during the process of executing the inmate, this is referred to as a botched execution. Between 1890 and 2010 in the United States, 3% of all executions were botched, increasing to 5.4% for lethal gas executions, and to 7.1% for lethal injection executions. One of many botched executions is Doyle Lee Hamm who was exposed to two and a half hours of needles being poked repeatedly into his legs, feet, and groin in an attempt to find a vein for a lethal injection. It was called off, but by the end of the procedure, he had 11 puncture wounds, serious bleeding, extreme pain, bruising, and a swollen blood clot. This is just one of many cases where inmates already sentenced to death, experience excess and unnecessary pain, showing that if life sentences were used in place of the death penalty, this would not occur. These cases of capital punishment going wrong demonstrate that life sentences better suit society today than the death penalty does.

Lastly, capital punishment has no deterring factors, nor does it stop others from committing similar crimes, compared to its counterpart of life sentences. In a study at the University of Colorado, Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock found that many criminologists don’t believe that the death penalty is effective in deterring crime. Only 12% of criminologists believe that the death penalty deters crime, meaning 88% of criminologists in the United States don’t believe the death penalty effectively stops crimes. It seems that if the death penalty doesn’t deter crimes, many arguments pro-death penalty are proven wrong. If there are no increased deterring factors to capital punishment then what value does it hold over life sentences? On top of the professional opinions, there have been polls taken of the United States public. In 2006, the poll found that only 34% of the public believed capital punishment lowers crime rate by deterring people from committing crimes. Both professional and public opinion align to show that the vast majority of people don’t believe that the death penalty is a productive deterrent in eliminating crime. As capital punishment doesn’t display increased deterring factors, it proves that there are better punishment options for modern society rather than resorting to the death penalty.

To conclude, there is no place for the death penalty in modern society, as it has proven itself to be an outdated, ineffective punishment for crimes. Firstly, capital punishment comes along with monetary costs for the government and taxpayers, far greater than the equivalent of life sentences. Also, there are many possibilities for errors to be made during the death penalty process, making it a worse fit for modern society than life sentences. Finally, there is no increase in deterrence over other alternative punishments for crimes, making it ineffective and unnecessary. Modern society needs a more effective punishment solution rather than resorting to death sentences that are proven to have no benefits over alternative jail sentences. Therefore, taking a life as punishment for a crime has proven to be ineffective, as it has no justifying results that support it over other punishment methods.

Capital punishment is a conclusive or ultimate discipline. There is no harsher discipline than death itself. Our country, the US of America, is one of the fifty-eight countries that training capital punishment. As of now the US will just utilize capital punishment, on the off chance that one submits first-degree murder. People that have confidence in capital punishment accept that death penalty will demoralize killers. In this paper, I will be contending that capital punishment doesn’t discourage lawbreakers and that the US should prohibit the training. The possibility of the death penalty was brought over from England, when the establishing fathers announced freedom. Our predecessors adored the possibility of capital punishment, since it was a typical piece of life. Europeans gave capital punishment for different violations. The principal recorded execution in America happened in Jamestown, 1608. A man named George Kendall was executed for conspiracy. In the prior pioneer days, laws with respect to the death penalty fluctuated territory to region.

During the nineteen century, capital punishment changed significantly. Around this time capital punishment began to lose its limitations. Expresses never again dedicated open executions. All executions were done in private. Pennsylvania was the main state to receive this pattern. In the end a few states canceled capital punishment all together. In current occasions, fourteen out of fifty expresses never again complete capital punishment. These states are Gold country, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,Wisconsin, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and North Dakota. Also, a progression of cases with respect to capital punishment went to the Preeminent Court. Many attempted to contend that capital punishment damaged the eighth changes and that death penalty is merciful and uncommon. In 1972, Furman v. Georgia effectively carried a transitory end to capital punishment for a long time. In the long run capital punishment was reestablished with the execution of Gary Gillmore on January 17, 1977. Starting today, the regardless us rehearses the death penalty. Anyway there are constraints. For instance, the legislature can’t execute the intellectually handicap and should execute juveniles. The US right now has six different ways to execute, deadly infusion, electric shock, deadly gas, a terminating squad and hanging. Strategies will differ state by state. Despite the fact that the regardless us rehearses capital punishment, executions are declining, contrast with the past, as per insights.

Those that are for capital punishment guarantees that capital punishment will fill in as a discouragement and is the main route for requital against killers. The two issues are exceptionally begging to be proven wrong and have been a subject of analysis. Discipline as a prevention has been an objective for a very long time. This idea works, however it ought not be applied to all hoodlums, as I would like to think. Professional the death penalty people asserts that it is a productive prevention against lawbreakers. In the article ‘Capital punishment is a discouragement’, the writers guarantees that by rehearsing capital punishment, savage violations will diminish. ‘brutal wrongdoing has declined 11 percent, with murder indicating the biggest decay at significantly in excess of 22 percent. We accept this has happened to a limited extent due to the solid sign that capital punishment sent to vicious lawbreakers and killer. These insights taken from this article might be mistaken and ought to be firmly analyzed.

Requital has additionally been an objective for discipline. Coherently in the event that an executioner is executed, at that point there would be no more killings. American culture appears to support revenge. Tit for tat has been a law for a very long time. In a professional capital punishment article, the writer accepts that, ‘When somebody ends a real existence, the parity of equity is upset. Except if that equalization is reestablished, society surrenders to a standard of viciousness. Just the taking of the killer’s life reestablishes the equalization and enables society to show convincingly that murder is an unbearable wrongdoing which will be rebuffed in kind.’ This philosophy has numerous blemishes, for the most part with ethical quality issues.

The two articles’ neglect to introduce any strong proof that supports their proposal. ‘Capital punishment is a prevention’ had measurable data, yet neglect to show how the data was gotten. Contingent upon the scientist’s data gathering strategies, the measurable data could have been unique. For instance ‘In an article in the Ohio State Diary of Criminal Law, Dr. Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia College depicts various genuine mistakes in late discouragement contemplates, including inappropriate factual examinations and missing information and factors that are important to give a full image of the criminal equity framework. Fagan states, ‘There is no solid, deductively stable proof that [shows that executions] can apply an obstruction effectâ. These blemishes and oversights in an assortment of logical proof gives it questionable as a reason for law or arrangement that produce life-and-demise choices.’ There should be strong proof so as to demonstrate a theory. The individuals who guarantee that capital punishment is a productive discouragement neglect to submit convincing proof, accordingly as a pundit, we ought to reject the case that capital punishment fills in as prevention.

Moreover, numerous examinations appear to negate the hypothesis that capital punishment is a decent discouragement against fierce violations and murders. As per Capital punishment Data Center, states without capital punishment have had lower murder rates. In their seventeen-year old investigation, states without capital punishment indicated a 40% abatement in murder rates. With respect to the article ‘Capital punishment is a prevention’, New York has now canceled capital punishment and their homicide rate has gone down essentially contrasted with when the state was all the while rehearsing the death penalty. Indeed, in the main year that New York abrogated capital punishment they saw a four percent decline in their homicide rates.

The motivation behind why capital punishment doesn’t fill in as prevention is that wrongdoers don’t accept they will be gotten. Coherently, nobody would submit a homicide, on the off chance that one knew he/she was to be executed. Discouragement is a mental procedure. Consequently, if a wrongdoer doesn’t accept that a genuine hazard is available, there will be no discouragement. Capital punishment as reprisal never comes out well in our present society. By executing a guilty party, our administration, is sending subliminal messages with respect to kill. The purpose of the death penalty is on the grounds that the US government needs to express that slaughtering is an unfortunate wrongdoing. By slaughtering, a guilty party the administration is negating itself. Moreover, capital punishment can be viewed as retribution. We are basically taking tit for tat. Two wrongs won’t make a right. Executing a killer won’t bring back the killed. In the 21th century our lawbreakers laws should now mirror a better quality that tit for tat.

In current occasions, capital punishment can never again be guaranteed as a proficient type of reprisal. There are gigantic postponements in doing the executions of a detainee. Insights show that there is over an eight-year hold up before an execution can happen. Truth be told, most death row detainees kick the bucket of mature age, before their execution sentence. California’s death row is an extraordinary model. Since 1976, just thirteen prisoners have been executed. At present there are around 700 detainees in California’s death row. In the event that the pattern proceeds, that would mean the vast majority of the detainees would kick the bucket of normal causes before their execution sentence can be done. Those that guarantee capital punishment as reprisal neglect to pay heed to the execution procedure in our criminal equity framework. Legitimately a detainee is permitted to advance his/her case. A normal intrigue can assume control more than ten years. There are basically insufficient judges to reaction to all case surveys. For instance, the US Incomparable court gets a large number of case audits yearly, but since there are just nine judges in the Preeminent Court, just a bunch of cases are explored. Thus, capital punishment can’t be guarantee as a proficient type of revenge.

Since capital punishment is never again an influenced discipline, I purposed that we annul the training in the US. Since America’s commencement, many have attempted to annul capital punishment.The most current issue with respect to the abolishment of capital punishment was Baze v. Rees. Baze V. Rees, was an assault on the procedure of execution, explicitly deadly infusions. Baze contends that deadly infusions is a type of coldblooded and strange discipline and conflicted with the constitution. That discussion eventually fizzled, since the judges decided for capital punishment. ‘The preliminary court held broad hearings and entered point by point Discoveries of Truth and Finishes of Law. It perceived that ‘there are no strategies for legitimate execution that are good to the individuals who restrict capital punishment on good, strict, or cultural grounds, however reasoned that the technique’ consents to the sacred prerequisites against merciless and strange discipline’. Baze V. Rees was a decent endeavor in attempting to nullify capital punishment, in any case was ineffective on the grounds that they were assaulting the procedure not the issue. What’s more, Baze neglect to show any strong proof that deadly infusions may cause torment.

The debate over capital punishment argues, does the state have the right to pick and choose the people that carry out who get carry out execution for, how do they justify a crime too heinous to prove that the offender needs to be put to death. One side of the argument states that the government does have the right to step in an make the decision based on their beliefs on which criminals are too dangerous and are deserving of the full extent of the law. Whereas the other side stands up and states that the government should not be given the power to decide who lives and who dies based purely from their beliefs and the crimes that were committed. How can someone else’s life be put in the hands of someone that simply just has more power or a higher ranked job? This allows the government to decide which offenses are justifiable to be put to death for. There are so many questions facing either side. What offenses must be committed to be put to death? Under which circumstances would it be okay to not apply the death penalty?

Capital Punishment in other words is the death penalty. This means that an offender is sentenced to be put to death after conviction by a court of law. The death penalty is still legal in 30 of the United States to this day. Even though imposition of the death penalty is not always followed by execution, because there is a possibility of life imprisonment for such convicted crime. The death penalty has been around a for many years, even when Draco and Plato were alive in ancient Greece many people were put to death for crimes such as; murder, treason, arson, and rape. Many people were strong believers back in the seventh century all over the world, strictly because they would followers/worshipers of Judaism and Christianity which claimed to find justification for capital punishment in the Bible passage, “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” (Genesis 9:6) They stood behind this even thought they could be put to death for crimes that blood never resulted in shed blood such as adultery, voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person that is not their spouse, and blasphemy, the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things. Many stood behind the statement from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, “an eye of an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.” There were several places during this time that would rather banish you or make you pay in compensation for your committed crimes. For example, Japan’s peaceful Heian period (794-1185) replaced every death sentence with deportation to a remote area but executions were reinstated once the civil war broke out mid 11th century. In England during the 17th and 18th centuries the death penalty was never enforced as heavily as the law provided because many of the convicted agreed to banishment or were sentenced to the lesser punishment of being transported to American colonies then later to Australia. During the medieval times the only way you could get out of being put to death is if you were literate. In the 15th and 18th centuries this was the only way out of execution. All they were forced to know how to read was the first verse of Psalm 51 of the Bible, “Have mercy on me, o God according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” This was soon called the “neck verse” because it had the power to safe one’s neck. At this point it allowed offenders to only escape death once, they were branded on the brawn of their thumb, M for murder or T or theft. In 1779 branding was abolished. In other places like Rome capital punishment were taken to many different extremes like being thrown into the oceans and drown in a sealed bag with a dog, rooster, ape, or snake along with you. They also stuck to some more normal way of execution like hanging or crucifixion. While as in China there were many much more painful ways to kill their convicted like sawing the condemned in half of boiling them alive. Eventually by the end of the 20th century the people realized just how unethical this all was, so they implemented lethal injection, electric chair, gassing, and a firing squad.

Captial punishment has been debated for many years both on its morality and its effect of criminal behavior. Arguments for and against fall under three headings: moral, utilitarian, and practical.

Moral arguments would state that supporters of the death penalty believe that those are willing to commit murder have forfeited their own right to live. They believe that killing of the one who murdered not only provides the victim’s family closure, but it also gives strict punishment where strict punishment is due. By contrast, the opposing side believes that killing the ones that do the killing is very counterproductive because of the message that it conveys that because the government is of higher power it is okay to kill the ones that have taken other people’s lives simply because they deem it fit. The opposing side also argue at the fact that capital punishment is also put into place for lesser crimes rather than just murder so they see it as cruel and immoral punishment because no life was taken during the committed crime. They also claim that capital punishment violates the convicted person’s rights to live and it is inhuman. Supporters of capital punishment also state that being executed could potentially deter violent offended to commit such heinous crimes with the fear of being put to death because simply supported do not believe that imprisonment is not a sufficient consequence. Whereas the opposing side could not disagree more, they strongly believe that long-term imprisonment is more effective than the alternative of putting them to death. There are other disputes about where or not capital punishment can be administered in a consistent manner to where if the circumstances were different would they still execute. For example, if someone just woke up one day and decided to go out and kill every female in a ten-mile radius with blonde hair and blue eyes then of course they would be charged to the limit of the law but when the circumstances change to a father murdering his daughters rapist then would the law still be implemented that if your murder then you will be put to death? Those who support the idea of the death penalty believe that is possible to establish laws and procedures that promise only those who truly deserve to be put to death are executed. Opponents provide historical evidence that trying to single out a specific crime that is deserving of death will be discriminatory. They will also point out how often people are wrongfully convicted of crimes that they did not commit so then they would be turn be killing innocent people because errors are inevitable even in a well-run criminal justice system. Along with being wrongfully convicted some people must face the appeal process which forced them to sit and wait for sometimes long periods of time to determine their fate.

Despite the movement to try to get rid of capital punishment more than 30 countries have stretched the list of crimes punishable by the death penalty like importation or being in possession for sale of certain drugs. Countries such as Iran, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines implement a mandatory death sentence for even small amounts of illegal drugs. In some other 20 countries they enforce the death penalty for various crimes such as bribery, embezzlement, or theft of large sums of money. In another two dozen countries sexual crimes are also punishable by death. In only a few countries does the law allow minors to be killed at the time they committed the murder because they are protected by the Convention of the Right of the Child right which prohibits the killing of anyone under the age of 18 no matter the crime. This means that at any age under 18 a child can commit a heinous crime and will not be prosecuted until they turn of age. Another aspect that was brought to attention in the late 1990’s was do mentally impaired suspects get away with it because of their mental status? This being newly brought up in 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of both mentally impaired and those under the age of 18 was unconstitutional. This brought up the controversy in how does one claim that they are mentally impaired, so laws were implemented stating that someone with an IQ score below 70 were technically mentally impaired. Also, in the late 1990’s there was a big improvement in technology which allowed further lab tests to be taken which in turn proved many suspect innocents that were once placed on death row for murder or equally as heinous crimes which allowed for releasement.

Why is it that we believe that only by taking away a life we can pay for another life? Executing lawbreakers to simply dissuade others from mirroring their behaviour is just a cruel application of this utilitarian logic. The same logic can be thought of to justify killing one healthy person and harvesting their organs to save five sick people. Although it may maximise wellbeing in general but still is an abuse of human rights. The fundamental right of an individual not to be harmed must be kept in mind while trying to maintain a balance in society.

Why is capital punishment wrong at its very core? Every constitution states that every being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity including the government. No one can encroach this right, regardless of the individual’s deeds. Not to forget that such a type of penalty also inherently has the risk of executing innocents. Since the year 1973, approximately 165 people who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the United States have been exonerated. Basically for every nine condemned men or women executed, one condemned person has been found innocent and released.

The question arises does capital punishment even act as a deterrent for criminals? Reports released by Death Penalty Information Center based in the U.S claims consistent with previous years, the 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that the South had the highest murder rate. The South accounts for over 80% of all executions. The Northeast was found to have the lowest murder rate which has been recorded to have less than 1% of all executions. The report also states that according to a survey of the former and present presidents of the country’s top academic criminological societies, about 88% of these experts dismissed the presumption that the death penalty can act as a deterrent to murder.

There have also been cases where instead of being a deterrent, Capital punishment has caused murder. In a medical paper, Dr. Louis West speaks about what he calls ‘attempting suicide by homicide.’ In a few cases a person actually kills in order to court death by execution. Here is one of them: Recently an Oklahoma truck driver had parked to have lunch in a Texas roadside cafe. An complete stranger- a rancher from close by – strolled through the entryway and blew him in half using a shotgun. When the police at last disarmed this man and inquired as to why he had done it, he answered, ‘I was simply tired of living.’

Others have also documented examples of killing to invite execution; for example, Clinton Duffy, the former warden of San Quentin prison, describes several cases in his 1963 book 88 Men and 2 Women. In these instances the death penalty was a cause of homicide rather than a preventive. Scotty Morrow, a black man from Georgia, indisputably committed a brutal murder in 1994. A fight with his ex-girlfriend, Barbara Ann Young, lead him to shoot her in the head while her five year old son watched.

Morrow also shot dead another woman in the house, Tonya Woods, and has shot a third woman, LaToya Horne, in the face. Horne was able to stagger down the road before collapsing. She suffered permanent injuries. Not surprisingly, Morrow was sentenced to die — but let me throw in a bit of complexity.

Morrow grew up in a violent home where he was raped and beaten as a child, and he never received mental health support to deal with his trauma; that justifies nothing but may help explain something. He desperately wanted to reconcile with Young, and when told that she had been exploiting him for money while she waited for her “real man” to return from prison, he “just snapped,” as he put it. After the murders, he prepared to commit suicide but was arrested; he then prayed daily for 25 years for the families of the women he had killed.

If executions protected innocent lives through deterrence, that would weigh in the balance against capital punishment’s heavy social costs. But despite years of trying, this benefit has not been shown to exist; the only proven effects of capital punishment are its liabilities. The expansion of the death penalty in New Hampshire would be a practical and a moral step backwards.

It is said that death is certain, its hour is uncertain, but when capital punishment is in place, a prisoner on death row’s hour is known. Could you knowingly assist in another human’s death? As nurses, we are trained to save lives, not take them. Currently, according to the website belonging to World Population Review, we have thirty states in America that actively use capital punishment. Of these states, lethal injection is the current method of death. Lethal injection cannot be carried out properly without the assistance of a medical professional such as a nurse, doctor or anesthesiologist. This brings about the question of where these medical professionals stand morally and ethically. (2016- http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/lethal-injection October 2016)

The code of ethics of the International Council of Nursing states that “nurses promote health to prevent illness, to restore health and alleviate suffering.” (International Council for Nurses, Code of Ethics for Nurses. Geneva: ICN.http: //www.icn.ch/images /stories/documents/ about/icncode_ english.pdf 2012, accessed October 2016) Since 1983, the American Nurses Association has publicly opposed nurses assisting in the death of inmates associated with the death penalty. But in February 2017, the association took their stance even further and for the first time they stated they completely oppose all aspects of capital punishment. (Press Release- “ANA Releases New Position Statement Opposing Capital Punishment” February 21, 2017, American Nurses Association)

Other medical organizations, including the International Council of Nurses and the American Medical Association, also oppose any of their members from participating in executions, especially by lethal injection. This includes giving injections, starting intravenous medications, assessing patients or even just witnessing the act. This creates serious ethical questions for nurses and other medical professionals surrounding the death penalty. As stated in the journal article, “Nurse Participation in Legal Executions: An Ethics Round-table Discussion” (Sage Publications, Nursing Ethics Journal, Volume 25, Issue 7, November 1, 2018) the current situation is unique for nurses.

Lethal injection has been in practice only since 1982. Prior means of capital punishment such as hanging, firing squad and electrocution, didn’t require expert medical care. No nurses needed to assist and usually doctors were only there to verify the death. Despite the concerns and statements put out by the various medical organizations, there are medical experts that do participate in capital punishment. One of the arguments for participation is that if a technician performs the duties needed then the procedure could be done wrong leading to a possible detrimental scenario of suffering for the prisoner. Another argument is that lethal injection is not a medical procedure therefore; when they assist they are not committing anything ethically or morally wrong. Others disagree with both arguments and say that any means of participating is unethical.

What is ethics as related to nursing? According to Nursing Ethics by Janie B. Butts and Karen L. Rich (Nursing Ethics Fifth Edition, Across the Curriculum and Into Practice, Copyright 2020 by Jones and Bartlett Learning) ethics is a systematic approach to understanding, analyzing and distinguishing matters of right and wrong, good and bad, and admirable and dishonorable as they relate to the well-being of and the relationships among sentient beings. Today, even relationships between people and their environment have entered the realm of ethics. Ethical determinations are applied through the use of theories, approaches, and codes of conduct, such as codes for professions and religions.

There are many ethical and moral issues that nurses must consider with the topic of capital punishment. First, a nurse must consider whether they believe the death penalty is a violation of prisoners’ rights. Does it violate the constitution? If a nurse opposes it, they may find the death, often by lethal injection, inhumane. Nurses may at that point decide they do not want to assist in any way. If opposition is their standpoint, they may also look at assisting in a different, more ethical or accepting way. The nurse could feel as if they are being there for the prisoner in their darkest hour. They want to ensure he or she doesn’t endure any undue pain or suffering. If they do not provide this care at the end of their life, who will? In some cases, untrained persons could be performing the procedures that are normally performed by trained medical professionals and the patient may suffer prior to dying. In the book Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty by Austin Sarat (Stanford, CA: Stanford Law Books, 2014. Pp. i, 273), it states that three percent of executions from 1890-2010 were “botched”. Botched means that the expected outcome is not achieved. In the event of a botched lethal injection, the patient does not die immediately or does not die at all. Either way, the inmate may suffer inhumane consequences. This can be attributed to different reasons, one such could be not having the right combination of medications. A nurse often provides comfort to dying patients and would have the opportunity to make sure the prisoner doesn’t die scared and alone. A nurse brings a sense of compassion to what otherwise could be a cold process.

I conducted my own interview with a former emergency room nurse that is currently employed as a nurse at a local Ohio correctional facility. He has worked in this facility for four years and wished to remain anonymous. The first question I posed was if he supported capital punishment or not to which he replied he did. I then asked if he would ever agree to be the nurse assisting at a lethal injection if called upon in his job. After a moment or two of silence he replied, “yes.” I could tell he somewhat struggled on his answer. He explained to me that even though the nursing ‘code’ says he should never willingly participate in ending a life, he would assist for a couple of reasons. He said, “First, the courts have determined the prisoner should die, not me. By assisting, I have the opportunity to make sure he dies with as much dignity as possible, someone else may not.” He also added, “I know some of the background of my patients. Some of them have committed horrendous crimes against innocent victims. I believe in the justice system that put them there, on death row. A jury found them guilty and they are there for a reason.” Finally, I asked him if he assisted would he feel he morally or ethically let anyone down. He replied, “I understand people wrestle with the moral and ethical issues of capital punishment, but I don’t feel that by assisting in a lethal injection I would be giving my profession a black eye and I don’t feel I would be doing anything wrong, anything that I would need forgiven for.” (Interview with John Doe, March 17, 2020)

The dilemma of a nurse assisting in ending the life of a death row inmate will continue as long as states still mandate capital punishment, in particular, by lethal injection. A nurse’s personal beliefs versus what they have been taught will always come into play. These prisoners are going to die, it’s court ordered, it’s up to us, as nurses, as human beings, to decide if assisting in their death goes against everything we have learned or not. It has been embedded in us that we are only to save lives not end them. Some argue that if nurses and other professionals refuse to participate in capital punishment that the system will be forced to do away with it. Whether or not that is true, it still causes a huge dilemma because the practice is legal and it exists and inmates are put to death every year.

So, is it ethical or not? Should we participate or not? I personally can see the arguments on both sides. I wouldn’t want to abandon the prisoner that I have cared for when he or she is most vulnerable and needs me the most. I don’t know if I could assist or not, and I hope I am never faced with having to make that decision.