“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Capital punishment is also known as death penalty. It is act of taking away someone’s live because of a criminal act he had attempted. Some people argue that capital punishment should be banned completely, for people have the right to live their lives despite of their acts.Capital punishment goes back to ancient Greece, where criminals who have committed crimes related to rape and murder were sentenced to death. Usually , criminals who have resulted in one person’s death are executed;however, some of them were executed due to adultery. According to Islamic law, death penalty can occur only if the parents of the victim decided on that;otherwise, the convicted person has to pay compensation. In England, death was widely dominant for criminals during the 17th and 18th century. Historically, the execution acts were public events , large crowds used to attend. During 1900’s public executions were banned in England but remained present in the United States. In the 20th century, a debate arose of whether to allow executions of being displayed on televisions. During the 1990’s public executions took place in Nigeria, Iran and Saudi Arabia though it was banned by the United Nations Human Right Committee under the title of “incompatible with human dignity”. Last but not least, death penalties weren’t directly imposed upon the judicial sentence directly , it usually took like 15 years after the sentence itself , where prisoners used to suffer waiting for their death penalty.
When it comes to death penalty , arguments had completely varied and were so diverse. Some were with and some were against. Moreover, opponents or advocates used to support or fight for based on morals, utilitarian and practical aspects. To begin with, Utilitarian arguments consist of two sections. The first one goes for the opponents who believe that imprisonment for life is much more worse and can lead to dramatic effects for the prisoner and it can basically devastates his life. Nevertheless, he adds that sentencing someone to death will make him suffer less, for he will be aware of the fact that he/she is going to die;whereas, imprisonment will make him/her wish for death each single day because they are locked up in a dungeon away from the real world , distracted the whole time with the absence of guides and the absence of people to talk to and there is no way out whatsoever. On the other hand, supporters claim that execution has a harsh effect on the prisoner that will make everyone who thinks of committing a crime threatened and scared.
Furthermore, there exist practical arguments whereby it’s identified as trying to modify capital punishment in a way that complies with justice. Around this subject, perspectives are so diverse and different. In other words, there are many opponents who are completely against death penalty; whereas, there are others who are mostly for execution. Precisely, advocates of capital punishment claim that issuing a certain law or basically “fashioning” laws that say it’s possible only to execute the ones who truly deserve death. In this way , they believe that it wouldn’t be causing so much harm , since not each criminal is killed. Nevertheless, opponents refer to what is mentioned above as discriminatory , or some kinds of crimes that truly deserve death. Furthermore, supporters highlight another factors such as families that are poor or religious minorities will most likely be deprived from any access to legal assistance , they wouldn’t be able to assign or contact any lawyer to guide them or help them out;hence, the ciriminal is most likely to end up sentenced to death.As a case in point, in the United States, prejudice that are racial usually trigger juries to convict the Black; thus, some might be executed for crimes they haven’t committed.
Moving on with moral arguments, perspectives have varied as well. Supporters of capital punishment claim that the ones who have committed murder, had given in their own right to life. In addition, they believe that death penalty is a kind of reinforcing the moral aspect of life, whereby no one is allowed to take away someone’s life. By contrast, non-supporters oppose that capital punishment violates the person’s right to life and is eternally inhumane and devastating.
Time had passed by until the day came for the abolish movement to see the light. It was back then in the latter part of the 18th century under the influence of the European enlighetement. The first aim the movement was heading at is putting a limit to the capital punishment. However, uptil that movement , a very wide range of crimes including theft and another kind of offenses were sentenced to death. Actually, this movement had come to success at a certain point. In fact, in 1794, the U.S. state of Pennysylvania was the first to limit the capital punishment to murders of first-degree. In 1846, the state of Michigan banned death penalty for all crimes. Moreover, in 1863, Venezuela had become the first country to abolish execution even for all offenses against the state. In 1867, Portugal was privilege of being the first European country to stop death penalty. Doing so, by the mid of the 20th century, other countries including Norway, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden had banned death penalty. By the mid 1960s , another 25 countries had abolished the execution even for murder. As an illustration, Britain stopped capital punishment for murder in 1965, but kept it leagalized for military violations until 1998. Indeed, the countries that had banned death penalty are now more than half of the countries of the world. If we happen to cone to a certain analysis for the significant increase in the number of abolitionists , we can conclude that the whole abolish movement with all it is factors and consequences was successful. More specifically , it succeeded in moving the capital punishment and lacing it in the frame of a human rights crisis. In 1971, the United Nation General Assembly passed a resolution that : “ in order to fully guarantee the right to life , provided for in…the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,. In the 1990s , many African countries banned capital punishment completely.
To move on with capital punishment in the early 21st century. Although the abolish towards movement was so successful for a certain point , some countries like Iran , Singapore and Malaysia and the Philippines actually inforce an obligatory execution to those who are involved in drug trading and drug abuse. As a case in point, Singapore has the highest rate of execution toan extent that three-fourths of the persons were executed in 2000 because of the fact that they used to own a little amount of drug. Another 20 countries used death penalty as a sort of punishment to those who commit economic crimes such as bribery , corruption of public officials and theft of large amounts of money. In China, sexual offenses will also lead to death penalty for the ones who commit them.
Actually , many case studies are going to be displayed in order to show how drastic and harmful can capital punishment be. In Nigeria, Solomon , a 14 year old boy was arrested because he was convicted in a murder committed in November 2001. He was sentenced to prison ; however, the prisoner staff never knew what to do to him , for no one knows what he has done before . This guy had no lawyer and his parents didn’t know he was in prison , so everyone thought he was dead. Afterwards, he was sentenced to death and after 15 years of his death , he was proven innocent after they have done DNA tests for the fingerprints. Anther case would be for Carlos Deluna who had been arrested in 1983 and executed in 1989. The time had passed by until the year 2006 came and a new breaking evidence was revealed. Carlos was executed for killing a store manager Wanda Lopez in 1983. However, The reporters Maurice Possley and Stee Mills had doubt in the fact that Carlos is actually guilty so they uncovered an unknown evidence and points the wole suspection into another man Carlos Hernandez , who had a record of similar crimes and repeatedly confessed to be the murder. Later on, another investigation was done in 2004 and it showed that the execution was done on an innocent man.
Moreover, what was mentioned above shows that some people are being taken away their lives when they are innocent. In fact , death penalty leads to much more harmful effects. To begin with ,supporters claim that the act of sentencing someone to death will most likely threaten another people of committing crimes; however, the captal punishment has not been shown to be effective in the reduction of crimes rate. Some researches show that executions actually result in a higher rate of crimes. Socially , capital punishment is lowering and underestimating the value of human soul and life as seen by the general population. In addition, it makes the society that of a brutalimage and aspect. Meanwhile, opponents of execution ensure that there are chance of errors taking place and thus convicting someone who is innocent in the first place. In fact , juries who execute innocent people often ask for their pardon ;nevertheless, it is impossible to pardon a corps. On this side, a study was done by the Stanford Law Review that shows that at least 350 people between 1900 and 1985 in America are actually innocent of the crime that they have been conviced for and might have been sentenced to death. The study also adds that 139 actually were sentenced to death. Concerning the effects of death penalty, the family of the prisoner is victimized and punished just by the fact that one of their family members is executed by the state, yet the family is innocent. Moreover, some of the jury are afraid of convicting someone who might be innocent , so they end up freeing killers that are never punished. Last but not least , executing a murdered doesn’t bring a victim back to life. It results in nothing but the death of someone else.
To wrap up , death was prescribes for crimes in many sacred religious and historical documents. It was practiced widely all over the world until a certain period. Nowadays , there is no clear stand for death penalty for there are some people who are with and some people who are completely against. Sometimes it is so unfair, inhumane and injustice to kill someone and someone it is his own will that drags to be executed. Apaprently then, capital punishment is not even to everybody.
References:
www.britannica.com/topic/capital-punishment
www.religioustolerance.org/executb.htm
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executed-possibly-innocent