Paste your essay in here…For many years, the subject of capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been a very controversial debate. The use of this penalty has been around for thousands of centuries as a way to put away criminals for good, as well as scaring would-be murderers. Although many people, especially in the United States, may argue that the death penalty is morally wrong, it truly is a morally correct punishment for homicide. It has always been said that the punishment must fit the crime, therefore it would be morally incorrect to not due so to someone that has taken a life for pleasure. However, the death penalty should not be used on someone just because they killed. The oxford dictionary defines killing as “an act of causing death”. A person can kill another as self-defense, and that can be defended and rationalized. On the contrary, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, murder is defined as “the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought”. Killing and murdering are not synonyms. This penalty was made to bring justice and to honor the dignity of the innocent lives a murderer may have taken.
As already mentioned, capital punishment has been around since the beginning of civilization and has been used by almost every culture that has ever existed on Earth. The first death penalty laws go back to the 18th century B.C, with the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon authorizing it with 25 different crimes. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the first recorded legal execution “was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608 for being a spy for Spain,” (Part I). Short after that, the governor of the state of Virginia passed the “Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws”, which indicated that death penalty for minor felonies like commerce, theft, and treason was legal. Since 1972, there has been a back and forth ruling from the government of the U.S in deciding if capital punishment is unconstitutional at its full potential, or if it should be accepted. Out of the 50 states, 19 have abolished the death penalty, leaving 31 states, including the government and military, with the penalty being legal only for murderers. In an article called ‘Death Penalty Fast Facts’, written for CNN, we see that 1,458 people have been given the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1976 and as of July 28, 2017 there have been 16 executions made in 2017 by 7 different states (CNN Library).
I have heard many people claim that accepting the death penalty is similar to saying that man is God, because we are taking someone’s destiny into our hands, therefore removing it from God’s. In the first book of the New Testament, Matthews, there’s a saying located in chapter 5 verse number 38th that goes “you have heard that it has been said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth’.” This means that a person should get a sentence that’s as brutal and vicious as the crime he has committed. Abolitionists, which are the people that are fighting to abolish capital punishment in the US, argue that this is not going to bring back the dead or calm the agony that their loved ones have to live with. They also dispute if we follow this ‘eye for an eye’ justice in terms of capital punishment, then we should also molest rapists, set arsonists on fire, and beat barbarians. While this isn’t the case, it is morally right to kill a murderer because executing them will put an end to their evil and prevent it from harming more innocent lives, whereas molesting a rapist will not do anything to hinder them from sexually assaulting someone again. I remember one time seeing a bumper sticker that read “We kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong”. We may think there’s a certain irony regarding this discipline that we have had for many years, but there’s not. The death penalty is a way of executing people that murder others not only to prove that assassinating someone is wrong, but also to stop these individuals from spreading their evil. If a criminal keeps making these atrocious crimes, why should he be allowed to keep on living? He would get life in prison either way, so why should we spend thousands of dollars every year to keep him in a cell and always keeping security on him, with the chance that he may escape?
In her blog post ‘The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?’, Casey Carmical gives a moral angle that I had never thought of before. She points out that “morally, it is wrong to simply incarcerate someone for murder,” (Carmical). Now one may see this and they would think that this woman is crazy and ignorant. However, she makes a very valid argument that would make anyone do a double-take. Aside from pointing out the obvious that these criminals get to have AC, time for personal entertainment, 3 meals a day, as well as regular visits from their loved ones, she brings up how being incarcerated and losing your right to be free does not even begin to make up for the loss of an innocent life. Carmical gives an example of a murderer who takes a teenagers life and how the parents of that child “will be among the taxpayers that pay for his meals and cable television”, as well as indirectly paying for the murderer’s college courses that prisons offer, should he/she choose to do so. Her best argument is that “if the punishment for theft is imprisonment, then the punishment for murder must be exponentially more severe, because human life is infinitely more valuable than any material item.” She makes great claims which are not wrong. Why should murderers get the same punishment as thieves and drug addicts when they took an innocent life? It is unfair, and as Casey Carmical mentions, “nothing could be further from justice”.
Retributivism is a criminal justice theory that supports the punishment of offenders in retaliation for the wrong they have caused, according to dictionary.com. Death penalty is the idea that someone who is guilty of manslaughter merits to be put to death, and it falls under this theory, which is best expressed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s discipline. Kant was a deontologist, which means he looked at the moral reasons of the act itself, rather than the outcome of it (Seven Pillars). Deontology comes into play in the capital punishment debate because it is morally right to do so, without taking into consideration if society or the victim’s loved ones gain anything out of it. This theory goes hand in hand with retributivism and we see it when Kant talks about the “principle of equality” while discussing punishment in his chapter Justice and Punishment, found in the book ‘Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment” (Ezorsky). He states that if one follows this principle then “the pointer of the scale of justice is made to incline no more to the one side than the other” (Ezorsky 104), which means that if someone inflected pain and suffering on another human being, they have unbalanced the scale of justice and in order to rebalance it, we must administer the same kind of suffering he merits because, as Kant says, the deed that said person has carried out “is to be regarded as perpetrated on himself,” (Ezorsky 104).
Kant’s belief that the perpetrator must be punished in an extent that is equal to the damage caused by the crime is applied to murderers because the only morally acceptable punishment for manslaughter is at the expense of the murderer’s life. Immanuel Kant states this in his book ‘Metaphysical Elements of Justice: Part I of The Metaphysics of Morals, Part 1′, where he says “If, however, he has committed a murder, he must die. In this case, there is no substitute that will satisfy the requirements of legal justice. There is no sameness of kind between death and remaining alive under the most miserable conditions, and consequently there is also no equality between the crime and the retribution unless the criminal is judicially put to death,” (Kant 139). This retributive justice is intended to be an action done by society to in order to rectify a wrong done by an offender against its peers, but it not meant to act as vengeance for the victim. We seek out this justice in an effort to prevent further harm against society as whole, whereas if it were revenge it would be done to amend an evil act done by one man against another individual.
Many abolitionists argument against capital punishment is that it is “a means of revenge”, which could not be farther from the truth. If this were a matter of revenge, the victim’s family would go out and kill a murderer’s loved one as a way to avenge their late one’s death. However, this is not the case. The death penalty is executed as a way to bring justice, not only to the family of the victims but to our society. When we really think about it and analyze it, the murderer that faces death row is actually taking the easy way out. In the United States, there are 5 legal ways used for the execution of a person which include the lethal injection, done by first giving anesthesia to the criminal to sedate him and once that is done he is giving a paralytic, followed by a lethal drug that causes the heart to fail; the electric chair, where the murderers get a series of electricity jolts with different amount of voltages that only last a few second long each, with the inmate usually dying during the first few seconds from either cardiac arrest or brain death; the gas chamber, where the inmates are strapped into a chair inside the chamber and are pumped cyanide gas to cause asphyxiation; the fourth method is by firing squad, done by putting a cloth over the prisoner’s hearth while he’s tied down to a chair and a few shooters fire their bullets until one hits the target and the prisoner dies instantly from the heart rupturing and loosing blood; the last one is the least used, which would be hanging and it is done by having a loop wrapped around the criminal’s neck while he stands on a trap door, once that door is opened the prisoner falls, automatically breaking his neck and dying (Associated Press). Out of all 5 methods, lethal injection and electrocution are the most commonly used in the U.S today and the most humane as well. When you compare this minute murderers on death row suffer to the outrageous crimes these murderers have committed and the amount of pain they inflict on their victims for days, sometimes even weeks, you realize that the offender’s execution does not even compare to the torture they put their victims through.
An aspect we should look at when counter arguing the debate against capital punishment is the money angle of it all. Abolitionists argue that there are thousands of dollars involved with capital punishment that are unnecessarily wasted. While this may be true to some extent, considering that the trials and lawyers are very costly, keeping an inmate in prison is extremely expensive as well. According to a notice given by the Bureau of Prisons in 2016, “the fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates in Fiscal Year 2015 was $31,977.65,” (Prisons Bureau). If you take the average age of inmates at their time of incarceration, which would probably be around the 30’s, plus the extra 60 years he’s expected to live, that adds up to almost $3,000,000 dollars spent in just one prisoner’s life in prison. It is not fair for the citizens of the U.S to have to give a portion of every of their paychecks to taxes that help cover the expenses to house and feed these criminals every year. Even though the death penalty definitely costs more, the simple reason that imprisoning a murderer is cheaper is not a valid argument as to why it may be more equitable. These people take an individual’s right to live into their own hands and they violate it by killing them, for the sole reason of pleasure. People should not have to pay taxes every single year to help the government feed these monsters, and they should not be getting the option of free room and board while getting a college degree and getting served 3 free meals a day. It is better to execute them and spend the money bringing justice, as well as in a way cutting down a taxpayer’s share. Once an inmate in death row is put to death, that’s one less person that citizens of the U.S have to maintain. The additional cost that comes with death penalty is a small price to pay if it means the family’s get closure and that there is one less killer out there that could hurt more innocent people.
There is also another angle we should look at when disputing this debate, and that is the moral one. Some say it is morally wrong to kill someone, and why should we do what we’re trying to fight against? The reason is simple. If you take it in your hands to end someone’s life and take away their right to live, there’s no reason as to why your life should not be taken as well. You’re purposely taking the life of that person and taking their last moments in this world for your own enjoyment, therefore you must pay the price, and that is with your life. Another argument against the morality of capital punishment is that it’s inhumane to take someone’s life in such a horrendous way. The first counterattack is that before an inmate is placed in death row, a jury consisted of 12 people sit down and debate over his/her case until they are absolutely sure, without any single doubt, that the prisoner is guilty. Now the second argument against this is that they don’t think about the victim. What about how the murderer killed them, for their own pleasure? The torture they went through, the pain, knowing they would never see their loved ones again. When you take into consideration the kind of terror these murderers have inflicted on their victims and how they have taken their lives, executing them in such a “horrendous” way ends up not not being as atrocious anymore.
Abolitionists argue that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. This argument makes it seem like they don’t fully get what the whole point of capital punishment is. Murderers are executed as a way to punish them for their crimes, it is a way to get justice, to bring peace to the victim’s family and to prevent them from causing any more harm to society. Although the purpose of death penalty is not to stop crime, statistics show that it works 100% effectively as a restraint for people that want to go against the law, especially when it comes to the murderer. In a statement given on July 23, 1993 before the Committee in the Judiciary United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Cases, Paul G. Cassell points out that “out of a sample of 164 paroled Georgia murderers, eight committed subsequent murders within seven years of release. A study of twenty Oregon murderers released on parole in 1979 found that one (i.e., five percent) had committed a subsequent homicide within five years of release,”( This shows that prisoners who have been released early on good behavior or that have escaped, go out and commit the same murdering crimes against innocent victims again, becoming a big threat to society when they could have been executed and the safety of the people would not be at stake. Once the prisoner has been executed, there is absolutely no way he will ever commit this type of crime anymore. Sure, there are other murderers and serial killers out there, but if we can do something, anything, to stop at least one of them we’re getting off to a good start.
There are a lot of abolitionists that fight hard to prove that the death penalty is not the right way to go about things, that it’s not morally right, and that there is no counter argument we can make that will justify it. I can understand why someone may be against such a thing and although they have valid points, the truth is there is no arguing that sometimes under certain circumstances, for the safety of society, there is no other choice but to execute the murderer. Capital punishment can also have big potential as a deterrent in society. If you’re caught for murder, you go to jail and spend the rest of your life there without parole, but that’s it. You’re not isolated, you don’t lose privileges, you’re just in jail with other people that have committed mild crimes like stealing and treason. However, if the death penalty were to be inflicted on all murderers, it would most likely bring down homicides by a big percent because if a person knows that once they’re caught they’re going to be executed, they are more than likely to back off and think twice before they act. Murderers are not innocent; they don’t deserve people like abolitionists dedicating their time to abolish capital punishment so their lives are never at stake. The victims they slaughtered, the families they hurt, the loved ones that were left alone, they are the ones that deserve our time and our dedication to doing everything in our power to have a better world, where we bring justice where justice is deserved.
Works Cited
“Part I: History of the Death Penalty.” DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center, deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty.
CNN Library, “Death Penalty Fast Facts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 Oct. 2017, www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/death-penalty-fast-facts/index.html.
Carmical, Casey. “The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?” Casey's Critical Thinking, www.hoshuha.com/articles/deathpenalty.html.
Seven Pillars, “Kantian Duty Based (Deontological) Ethics.” Sevenpillarsinstitute.org, sevenpillarsinstitute.org/morality-101/kantian-duty-based-deontological-ethics.
Ezorsky, Gertrude and Kant, Immanuel. “Justice and Punishment.” Trans. W. Hastie. In Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment. Ed. Gertrude Ezorsky. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972. 102-106.
Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysical Elements of Justice: Part I of The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by John Ladd, 2nd ed., Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. 139.
Associated Press. “A Glance at the 5 Execution Methods Allowed in the US Today and How They Work.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 24 May 2014, www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/23/glance-at-5-execution-methods-allowed-in-us-today-and-how-work.html.
Prisons Bureau. “Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration.” Federal Register, 19 July 2016, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/07/19/2016-17040/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration.