The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the act of the court of law sentencing death as a punishment for someone who convicted a serious capital crime. As with most government-related topics , the death penalty often heats up political debates over whether it should be abolished or not. Those in favor of this capital punishment state that gives a resolution to the victim’s families and prevents future murders whereas those not in favor of it state that it is unconstitutional and inhumane. As everyone may be obligated to be biased, have different stand points on various topics, and differ in morals, the different point of views on the death penalty and review recent cases of the death penalty will be discussed.
Forty-nine percent of Americans believed the death penalty was “applied fairly” in the year 2018, which was the lowest Gallup poll ever recorded since it first included the question in its crime poll in 2000. So the general consensus is against the death penalty and with good reasons. One of which is, “Some of those against capital punishment believe that human life is so valuable that even the worst murderers should not be deprived of the value of their lives”. Individuals believe that the value of the offender’s life cannot be destroyed by the offender’s wrongdoing – even if they murdered another person. The right to life is the most basic human right as well as a moral principle instilled on human beings. The most common and the most cogent argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system. According to “Death Penalty Facts – May 2012” from AmnestyUsa.org, in the USA, 130 people that were sentenced to death have been found innocent afterwards since 1973 and also released from death row. Another reason against the death penalty is that “retribution” is used in a unique way in the case of the death penalty. Crimes other than murder do not the receive the punishment that copies the crime – for example, rapists are not punished by being sexually assaulted, and people that steal cars do not have their own car stolen. Another argument is that retribution is flawed because the death penalty is a “double punishment”, where the execution as well as the preceding wait time, is a mismatch of the crime. One of the best arguments against the death penalty is that if society wants to be nonviolent, the legal system needs to promote that. If the legal system says killing people is an acceptable method of dealing with them as a problem, then other people will interpret that as a “go-ahead” to kill others as a way to fix their personal problems. The death penalty infers that some people are beyond repair, beyond second chances, and beyond being allowed to live in today’s society. Some people deserve second chances and never even had a first chance due to poverty, racism, neglect, violence, mental issues, etc., yet they will never receive that chance due to be executed. This stops anyone from seeing that guilty people have the potential to change. Finally, one of the most important argument against the death penalty is the cost of it. “The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000.” Thus proving, it is cheaper to not have a death penalty case versus a non-death penalty case.
Even though it may be cheaper to have a non-death penalty case, the outcome of the death penalty has a plethora of good reasons to do so. It is far cheaper to execute a guilty individual versus keeping that individual incarcerated for the duration of their natural life. The most notable argument is that the U.S. Constitution allows for the application of the death penalty. The Constitution, specifically Amendments Five, Eight, and Fourteenth, permit the use of the death penalty in “appropriate cases”. In the 1960s, multiple attempts were made to announce that the death penalty was “unconstitutional” based on the fact that it was “cruel and unusual” therefore contending the Eighth Amendment. Not to far after, in 1972, the Eighth Amendment was challenged, resulting in State Death Penalty Statutes being suspended for unconstitutionality as they could, as drafted, result in arbitrary sentencing. Multiple states were outraged and started fighting back by redrafting their statutes to address other problems the Supreme Court had brought them. The death penalty was effectively reinstated by 1977 when the first execution in years took place in Utah during the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad. A major reason in favor of the death penalty is the deterrence it brings. It is often justified with the argument that by successfully executing convicted murderers, this would deter other individuals, such as would-be murderers, from killing people. Another reason against the death penalty is that it is inherently unfair and racially biased. In actuality though, the racial breakdown for those executed in the U.S. since 1977 is as follows: 34.5 percent Black; 8.3 percent Latino; 55.6 percent White; and 1.6 percent other. The statistics prove that it isn’t racially biased and the reason for the discrepancy in the execution rate between blacks and whites is that juries deciding whether to impose the death penalty have concluded in more cases involving black defendants that there were extenuating circumstances that favored a much lesser penalty. Retribution is a commonly used argument in favor of keeping the death penalty. A majority of individuals who use this argument begin with stating that “guilty people deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of their crime.” This argument states that real justice requires people to suffer for their wrongdoing in a way appropriate for the crime that was committed. This also applies to the victims’ families of murders. Many families will never be able to feel safe or live a regular normal life again if they know the person who committed the crime is still alive. Plea bargaining, the process in which a criminal can receive a reduced sentence in exchange for providing help to the authorities, is used in most countries. The death penalty entices the use of this as an individual would rather have a chance of living in exchange of unknown information, rather than dying.
To conclude, just like with abortion and immigration, the death penalty is continually being tossed around towards whether it is acceptable in society or not. As people vary in backgrounds and morals, it is seemingly impossible to settle on the acceptability of this topic. For those in favor of this capital punishment, two arguments from their standpoint includes that the death penalty is only a punishment towards those who have a committed a crimes that was against the safety, rights, and freedom of the victims and that life without parole is far more cost efficient. Whereas those not in favor for this capital punishment, also have two prime arguments stating that the system has flaws and puts innocent people on death row and that the death penalty is used partially as a way of revenge. Whether you are for or against it, it remains constitutional as it does not violate the eighth amendment.