Running head: DEATH PENALTY 1
Death Penalty
The death penalty is considered the harshest punishment for criminals. The idea of capital punishment was introduced into the legal system as a means to deter people from committing severe criminal offenses. However, the death penalty has elicited controversial debates in the world today, with supporters arguing that it is the appropriate punishment for murders, and the opposers claim that no human being has the right to kill the other. The death penalty is a violation of human rights and does not have any moral justification as it supports murder.
When criminals commit, heinous society is worried that they may re-enter the community and repeat the same crime. However, in instances whereby an individual is found guilty of murder, they are either sentenced to the death penalty of life without parole. The availability of an alternative for punishing crimes with the life in prison sentence reveals that there is another way of punishing the offender other than through the death penalty. Moreover, the possibility of an individual serving a life sentence escaping from prison is close to impossible. Consequently, there is no valid reason why the death penalty should be invoked, yet there is another alternative to punishing the offender.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The death penalty is not a form of a deterrent since those who commit the devious acts of murder do not consider that they may be caught or fails to examine the consequences of their actions. In most instances, murderers calculate their moves and plan out their activities or act impulsively without considering the legal consequences (Malkani, 2013). Similarly, some murderers commit the crime while under the influence of drugs and alcohol; thus, their judgment and actions are compromised. In all these instances, issuing the death penalty has not deterred murderers from acting or repeating the offense, especially in cases whereby they act irrationally since emotions influence them. Furthermore, there is no conclusive proof that shows that the death penalty is a better form of deterrent compared to life in prison.
Those who support the death penalty argue that it provides families of victim closure and relief. On the contrary, families have to endure an emotional roller coaster as they wait for the criminal to die. According to Sarat (2001), most of the criminals on the death row do not receive their punishment immediately and may stay up to 25 years before being executed. Thus, closure for the families only comes years later when the offender has been punished, which may take decades to be reinforced. The families of the victim are forced to endure the emotional turmoil of their relative's murder as they may be forced to appear in court during appeals. Families can be forced to relive the gruesome details of their loved one's death continuously until the perpetrator is executed; hence, closure is never achieved.
Although families of the victim may believe that the execution of the perpetrator will give them peace of mind and closure, in the end, they discover this is not the case. There is not much satisfaction derived from seeing the person that has deeply hurt them by killing their loved be put to death by injection. Some relatives even wish that the perpetrator be executed in the same manner that they killed the victim; in such cases, the victim's relative may presume that the death penalty is not enough punishment and may not find the closure that they desperately desire. However, if the maximum sentence was life imprisonment, the family of the victim may be emotionally satisfied knowing that the perpetrator does not have the chance to live a healthy life.
The death penalty is a violation of human rights. By invoking the death penalty, the law is depriving an individual of their right to live; thus, punishing them by committing a crime. The family of the victim may support the death penalty to seek revenge on behalf of their loved ones irrespective of the moral or financial implications. Johnson (2019) asserts that the death penalty revokes the right to dignity due to the way it is executed. The death sentence is executed through lethal injection or the electric chair, which subjects the criminal to cruel, inhumane, and demeaning punishment. Therefore, the criminal is stripped of their right to life and the right to protection of life.
Conclusion
The death penalty is inhumane and does not fulfill its intended purpose. Using the death penalty as a form of retribution does not make legal sense in society today. By issuing the death penalty, the government wants to show the citizens that killing is intolerable and should be punished. However, through the death penalty, the government contradicts itself as this can be seen as an act of revenge and not punishment. Thus, the death penalty should be eliminated as a form of punishment for offenders.
References
Johnson, D. (2019). A Factful Perspective on Capital Punishment, Journal of Human Rights Practice , Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages 334–345, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huz018
Malkani, B. (2013). The Obligation to Refrain from Assisting the Use of the Death Penalty. International & Comparative Law Quarterly ; 62(3): 523–56.
Sarat, A. (2001). When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition . Princeton University Press.
