Cruel and Unusual Punishment - Case Study Example

The death penalty, as implemented in the USA, is a “cruel and unusual punishment”. Critically discuss. No one can doubt that capital punishment is a controversial issue. Many respectable people have different views about it and frequently argue about it. The truth is that around the world many countries have prohibited it. There is even an international campaign being fought to eliminate it worldwide. Many international organizations support this campaign as well as celebrities. There are clearly very strong negative feelings about it. Indeed, never before in history has the controversial practice appeared to be under such a threat. These people consider the death penalty to be a form of cruel and unusual punishment. They argue that it is a part of a barbaric ancient world and as such it no longer has any place in our contemporary world. This is a popular opinion. But upon critical consideration, the idea that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment does not stand up to scrutiny. Just because something had been used for many millennium does not mean it is barbaric or obsolete. People in the past knew a great deal about human nature; Michelangelo, for example, painted the Sistine Chapel. He was not a barbarian. The truth is we need to look at the death penalty in the contemporary world and examine its effectiveness. We need to look closely to see if it is cruel and unusual punishment or if it is an effective and responsible way to punish murderers and allow society to act as it feels is necessary in the face of certain heinous crimes. Society needs to be able to make a statement about the worst crimes. One of the few developed countries to still use the death penalty is America. In America today capital punishment is legal in around thirty-seven states. It enjoys substantial popular support (Clark County). Most Americans do not believe it is cruel and unusual punishment. They believe it is an appropriate form of censure. Today, there are about three thousand people on death-row at this time (Ibid). That is a small number out of the general prison population. The proportionally small number of those on death row indicate that this punishment is not used willy-nilly. It is reserved for the most despicable and unusual crimes. If it is an unusual punishment it is a response to unusual crimes. If it is cruel—and that is an open question—it is plainly in response to the cruelty of the acts committed by those who have received the death penalty. The truth is that there is a strong argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to those who seek or plan to commit heinous crimes—this would therefore justify those who suggest the death penalty is beyond the pale. The death penalty prevents people from committing crimes. No one criminal wants to end up subject to capital punishment and on death row. That is only part of the argument in favour of capital punishment however; more than that, the death penalty is the ultimate sanction that society can take against those who commit the most serious crimes. As a whole society needs a mechanism through which to express their extreme displeasure at acts of extreme violence. This simply make sense. Many scholars also believe it works effectively as a deterrent (Mappes, 98). Those who study criminology and who take a serious interest in this question, often agree that the death penalty has that kind of impact. The statistics, however, may not be so clearly demonstrative. The reason why statistics are so open to misuse and manipulation by death penalty opponents is the fact that many murders committed by murderers are not actually first degree and do not involve a lot of premeditation. They often occur on the spur of the moment or by negligence. For these sorts of crimes, death penalty is not much of a deterrence—and this fact will be reflected in the statistics used by opponents. In fact, it is difficult to think there is much of a correlation between crime rates and capital punishment to begin with. Homicide is but a very small portion of crime statistics; only an especially tiny number of murders would be deterred by it. Most likely a number so small as to be statistically insignificant. The truth is that there is no other course of retribution that is as appropriate for the most serious crimes than the capital punishment. In the controversy over the death penalty, many countries who no longer use it use mistaken reasoning explained above to justify their call to abolish it. Whatever studies on this subject say, few can argue that capital punishment absolutely deters the killer who is put to death. He will never be able to raise his hand against anyone again (DPC). That is an important argument made by supporters of capital punishment. Proponents also argue that capital punishment is a statement made by society about the crimes with the highest stigma. Some individuals do things that are so bad that they have forfeited many of their basic rights. What would be cruel and unusual to another person is an appropriate punishment for them. There is a sliding scale when it comes to such questions. Removed from the face of the planet, these people can no longer taunt their victim's families (as some choose do when they are left alive). Nor will these people ever have an opportunity to walk the streets freely again. To some this is a very old-fashioned and cruel idea, but to others it shows just how timeless ideas of justice really are. Proponents of death penalty believe that it is repulsive to see individuals wasting their time and energy to try to stop the executions of horrible killers rather than volunteering to help victims of violent crime. What we need to do as a society is to say we value the lives of the innocent, but do not value the lives of evil individuals. We need to take a strong stand on this issue. Many supporters of the death penalty argue that this punishment should not be used on young offenders. They say that this is especially cruel and unusual punishment and that it is a powerful argument for the overall abolishment of the death penalty. These people say that there are many fifteen years old being executed by lethal injection across the country. That is just not true, however. Most states have a limit to the age at which death penalty can be applied. Opponent try to use this issue to publicly paint a picture of what they believe is the barbarism of capital punishment. This is an emotional appeal. Critics also suggest that innocent people may be executed and that they won't be alive to see their appeals overturn their convictions in court. Clearly, this is a powerful potential argument. Nevertheless, there is no one case in America where anyone has been able to definitively prove that an innocent individual has been put to death (Bedau, 102). Absent proof that this happened, this argument is no longer valid. Another important point to make is with reference to the American constitution. The death penalty was not on the mind of the American Founding Fathers when they prohibited cruel and unusual punishment. If it had been, if follows logically that they would have prohibited it too. What they meant by cruel and unusual punishment was flogging and torturing prisoners. Execution is conducted in a humane method with the minimum possible pain. It is not a form of torture and so it is not a form of cruel and unusual punishment. We must be very careful to explain what we mean when we use these terms as they are a bit like loaded weapons. In a general sense, proponents of capital punishment believe its elimination is called for by individuals who see criminals as victims of an over-powerful state. These people are usually mischief makers and anarchists. The truth is that when you eliminate the ultimate sanction from the criminal justice system, you are left with very little—only some sentencing requirement that vary in tiny degrees. When you eliminate the death penalty, there is no real way to express the real anguish of an outrageous crime. Society needs that kind of outlet. There are, however, a few arguments which stand up against the death penalty. While overall it seems like the death penalty is an appropriate form of punishment for the most heinous crimes, there can be little doubt that it is only appropriate if it is applied both sparingly and under the proper circumstances. The execution of those who suffer from mental illness is not an acceptable use of this penalty. Few can doubt that mental health is one of the most serious issues facing the world today. Only in recent years have practitioners and the public slowly begun to understand mental issues as the public health problem that they really are. Today we are witnessing a significant shift in the definition of these problems and how they should be dealt with. They need to be dealt with, where appropriate, in the criminal just system, but they should not be dealt with in terms of the death penalty. The truth is that we need to dramatically increase the amount of information and education out there on the intersection between criminal justice issues and mental health issues. Mental health is an issue that affects all of us and must be taken very seriously by all of us, especially in the criminal justice arena. There are, for example, serious deficits in the American criminal justice system with regards to the mentally ill. Far too often their problems are not diagnosed or treated. They are also often kept in the general population rather than in special wards where their problems can be better treated. A large part of this stems from the very high cost of treatment and the shortage of qualified medical practitioners at work in areas of mental health. Another significant aspect of this problem comes from the fact that several states pass on the funding and control of programs for the mentally ill to the federal government (Nunes, 21). Instead of dealing with local problems on a local basis, often these specific problems are addressed by a faceless group in a distant capital. This outsourcing has not been successful in helping to improve the situation of the mentally ill with regards to the criminal justice system. We need to take all of this into account when looking at the death penalty as a potentially cruel and unusual punishment. Too often we are quick to judge. A particularly heinous crime must have been committed by someone who is evil. But sometimes these crimes are committed by people who have mental health issues and need treatment. We should execute anyone who did not have the capacity to understand what they were doing at the time they committed the crime. In our criminal justice system mens rea—intention—is required to be convicted of a serious crime, and that is the way it should. If someone is not able to understand the nature of the act they committed they should not be put to death. That truly would be cruel and unusual punishment. It makes sense that a lot of people have strong opinions about the death penalty. It is true that no one's life should ever be taken without due process under a system that prizes the rule of law. However, around the world there is a growing trend to think of criminals themselves as victims of some sort of social injustice, to believe criminals are in the some way also victims of crime because they come from bad homes and are the subject of discrimination based on race or socio-economic status. The result of these explanation is that criminals are unable to control themselves; we should therefore deal with them generously and never put any of them, even the worst, to death. This is a foolish argument. Both sides of this controversy can agree that there are truly evil men and women out there. Capital punishment not only is a deterrent to those who would commit heinous crimes, but it also removes them from human society forever once they are executed. That is not cruel or unusual. Works consulted Clark County Prosecutor. http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm Bedau, Hugo Adam. The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University, 2001. Beccaria, Cesare. On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Edited by Richard Bellamy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Mappes, Thomas A, and Jane S Zembaty. Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007. Nunes, Julia & Scott Simmie. Beyond Crazy: Journeys Through Mental Illness. McClelland & Stewart, c2002. “In support of the death penalty.” DPC. Accessed April 12, 2009. http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/argument1a.htm Read More