The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation - Research Paper Example

It is not surprising that executing of mentally defective people faces public resistance. The interrogations revealed that a great number of United States citizens are against death penalty for people with mental retardation including those who support the execution as such. The law that forbids the execution of mentally sick individuals was already passed in 13 states and 7 states are going to pass it as well. The United States of America is the only democratic country in the world that executes mentally ill or defective people (Gross, 2007).

First of all, such laws are at variance with basic Human Rights, which consider death to be a violation of the main right of humans – right to life, especially if it is applied to individuals who suffer from mental retardation. David Anderson states: …we shall now look at the great international documents and some other documents which speaks of human rights and the "right to life" in relation to the death penalty. We shall then observe that the abolitionists have come to a minefield, because the fundamental international documents testify in this matter more to the advantages of the death penalty.

It is only some lately additional paragraphs which want to see some other order of things (Anderson, 2001). Many people who support the death penalty and consider it to be necessary in some cases state that it looses its initial meaning and significance and turn into violence if applied to mentally defective people. This punishment is to be used in most serious cases for the crimes committed deliberately and with cruelty. However, the actions of mentally disabled people can’t be considered as deliberate.

They can’t live a full-fledged life because of their incurable trouble. Such people have a lot of problems with making decisions, recollection, concentration, and with comprehension of outcomes