Being Against the Death Penalty or Being Against Capial Punishment - Coursework Example

ment: The death penalty is a punishment which no human being has the right to impose on another human being, regardless of the crime. Explanation paragraph: The choosing of this statement which I wrote myself, is routed deeply in a belief that humankind must coexist mutually in symbiosis with not only the earth but with itself. One of the fundamental codes of human ethics is the recognition of the sacredness of human life. One of the mechanisms which has propelled humanity through time without extinction is our intelligence and our attempt at a code of morals unknown by lower species. If the sense of a conscience or accountability did not occupy the human psyche, the human race would not be here today as people would have been systematically trying to wipe one another out, one by one. The assertion that the death penalty is wrong is in alignment with the most fundamental code of human ethics and that is the regarding of human life as indispensable by another human being. Abstract: The purpose of this paper, is to discuss the above sentence regarding the death penalty and why this sentence is a valid truth. The death penalty is often enforced in the event that the perpetrator being sentenced, has violated the most fundamental and sacred laws of humanity itself, and that is the willful action and malicious intent leading to the premeditated murder of another human being(s). This may seem to be an overly liberal ideology, considering that those who ultimately do receive the death penalty as punishment, are most deserving 2 of it. While this may be true and punishment must be enforced, capital punishment is contrary to the lesson that all human right is sacred and is essentially the attempt to fight two wrongs with a right. Truly teaching and enforcing punishment for specific actions are backed only by an authoritative representation of the observation of that law or code. Problem Statement: The problem with the ideology of abandoning the death sentence, would be explained by many as a removal of true incentive for individuals to feel compelled no to engage in the act of murder, for fear of losing their own life as punishment. Similarly, families of victims often feel the need to see vengeance or justice brought on the culprit of their loved one’s death. While both of these principles of opposition to the death penalty are valid, they still do not explain or even recognize that the idea of the death penalty only places the power of governing human life back into the hands of humans concerning other humans. As this discussion carries on, a broad argument will serve to ascertain that the death penalty may be appropriate punishment but one handed down by those who simply do not possess the power to do so. A Brief History of Death by Capital Punishment: Capital Punishment dates back as far as any credible historical writing detailing the history of people everywhere. The Bible itself reveals allegories and fables about individuals sentenced to death by hanging, crucifixion, stoning, decapitation and so on. In fact, earlier times in history displayed criminals who 3 were guilty of crimes far less than murder who were sentenced to die like animals. Ancient rulers utilized the power of totalitarianism to enforce the death penalty to anyone who disobeyed the laws, in order to scare his subjects into complete loyalty and submission. No one would dispute the amoral treachery of this regardless of their views on the death penalty today. This view of humanity from a legally conflicted angle can be said to date back to the abolishionist movement, “The abolitionist movement finds its roots in the writings of European theorists Montesquieu, Voltaire and Bentham, and English Quakers John Bellers and John Howard. However, it was Cesare Beccarias 1767 essay, On Crimes and Punishment, that had an especially strong impact throughout the world. In the essay, Beccaria theorized that there was no justification for the states taking of a life”(Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). From early colonial times to the present, the criteria for one to be deserving of the death penalty has become relatively rigid, much more so than it has ever been. Capital punishment is currently viewed as the punishment for only those who are found guilty of committing first degree murder ( murder which was premeditated) in states which legalize the death penalty. Even when one is sentenced such a punishment, one may go through the appeals process thus allowing them a prolonged stay of execution. Capital punishment may also be given to those who are found guilty of high treason against the government, may also receive the death penalty. Certainly, the prevailing them surrounding the death penalty today is much more cautious than past views simply because of 4 the controversial nature of one person ending another person’s life, “Although some states abolished the death penalty in the mid-Nineteenth Century, it was actually the first half of the Twentieth Century that marked the beginning of the "Progressive Period" of reform in the United States. From 1907 to 1917, six states completely outlawed the death penalty and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official”(Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). Ethics and Capital Punishment: In order to strategically map whether or not current laws and morals support the theory of eliminating the death penalty as a possible punishment, it is important to examine socially accepted views on untimely death. In the area of medicine, it is necessary to seek first to sustain human life unless a patient has ascertained an advanced directive making it unlawfully for medical patients to resuscitate that patient in the event of their cessation of breathing or cardiac activity. Certainly, there are points in time where physicians are in a position of treating individuals guilty of heinous crimes who are serving unreasonably short prison sentences. If these doctors were proven to have abandon the Hippocratic oath by refusing to resuscitate a dying patient, they would lose their license and be sent to prison. The reason for this is that medical doctors are bound by an ethical code which holds them accountable for saving and sustaining lives, period. This suggests that human ethics dictates that taking a life is wrong if for no other reason than that it is simply not up to one human being to decide the 5 fate of another in terms of life span. The laws of criminal justice also dictate a moral human code of due process and an avoidance of what are known as “cruel or unusual punishments”. This means that an individual must be found guilty of a crime with substantial evidence indicating that that person undoubtedly carried out said crime. At this time, one may be sentenced by a judge accordingly within and up to the fullest extent of the law. These criteria are in place to minimize conviction of the wrong individual. If moral consensus was that the law carried the right to determine whether one should live or die, the stringent nature of such laws would not be in place. Even the act of abortion, when chosen by a pregnant woman, is considered to be a controversial issue teetering on being illegal. Clearly, the right to dictate another human being’s death not in any one person’s hands. Death Penalty in Theory and Reality: As before mentioned, the death penalty is reserved for the most horrific of actions by deeply morally compromised individuals. In theory or in a perfect system, this would make sense and possibly be agreeable even to those who hold to abolitionist ideology. The truth of the matter though is that the worst of two evils is really the lifetime commitment to captivity in prison, not the escape of such a life by means of quiet lethal injection. If one truly wished to see justice served on a criminal, the committing that criminal to a life spent in jail is much more horrifying and theoretically more disconcerting. Some may argue that those who truly have deserved the death penalty 6 such as notorious serial killers such as Charles Manson, have managed to manipulate the justice system in their favor and escape the death penalty by means of stalling. This is an indication of an extremely flawed system. Most reasonable people feel that morally, the death penalty is really only deserved by such monsters, but it is in fact not they who are ultimately brought to justice by it, “Yet all too frequently, the debate has been off the mark. Death penalty proponents have assumed a system of capital punishment that simply does not exist: a system in which the penalty is inflicted on the most reprehensible criminals and meted out frequently enough both to deter and to perform the moral and utilitarian function ascribed to retribution”(Greenberg, 1996). The Death Penalty and Racism: In looking at those who have already carried out their sentencing by having been executed, most of those individuals of African American. This is startling because African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population but currently make up 55% of inmates awaiting execution on death row. This is overwhelmingly indicative of how the death penalty is not so discreetly tainted by racism which seemingly facilitates a legal way for minorities to be executed. Granted, these individuals may be in every way deserving of great punishment but this should be no different from those who have committed similar criminal acts who happen to be white. This is simply another indication that racism is ever-present in the judicial system even today and should be even more abolished from state and federal forms of punishment. 7 Religion and the Death Penalty: Certainly, religious motivation may account for many of the views from both sides, concerning the death penalty. Judail-Christian beliefs indicate that life is sacred, God forgives and that God is the only judge on who should live and who should die. A religious view may be helpful in the argument against the death penalty up to the point of separation of church and state. Regardless of the religious views which vary on the morality of capital punishment, the bottom line is that constitutionally speaking, religious views of law enforcement are irrelevant. Religious perspective should regulate only a premise for one’s personal beliefs on the matter and not the overall composition of the law. Capital Punishment and the Greater Good: By setting a standard that dictates that regardless of the crime or the state in which it was committed, death penalty is simply off the table as a punishment form, we embrace a universal moral which dictates the sacredness of all human life. In doing this we may have to reconstruct the prison system in the U.S. in order to facilitate long term prison sentences to a large number of people, but sometimes doing the right thing is not the same as doing the easiest thing. It is essential to our survival as a society to act prophylactically instead of after the crime has been committed. This means better education systems and legislation which mandates lifetime prison sentencing without the possibility of parole for those who are found guilty of first degree murder, as the fullest extent of the law. 8 Conclusion: In the event that an individual is found guilty of criminal intent and having committed murder, the death penalty is meant to be the highest form of appropriate punishment to hand down. This is contradictory because if one looks at the reason that murder is illegal or should be illegal, it will be deduced that humankind as a whole, recognizes the absence of authority present for one human being to dictate the death of another human being. This encompasses all humankind fundamentally and is no more appropriate in the hands of a judge or officer of the court than it is for those who take the lives of others for various reasons. The moral or humanitarian basis for this code or law is something which virtually all organized states, countries, governments and so on, have held as law for millennia. Reinforcing the ideology that taking human life is acceptable even under extreme conditions, is in direct vioalation of the ethics which make us human. Table of Contents: Statement: 1 Explanation Paragraph: 1 Abstract: 1 Problem Statement: 2 A Brief History of Death By Capital Punishment: 2 Ethics and Capital Punishment: 4 Death Penalty in Theory and in Reality: 5 Racism and the Death Penalty: 6 Religion and the Death Penalty: 7 Capital Punishment and the Greater Good: 7 Conclusion: 8 References: The ACLU, 2003 “Race and the Death Penalty” retrieved from website October 29, 2008 at: http://www.aclu.org/capital/unequal/10389pub20030226.html Bedau. Hugo Adam. 1997 “The Death Penalty in America: Currant Controversies”, Harvard University Press, New York. Death Penalty Information Center, 2008, “History of the Death Penalty”, retrieved from website October 27, 2008 at: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i- history-death-penalty Greenberg, Jack. 1986, “Against the American System of Capital Punishment”, Harvard Law Review Association Martin, Marlene. 2002, “The Death Penalty is Dead Wrong”, The New Abolitionists, retrieved from website October 27, 2008 at: http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/newab023/index.html Read More