Capital punishment: arguments, effectiveness, and policy implications

¶ … Capital Punishment be Eliminated?

Death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and is a relic of the times when practices such as slavery, branding, torture and other harsh and arbitrary punishments were common place. As civilized societies developed and evolved they began to follow higher standards of justice and respect for human life. Unfortunately, capital punishment, which is the most cruel of state-sanctioned punishments (being irreversible) has survived in several countries. Although more than half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, surprisingly, this cruel and inhumane form of punishment is still retained in the United States of America where 976 people have been executed since 1977 and around 3,500 men and women currently sit on the death row. ("Death Penalty," 2005) I strongly feel that taking the life of a person by the state is a gross violation of human rights and in no way contributes to stopping the cycle of violence; in fact it brutalizes the society that sanctions it and perpetuates violence. In this essay, I shall argue why capital punishment should be banned forthwith.

The proponents of death penalty contend that the modern methods of execution are painless and humane. This is far from the truth, as anyone who has witnessed exceutions by hanging, electric chair, gas chamber, or even the latest method -- by lethal injection -- would testify. Hanging, for example, can often produce horrendous results: if the drop is too short, it results in slow and agonising strangulation; if it is too long, it may tear the head off. Electrocution too, at times, fails to kill instantly and the awful stench of burning flesh that follows the process is indicative of the pain suffered during the killing. (Bedau, 1992) Executions by other methods are similarly cruel and tantamount to mockery of every humane feeling in human beings.

It is often argued that capital punishment is a strong deterrent against serious crimes such as murder. This may seem a plausable contention on first sight, but closer scrutiny of the facts indicate otherwise. Murders are either premeditated or committed on the spur of the moment. Those who carry out premeditated murders usually intend to escape detention, while others kill during moments of great emotional stress. It is hard to see how the severity of the consequences would deter a person from murdering. The terrorists who kill in the name of an ideology or for a cause (e.g., through suicide attacks) are even more unlikely to be deterred by the prospect of the death penalty. Moreover, statistics show that instances of murder in countries (or in the case of U.S., states) that have the death penalty laws are hardly different from those that prohibit capital punishment. ("Death Penalty," 2005)

Evidence also suggests that the death penalty is disproportionately applied to the poor and racial minorities (specifically African-Americans) in the United States. For example, between 1930 and 1990, 4,016 persons were executed in the United States out of whom, 2,129 (or 53%) were black, although Blacks constituted just 12% of the U.S. population during the period. (Bedau, 1992, Section on "unfairness") Apart from racial discrimination, the poor at a much-enhanced risk of getting the death penalty since most of them cannot afford to hire a lawyer during their trial. Justice William O. Douglas appropriately noted this anomaly in the U.S. justice system by observing in Furman v Georgia (408 U.S. 238, 1972), "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in this society." Proponents of capital punishment sometimes argue that death for murderers follows the age-old principle of "an eye for an eye" and gives them what they deserve by "making the punishment fit the crime." This again is erroneous logic, since if the principle of "punishment fitting the crime" is accepted, then all rapists deserve to be raped, the kidnappers ought to be kidnapped and so on. This, of course, is preposterous; hence the argument of 'just deserts' does not lend support for death penalty in any way. This does not mean that the severity of punishment should not be commensurate with the gravity of the crime. Murderers deserve to be punished, but brutal, premeditated homicide of the culprits cannot be justified in any civilized society.