Capital Punishment Is Wrong? Capital

¶ … Capital Punishment is Wrong?

Capital punishment (also called death penalty) is the judicially ordered execution of a prisoner as a punishment for a serious crime, often called a capital offence or a capital crime. ("Capital Punishment" Wikipedia) The death penalty was frequently employed in the ancient times as a form of state punishment when other cruel practices such as slavery, branding, torture were common place. As civilized societies evolved they began to follow higher standards of justice and demanded greater respect for human life. Over the years, a majority of countries have accordingly abolished capital punishment from their law books. Unfortunately, this cruel and inhumane form of punishment is still retained and practiced in several parts of the world including the United States. I strongly support the view that taking the life of a person by the state is a relic of the past that has no place in a civilized society; it does not act as a deterrent to crime and is morally unjustified. In fact, it brutalizes the society that sanctions it and perpetuates the cycle of violence. In this essay, I shall argue why capital punishment is wrong.

Capital punishment is morally wrong because killing or murdering a human being is simply wrong. Period. There are no ifs and buts about it. Killing is considered to be a major crime in every society regardless of the circumstances surrounding the act. When killing and murder is deemed to be unacceptable, how can the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state, i.e., capital punishment, be justified?

Supporters of capital punishment content that it is an effective deterrent against serious crimes such as murder. This argument may seem a plausable at 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. Scientific studies have not found any evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments such as life imprisonment. For example, a survey of research findings conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 1996, concluded:.".. research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment...The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis." (Quoted in "Death Penalty, Q&A") Moreover, statistics show that instances of murder in countries that have the death penalty laws are hardly different from those that prohibit capital punishment.

Capital punishment is wrong because it is the most cruel form of punishment that should have no place in a civilized society. Proponents of death penalty who argue that the modern methods of execution are painless and humane cannot be more wrong. There have been countless recorded cases of botched executions. Instances of unqualified staff cutting into the arms of prisoners when they have been unable to locate a vein for giving the lethal injection are common. Other methods of execution such as hanging, electrocution, and gas chamber are even more cruel and often lead to slow and agonising deaths. Hanging, for example, can sometimes 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 excruciating pain suffered during the killing.

Another reason why capital punishment is wrong is because death is irreversable, human justice is fallible and criminal proceedings would always be prone to errors. There have been several cases of sentencing to death before evidence proving their innocence was uncovered. Since 1973 alone, 119 people in 25 USA states have been released from death row when evidence of their innocence came to light. ("Capital Punishment" Wikipedia) Others, not so lucky, have been executed before evidence clearing them was discovered. James Adams, a Black American, who was executed in Florida on May 10, 1984 for the 1973 murder of one Edgar Brown, is a pertinent case in point. Mr. Adams was most probably an innocent man who was put to death before he and his attorneys had a chance to prove his innocence. (Baird and Rosenbaum, 97-100)