Death Penalty Whether Capital Punishment

Death Penalty

Whether capital punishment is a good idea, and whether it is a deterrent to crime, have long been debated by many. There are no easy answers to the questions surrounding capital punishment, because there are many different opinions about whether it works and whether it is morally acceptable. There are many viewpoints, both religious and otherwise, that have significance in the discussion of the death penalty. The purpose of this essay is to argue that the death penalty is not effective for deterring crime and has moral and ethical issues that must be addressed. There are several arguments for this opinion. First, allowing the death penalty to continue is allowing human beings to 'play God.' After all, one of the Ten Commandments says that people should not kill. This should have applied to the person who committed the crime, but it also should apply to the government. They should not have been allowed to kill someone, just because that person was a killer. This makes the government no better than the person that they are choosing to kill.

There are also specific problems with the issue of capital punishment as it pertains to juveniles and the mentally handicapped. In 1999 Oklahoma executed a man for a crime that he committed when he was only sixteen years old. Basically, they kept him in jail until he was an adult so that they could kill him. Not all that long ago, in 1992, a man in Arkansas was executed. He had an IQ of 70. The average IQ is 100, so this man was quite easily judged to be mentally handicapped. When he had his last meal, he asked the staff if they would save his desert for him so that he could have it after his execution. It was obvious that he did not understand the significance of what was about to happen to him, and he did not likely understand what he had done, either. Executing people that were children when their crimes were committed, and executing people who are mentally handicapped, are both strictly prohibited by the United Nations -- but it happens anyway.

Another argument against the death penalty is that everyone makes mistakes. That is not to say that someone who has killed has 'made a mistake' and shouldn't be punished. Rather, it refers to those that decide guilt and carry out executions. People have been executed and later the justice system has discovered that they were innocent. If the court puts a man in prison and later discovers his innocence, he can easily be released. It is tragic, but he is able to get at least some of his life back, largely dependent on how long he was incarcerated. If a man has been executed, however, and then it is discovered that he was innocent, there is no compensation that can be given. His life is already over, and the people that he has left behind are involved in as much pain and grief as the family of the victim. Meanwhile, the real criminal is still out in the world, getting the chance to do harm to others as well. This is not something that happens often, but it has happened in the past. If the death penalty remains in effect, it will quite likely happen again.

Another issue to be considered is that many people who feel that execution brings closure have not talked with the families of the victims. While it is true that quite a few people may experience a sense of relief when the killer of a loved one is caught and punished, it is also true that most of these same people do not want to see that person executed. These survivors of tragedy often feel that killing someone in the name of their loved one would profane the goodness of that loved one's life. There is not much evidence that capital punishment helps anyone, and it does not lower the crime rate.