Abolishing Capital Punishment: Arguments Against the Death Penalty
This paper presents a multi-faceted argument for abolishing capital punishment in the United States. It challenges common justifications for the death penalty — including its supposed deterrent effect and the notion that it brings closure to victims' families — and examines the troubling execution of mentally disabled individuals and juvenile offenders. Drawing on polling data, Supreme Court rulings, AAMR guidelines, and personal testimony from victims' family members, the paper argues that capital punishment is arbitrary, morally indefensible, and disproportionately applied to the poor, minorities, and the mentally impaired. The risk of executing innocent people further undermines any justification for state-sanctioned killing.
- Introduction: Killing Is Killing: Thesis: government execution is morally equivalent to murder
- Deterrence and Closure: Challenging Common Justifications: Data undermines deterrence and closure arguments for death penalty
- Executing Juveniles and the Mentally Disabled: Case examples of illegal executions of minors and disabled individuals
- Legal Standards and the AAMR Criteria: AAMR defines mental retardation across three legal criteria
- Wrongful Executions and the Risk of Killing the Innocent: Innocent people executed; DNA evidence exposes justice system failures
- Conclusion: Execution Is Not the Answer: Social reform, not execution, is the answer to violent crime
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper integrates multiple types of evidence — polling data, Supreme Court rulings, AAMR criteria, and first-person victim testimony — to build a layered, multi-pronged argument rather than relying on a single line of attack.
- The inclusion of Marietta Jaegar's personal statement grounds the abstract policy debate in genuine human experience, making the emotional stakes concrete and memorable.
- The paper anticipates and addresses counterarguments (e.g., those who believe mentally retarded individuals understand right from wrong), which strengthens its credibility and demonstrates awareness of the opposing view.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of the concession-and-rebuttal technique. Rather than ignoring the pro-death-penalty position, it grants that most Americans support capital punishment and then systematically dismantles each rationale — deterrence, closure, and moral retribution — with specific evidence. This structure models how to engage opposing views fairly while still advancing a clear thesis.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a bold thesis framing execution as morally equivalent to murder. It then addresses the two most popular public justifications (deterrence and closure) before pivoting to its most detailed section: the execution of mentally disabled individuals, including AAMR criteria and specific case examples. A shorter section addresses wrongful convictions and DNA evidence, and the conclusion ties the threads together with a broader social critique. The structure moves from public perception to legal specifics to moral philosophy.
Introduction: Killing Is Killing
Each year, quite a few people in this country and around the world die as a result of violent crimes, and each year a handful of the people who commit those crimes also die. The only difference is that in the case of the criminals, the government makes the decision and chooses the means of execution. Killing is killing regardless of who does it; therefore, those who kill criminals are no better than the criminals themselves. The death penalty is an abhorrent, barbaric practice from the days of kings, queens, and sorcerers, and it should be abolished immediately.
Deterrence and Closure: Challenging Common Justifications
Most Americans today believe in the death penalty because they believe it deters violent crime. Statistics, however, show that law enforcement does not agree. A poll taken of police chiefs across the United States only a few years ago showed that expanding the death penalty ranked last among suggestions to reduce violent crime (Robinson, 2002). Numerous other surveys show that the death penalty is no greater deterrent to violent crime than a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Most Americans also believe that the death penalty brings some measure of closure to the families of victims of violent crime, but most family members who are willing to comment on the issue feel that wishing for someone to die does not help them heal. The death of the criminal only causes another family to grieve, instead of helping the family of the victim to stop grieving. Most victims' families would rather work on moving forward with their lives and dealing with their pain than wait to see whether the murderer of a loved one will be executed. Fighting for an execution is a constant reminder to these people that they have lost someone to senseless and tragic violence.
Allowing the death penalty to continue is allowing human beings to play God. One of the Ten Commandments says "thou shalt not kill," and while this should certainly apply to the person who committed the crime, it should also apply to our government. Most people who believe in the Christian God believe that before we are born, our whole life — including when we will die — is determined. In the case of violent crime, although it seems extremely tragic and unfair, one theological view holds that it was simply that person's time to die. When the person who committed the crime is executed, he dies before his determined time, and the government has taken over the role of God. Even those who argue that predetermination makes the criminal's execution his appointed time of death still have difficulty explaining why they are going against one of the Ten Commandments.
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