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.
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.
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.
The United States prohibits the execution of anyone who was under eighteen at the time of their crime, or who is mentally disabled, or both. Laws are in place that are supposed to prevent those kinds of executions from taking place in any state. Even so, in 1999 Oklahoma executed a man for a crime he committed when he was only sixteen, even though the judge had determined that he was severely mentally impaired and in need of help with his mental problems at the time the crimes were committed (Human, 1999).
In 1992, a man with an IQ in the high sixties to low seventies — depending on the specific test administered — was executed in Arkansas (Derbyshire, 2000). The Arkansas man was mentally impaired to the point that he asked death row staff to set aside the dessert from his last meal so he could eat it after his execution. He had no realization that he would not be coming back; that he was going to die in a few minutes. It is widely understood that the average IQ is around 100 to 110 on a standard test. This man was considered "educably mentally retarded," yet was still killed by the state of Arkansas (Derbyshire, 2000). This was a seemingly arbitrary decision.
People who are children when they commit violent crimes are clearly not mentally equipped to make the same choices that adults can, and neither are the mentally disabled, regardless of age. While this does not make the commission of such crimes acceptable, it does imply that the crimes of a child or a mentally impaired individual should be considered in a different and more lenient way than the crimes of a mature adult with an average IQ.
Is the execution of mentally disabled individuals right? That depends on who you ask, and it is an important question because it is one of the most significant concerns regarding the death penalty today. Some people believe that anyone who commits a terrible crime — such as premeditated murder — should be executed regardless of age or mental capacity. These are the kinds of people who also believe that mentally disabled individuals understand right from wrong as easily as people of typical intelligence do, and that a 13- or 14-year-old child fully knows what they are doing when they kill someone. They may have some awareness of what they have done, but they do not truly understand the concept and its consequences. That understanding comes later in life. In the case of people with severe intellectual disabilities, who function at the level of a young child, that understanding may never come at all.
Others believe that execution is wrong under any circumstances. The taking of even one human life should not be condoned, no matter what the crime was. These people believe that everyone deserves a second chance and that everyone can be rehabilitated.
Somewhere between these two positions lies the question of whether people who were under 18 at the time of their crime, or who have intellectual disabilities, should be executed. In 1989, only two states specifically outlawed the death penalty for anyone suffering from mental retardation. All other death penalty states had no provisions against it, and the Constitution did not prohibit it either.
In June 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that inflicting the death penalty on anyone with mental retardation violated the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Since that ruling, 18 states adopted laws forbidding the execution of mentally disabled individuals, but not all states chose to follow suit (American, 2002).
According to the American Association for Mental Retardation (AAMR), the execution of a mentally disabled person is wrong and should not happen. The AAMR is not looking for loopholes in the justice system to classify nearly anyone as mentally retarded in order to save them from death, nor is it fighting to abolish the death penalty entirely. Their position statement on mental retardation states, among other things, that the execution of a mentally retarded individual does not serve justice (AAMR, 2001).
It is a sad reflection on society to see children and young adults grow up in prison, only to be executed when they are deemed old enough. They spend years waiting for the end, and some — like the Arkansas man — do not even understand what is going to happen to them when the state determines that they are guilty and that the death penalty is the appropriate sentence. It is truly tragic to see mentally impaired individuals who do not understand what they did wrong, or who do not comprehend that they are going to be killed for their crimes, led to the electric chair or given a lethal injection, rather than receiving the help they need to cope with their mental conditions.
"AAMR defines mental retardation across three legal criteria"
"Innocent people executed; DNA evidence exposes justice system failures"
When one looks at the big picture, it is terrible that society has to live with violent crime, and that people die young or seemingly needlessly, but to deter crime there must be a system that works. Better jobs, less drug abuse, and a stronger economy are all things that demonstrably reduce crime. Taking another human being's life — even under the pretext of justice — is wrong. So is the killing of innocent people who were wrongly accused. One innocent life taken is one too many. Execution is simply not the answer.
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