This essay examines the ongoing debate over capital punishment in the United States by presenting arguments both in favor of and against the practice. Drawing on Ernest van den Haag's defense of the death penalty as a deterrent and just retribution, and Jack Greenberg's critique of its arbitrary application, the paper explores the tension between moral justification and practical failures of the system. It also addresses constitutional concerns raised under the Eighth Amendment, landmark court rulings, DNA exonerations, racial disparities in sentencing, and international trends in abolition, ultimately arguing that the death penalty is a barbaric practice that risks executing innocent people.
The paper demonstrates effective use of counterargument and rebuttal structure. By first presenting van den Haag's pro-death-penalty arguments in detail — deterrence, retributive justice, and the rarity of wrongful execution — and then systematically countering them with Greenberg's critique and judicial rulings, the paper models how to engage opposing viewpoints charitably before dismantling them.
The essay opens with a thesis-driven introduction, then devotes several paragraphs to the strongest pro-capital-punishment arguments (deterrence, retribution, social order). It pivots to opposition arguments grounded in constitutional law, federal court rulings, and empirical evidence of wrongful convictions. The final section widens the lens to racial disparities, DNA exonerations, and global abolition trends before concluding. The structure follows a classic argument-counterargument-evidence pattern suited to a persuasive essay.
The death penalty is a subject of heated debate across the United States. Each side of the issue, whether for or against, firmly believes in its convictions. Those who advocate the death penalty believe that it is a just punishment for heinous crimes and necessary in a civilized society. However, one must ask: how civilized is a society that resorts to the death penalty as punishment? The death penalty is a barbaric practice that all too often results in the execution of the innocent.
There are numerous arguments justifying the death penalty, the strongest being deterrence and retribution. In a 1986 Harvard Law Review article, Ernest van den Haag defended the practice of capital punishment. According to Haag, there is an average of 20,000 homicides per year in the United States, fewer than 300 convicted murderers are sentenced to death, and no more than thirty murderers have been executed in any recent year — meaning most murderers sentenced to death will likely die of old age (Haag). Arguing against the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, Haag cited a survey by Professors Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael Radelet, who found that of the 7,000 persons executed in the United States between 1900 and 1985, only 35 were innocent of capital crimes (Haag). Therefore, Haag and other advocates believe that "miscarriages of justice are offset by the moral benefits and the usefulness of doing justice" (Haag).
Haag, like others, believes that due to the finality of the death penalty, it is more feared than imprisonment and thus deters some prospective murderers who would not be deterred by the prospect of imprisonment (Haag). Therefore, if the death penalty deters even a few murders and spares the life of even one victim, then it is justified and of value to society (Haag).
According to Haag, punishment, regardless of motivation, "is not intended to revenge, offset, or compensate for the victim's suffering, or to be measured by it, but is to vindicate the law and the social order undermined by the crime" (Haag). This, says Haag, is why a kidnapper's imprisonment is not limited to the period for which he imprisoned his victim, nor is a burglar's confinement meant to offset the suffering and harm caused to his victim or the advantage the burglar gained (Haag).
To those who believe that by executing a murderer society is encouraging, endorsing, and legitimizing unlawful killing, Haag responds that "although all punishments are meant to be unpleasant, it is seldom argued that they legitimize the unlawful imposition of identical unpleasantness" (Haag). Society does not believe that imprisonment legitimizes kidnapping or that fines legitimize robbery (Haag). As Haag explains:
"The difference between murder and execution, or between kidnapping and imprisonment, is that the first is unlawful and undeserved, the second a lawful and deserved punishment for an unlawful act. The physical similarities of the punishment to the crime are irrelevant. The relevant difference is not physical, but social." (Haag)
Haag and other advocates feel the death penalty is a right and just punishment for murderers and a useful practice for society.
Jack Greenberg, writing in the same 1986 Harvard Law Review, argued that "America simply does not have the kind of capital punishment system contemplated by death penalty partisans" (Greenberg). Greenberg contends that the system of capital punishment results in infrequent, random, and erratic executions, and "clearly fails when measured against the most common justifications for the infliction of punishment, deterrence, and retribution" (Greenberg). Regarding the deterrence argument, Greenberg responds that the majority of killers do not engage in a cost-benefit analysis, because murderers are impulsive people who kill impulsively and do not weigh the options of punishment. Therefore, the deterrence argument is flawed because it "rests upon a quite implausible conception of how this killer population internalizes social norms" (Greenberg).
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