Death Penalty: A Senseless Polemic

Capital Punishment: A senseless Polemic

Capital Punishment is regarded as one of the United States' hottest topics. Those for and against it constantly debate over the various issues that capital punishment brings forth. This essay explains just a few of these topics and my view on the death penalty.

Many argue that Capital Punishment should be abolished since there are many miscarriages of justice. In his essay "The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense," Ernest Van den Haag uses a survey that indicates that out of the thousands on Death Row, 35 were innocent of capital crimes; even though there may be some miscarriages of justice, we continue to use the Death Penalty because the good greatly outweighs the bad. To add against the unjustices, "Criminal Justice in America," reports from the Death Penalty information Center that 80 have been released from death row due to their innocence. That is 80 unjust lives given the sentence, but how many more lives were saved from the rest given the sentence if the death penalty was abolished? This is how I view those lives, such as Sacco and Vanzetti as well as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, whom may have been innocent - but even if a few innocent may die, we must maintain Capital Punishment intact in order to punish the even many more for the thousands of lives they have so unjustly taken.

As to the deterrence of the Death Penalty, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that it deters. The reason being is because it would be very difficult to ask every individual in our whole country whether or not they have decided not to carry out a murder since there may be a chance of paying with death. However, deterrence may be used to its full potential if every state had Capital Punishment laws; "Capital Punishment: Give it a Chance," makes a great point of this. If consistency were established through our whole country, many would fear the punishment and not commit murder, but the inconsistency as it is right now, many commit a murder since there may be a chance of not getting the sentence, due to its inconsistency of the states. Also, the likelihood of deterrence could be boosted if the lengthy process were shortened, so that possible murderers of the time may witness how executions are a reality.

Life imprisonment instead of death is not enough. When criminals are given a life sentence, they are not totally incapacitated and can still kill again. Approximately 1 in 10 murderers on death row were convicted of a previous killing. Timothy Hancock was convicted in 2000 of a killing in 1990; he strangled his inmate just two years after and was given the death sentence. Another example is Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Perai, who was given life without possibility of parole for 3 killings, but got death when he killed a fellow inmate. Cases such as these prove just how soft our system has become. Since capital punishment was reinstated by Gregg v Georgia, the new death penalty laws require that only cases of murder with special circumstances or aggravating factors are eligible for the death penalty. There is no reason for us to be lenient for countless of murderers and give them life instead of death - many times murderers given a chance to continue living kill again, so rehab is not an option.

It is not cruel and unusual punishment. Many regard the death penalty as barbaric under the "evolving standards of decency," a concept developed by the Trop v Dulles case, and that it is considered by many to be "cruel and unusual punishment" under the eight amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Capital Punishment - in Gregg v Georgia it ruled that capital punishment is allowed; in In re Kemmler, the Court held that the Eighth Amendment did not apply to the states, and the U.S. Supreme Court nevertheless compared electrocution to other methods of execution and attempted to define cruel and unusual methods of execution, writing that such punishments "involve torture or a lingering death, but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution"; and in Wilkerson v Utah the Court ruled that even death by firing squad is