Critical Thinking Paper: The Death Penalty
The Death Penalty
Augusto Naranjo
Terry Powell CJ1010
24, October 2014
In the pages that follow I will be explaining the Death penalty issues. Detterence, Retribution,
Innocence, Discrimination, Cost, and the Eight Amendment. I will discuss both for and against
for all the issues.
Deterrence
The prevention of future murders. Can we agree that when someone kills another
shouldn’t there be consequences to the same level to the offense?
in 1973 a man of the name Isaac Ehrlich executed a new kind of study which showed
results showing that for every prisoner who was executed because of the death penalty, seven
lives were spared because other people were deterred from committing murder. To me this might
or might not be true. Ever situation is different, I personally am FOR deterence because if this
study is right and even if there is a small chance that this analysis is correct it is enough to me
and more certainly the victim and family that would perish. Can the information be verified? No,
but even if there is a remote chance that it can.. isn’t it worth it. The Death Penalty deters people
from killing because people are most fearful of death, so even if these studies are inconclusive
the Death Penalty is needed in the case of Deterrence.
That being said there are statistics that show the Death penalty is not needed. The Ehrlich
studies that I stated previously have been widely disregarded. A criminologists named William
Bowers of Northeastern University, maintained that the death penalty has the complete opposite
effect. That society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the rate of
more murders to occur. supporters of the death penalty now have little confidence that deterrence
is a serious justification for its continued use in the courts. From what I have read about FOR and
AGAINST, even I have questioned it. I’m a person of statistics and what I read in a article was
really eye opening. “States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally
have lower murder rates than states that do”. When this was said I was surprised because as
much as I think deterrence prevents the murder rates, there are stats like this that make me
rethink my stance.
Retribution
An eye for an eye or death of one for another. When I look at this I think that there is
nothing wrong with it. But I think who am I to say that I’ve never been in this situation in my
life. I think this has to go to the people that are affected by the loss of a loved one.
This plays into so many things, in religion historically “An eye for an eye” is something that has
never been questioned. When you kill someone the balance of society become unbalanced and
for us not to punish someone when they murder someone society questions the people in charge,
are we safe?
Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma City, in a case that showed that Retribution is
needed, is stated as the following "In 1991, a young mother was rendered helpless and made to
watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. The killer should not
lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless
appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die."
Retribution is wrong said by some. those “some” are the people of the family that lost
there loved ones, surprising right? Retribution is wrong because even if you do get an eye for an
eye it does not bring back the person that you lost. The best kind of justice that some families
think is that the accused will have to sit in a cell the rest of his life and have to go through what
they did. Think about what they did to there loved ones and the family of the victim.
Retribution is wrong because there is no mean at times, the balnce that was lost can never be
regained because you have lost someone that will never come back again.
In closing Retribution to me has to lie with the families that lost that person no one else
matters. Retribution is right sometimes in my opinion.
Innocence
Killing an innocent person convicted of murder.
Even the theoretical execution of an innocent person can be justified because the death
penalty saves lives by deterring other killings. There is no real proof that an innocent person has
ever been killed by the death penalty so why should we stall or even let the go. At the beginning
of the paragraph I said that it deters people from killing because even if they are innocent it
deters people from killing. Innocence should not be an excuse unless it is right because since the
1970’s the Death penalty has never killed a innocent person.
But what if they are innocent? usually what happens when a person is without a
reasonable doubt that they are innocent, many appeals are placed and they will get to live in
prison. There have been many people that have been convicted of a crime and released years
later, we can’t make those mistakes. Forget about the compensation they get if they are. You can
never compensate someone for the life that they lost while being locked up. DNA has to play a
pivatle role in Innocence because locking up someone that did not do this is not just wrong it is
against what this society values; justice.
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Arbitrariness & Discrimination
Quality of defense attorney, the location of the trial, the race of the defendant.
We need to be just, everything in a trial is important because so many things play
into effect. The quality of Attorney has to be fair to everyone because it makes no sense that a
really good lawyers find technicalities for one person while another Attorney does nothing to
even remotely help the person in need. More white people are executed by the Death penalty in
this country than black people. Although the courts have shut the door on statistics like this
because you can not rely on that to discredit something due to racial bias. And even if blacks are
poorly represented on death row, proportionately blacks commit more murders than whites. This
is not right, everyone deserves a fair and just trial. Or else what do we stand for in equality for
all.
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Arbitrariness has to come done to the lawyer and the judge. They conduct
themselves with the utmost discretion. We must put our faith in those that we hold high because
then what is our justice system. We keep them employed. History has shown us that we were
wrong and we have learned from those things. Let the courts do what they were intended to do.
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My opinion is as much as the next. Make the trial fair and trust our courts. We
have to believe that the Attorneys, Judges, Jury, etc.. are not discriminating nor Arbitrariness.
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Cost
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The cost of putting someone to death vs life in prison without parole
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Putting someone to death is sometimes the only option society can think of. I
think with the severity of the crime, money should never be a dilemma, we have to do what is
right and not think of ourselves because of the money that we will save because of it. Putting
someone to death is right because after reading several articles we can never be sure. But what
we can be sure is that justice was dealt and after that nothing else matters. But there is more to it
than that. 308,000,000 Dollars is what it takes with all the trials.The death penalty is much more
expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial
process for capital cases. Why don’t we save that money, lock the accused up and spend that
money that would have been spent on things to prevent these things from happening.
If the
death penalty was removed with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole. The public
is protected and all the while making it so the accused is locked up for the rest of his life, the
money that we would save could and hopefully one day be use to actually help our programs in
our communites. Schools, Law enforcement, education, and more importantly the families that
fall victim to help them rehabilitate them after they have lost someone.
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There are pros and cons on both sides of this but really we can only do what we
think is right. What is right? I don’t know. Your opinion matters so lets hear it but let’s not forget
what the COST of all this does to us.
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Eight Amendment
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Cruel and unusual punishment
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Some say the this is unconctitutional, and they are the majority.
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So yes I think that the death penalty is wrong along these lines.
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FOR: When you kill someone you deserve to die. An article states “Court decided in
Trop v. Dulles (356 U.S. 86) that the interpretation of the Eighth Amendment contained an
"evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society.”.What does it
mean? I see it as our civilazation growing and beginning to interpret what our country was
founded on a different way. We have evolved and we have to. The Death penalty is right and it is
constitutional because we are evolving and we have to do what we think is right.
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AGAINST:
Many times There have been excecution where the person has not died. In
Frances v Resweber, the man was jolted with a non-lethal electric charge and they were
debationg on wether they could redo the excecution the courts went for in favor and he was
killed.
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This is wrong because it is cruelty, it is inflicting pain on someone for no reason, this is
not the only time this has happened and definately won’t be the last. Lock them up and let’s do
what we have to live with what our nation was founded on by our Fathers.
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In Closing, the death penalty is a difficult situation and our system is not perfect. I am
for the Death Penalty but am open do other suggestions.
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Work Cited
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http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/