Has anyone asked your views on capital punishment? The words lethal injection, electrocution, and gas chamber are synonymous with the death penalty. Even in today’s society of die-hard liberals, right-winged republicans, and middle of the road democrats the capital punishment argument is still a squeamish topic that incites strong emotional debate from abolitionists and supporters.In an online article titled “The History of the Death Penalty, Part I” it states: The history of the death penalty laws date back as far as the Eighteenth Century B. C.
in the code of king Hammaurabi of Babylon times. (p. 1) Capital punishment appealed to other countries like Rome, Greece, and Britain. These countries had public gatherings that showcased forms of death to include crucifixion, impalement, drowning, boiling, burning, and beheadings for such crimes as witchcraft, treason, stealing, immorality, infidelity, and religion, just to name a few.
During these times, capital punishment happened to men, women and children, regardless of color, class or privilege.The ideology of public executions is discussed in a book by Stuart Banner titled “The Death Penalty: An American History. ” In a review of the book Steven Martinovich states: Up until the early 1900s, executions were public displays that sometimes drew thousands of people to witness the display of state power. Before the executions moved behind the walls of prisons, those public displays were meant to cleanse the community and allow its residents to join in the condemnation of the criminals’ actions.As well as giving criminals an opportunity to repent for their crimes, public executions provided a clear message to potential lawbreakers of what could happen to them if they broke society’s rules. (2002, p.
66) As barbaric as these forms of death may seem, little changed over the course of the next few decades. Although some states abolished the death penalty in the mid-Nineteenth Century, it wasn’t actually until the first half of the Twentieth Century that marked the beginning of the “Progressive Period” of reform in the United States.In the 1970s, at the height of racial inequality and racial discrimination, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment as then practiced was unconstitutional. This ruling was hard felt by constituents in the southern states.
An article by Alan Rogers clearly defines this sentiment: Convinced that the death penalty was a means of reasserting local dominion over their black fellow citizens, white legislators in the South took the lead in restoring the death penalty. In Gregg v. Georgia (1976) the court found the revised death penalty statutes constitutional.State-ordered executions began again in thirty-eight states.
(2000, p. 648) Since this landmark decision, more than 580 people have been executed in the United States. Over fifty percent of those have been killed since 1992. More than three-quarters of all executions since 1976 took place in southern states, with Texas and Virginia respectively holding the number one and two spots with the highest rate of executions. Arguments for both sides of the death penalty can quote biblical, historical, and philosophical reasoning for their views; however, each side is fundamental flawed.What is Capital punishment? Capital Punishment is supposed to deter murder, and is just retribution.
Capital punishment is the execution of criminals by the state for committing crimes regarded so heinous that this is the only acceptable punishment. Capital punishment does not only lower the murder rate but its value as retribution alone is a good reason for handing out death sentences. Most citizens and politicians who support this view believe “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” or promotion of justice for victims of violent or heinous crimes.However some supporters are very concise with their views as quoted by John McAdams at Marquette University: If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murderers, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former.
This to me is not a tough call. (n. d. , p.
1) I could quote or retrieve thousands of articles, books, and newspaper clippings sounding off the pro stance view but what alarms me the most is a quote by Circuit Court Judge – Alex Kozinski that states, “Most of us continue to believe that those who show utter contempt for human life by committing remorseless, premeditated murder justly forfeit the right to their own life. ” (n. d. , p. 1) My interpretation of justice is that a judge is to be impartial at all times, when presiding over capital punishment cases.
Because a judge such as Kozinski is predisposed to favoring the death penalty it makes you wonder about the true impartiality of our legal system.What is the Opposition’s point of view? Most believe that public awareness is the key to showing the issues surrounding the death penalty, such as innocence, fair trials, equitable access to counsel and the appellate process. Overwhelming statistics suggest that race discrimination is still prevalent. In an article titled “Predictors Of Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases,” Harmon-Rotberg suggests that: Racial prejudice has long been part of the debate over the death penalty. Nearly 90 percent of those executed for rape since 1930 were black.
In Georgia, African-Americans convicted of murder are four times more likely to receive the death penalty than their white counterparts.This evidence suggests that in some jurisdictions, actors in the criminal justice system define whites’ lives as more valuable than those of African-Americans. Consequently the notion that race may play a significant role in faulty convictions seems highly plausible. (2004, p. 4) How many innocent victims have died in the name of justice? With advances in technology, in particular DNA testing, a few lives have been spared but at what price? An example of the fatal flaws in the legal system is clearly argued in an article by Victor Beiser titled “Lucky To Be Alive” that states:Many of those who have been exonerated owe their freedom largely to pure luck, often in the form of interested journalists, film-makers or others who bring new attention to the case. Others have been cleared thanks to technology that did not exist at the time of their conviction, notably DNA testing.
Sonia Jacobs spent 16 years in Florida prisons, five of them on death row, after she and her husband were convicted of murdering two police officers. During that time, both her parents died, her children grew up and her husband was executed.Thanks to new evidence turned up by a film-maker who had been her childhood best friend, Jacob’s conviction was overturned in 1992. “I went into prison a mother of two small children, a daughter and a wife,” says Jacobs. “I came out a grandmother, an orphan and a widow.
No one can help me deal with that” (1998, p. 2) Cases like this are prevalent all across the country, primarily in low income neighborhoods, where receiving legal representative is usually in the form of overworked, underpaid public defenders sanctioned by the courts. My view of capital punishment is as complex as the problem.Although I adamantly do not support the execution of innocent people, I do believe that irrefutable evidence against serial killers, serial rapist, and participants of heinous acts of violence should be put to death. Clearly our legal system has flaws regarding capital punishment and with all its checks and balances, we as a society cannot impose the ultimate sanction with a semblance of impartiality or fairness. It’s time for Americans and political figures, no matter how strongly they feel about retribution, to start assessing the death penalty not with their hearts, but with their minds and actively lobby for capital punishment reform.Referenceshttp://www.prodeathpenalty.com/links2.htm
