Death Penalty - Capital Punishment

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Alternatives for capital punishments bring to question whether substitutes for the death penalty would be wise. The main alternative discussed for the death penalty is life in prison without parole. There are a number of factors that result from life without parole that can be said to be beneficial. One point is the certitude of death in prison but in a more humane and appropriate way contrary to being sentenced to death. Life in prison without parole guarantees that a criminal receives an adequate punishment that is prolonged but allows the individual to stay alive and serve a sentence for as long as they live without a chance of being ever released into society. Another key point to note is that capital punishment opens the door for many appeals that are rather lengthy in comparison to life without parole. Instead, the sentence of LWOP will “receieve no special consideration on appeal, which limits the possibility they will be reduced of reserved. A person sentenced to die in prison receives only one automatic appeal, not several” (“The Truth,” n.d.). The most crucial benefit that comes along with LWOP is protection against wrongful execution.

Human judgement is subject to numerous forms of error that are often inevitable. As a result of human error, individuals can be wrongfully convicted and in extreme cases, however not so uncommon, be sentenced to death to later be exonerated. The issue with capital punishment is that in reality when the time comes for an inmate to be executed once the procedure is finalized, there is no going back. Concerns arise when the innocence of an individual whose life was taken away is put to question. According to the study “ Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death”, conducted by four authors, of the 7,482 individuals sentenced to death since 1973 throughout 2004, 1.6 percent were exonerated (Gross, n.d.). This study showed one-hundred-seventeen could have been put to death and have been innocent if they had not been proven innocent in the time frame before their deaths. Some of the factors that contribute to wrongful convictions of those sentenced to the death penalty are lack of eyewitness testimony, heightened publicity, lack of counsel, along with death qualified jurors (“Innocence and, n.d.).

It is evident that capital punishment is a relic, and should be put to an end. Jimmy Dore of The Young Turks makes a point of saying, “We murder murderers because we say it’s a deterrent...they call it an execution, it’s a murder...but we don’t do that with other crimes. We don’t burn down the house of an arsonist, we don’t rape a rapist” (The Young Turks, 2014). The path to capital punishment was paved and formed around ancient codes and as well as beliefs and should no longer be retained in light of the many flaws and issues it produces. Cesare Beccaria offers his main points which are still used today as arguments against the death penalty. According to Beccaria, capital punishment is no deterrent against crime, and is inhumane and unconstitutional. Recent arguments revolve around cost, wrongful convictions and the irreversibility that comes along with capital punishment, human rights, and the substitutes for the death penalty. A combination of Beccaria’s arguments along with points discussed today, together enforce that capital punishment should be abolished.

References

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Cesare Beccaria: Of Crimes and Punishments, Chapter 28. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.constitution.org/cb/crim_pun28.htm

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http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty#early

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