Essay Example on Death Penalty: Morality of Punishment in the US

The death penalty in the United States, also known as capital penalty, is a practice sanctioned by the government whereby the state puts an individual to death as a punishment for a crime. This can be done by hanging, electrocution, or by a firing squad. There are currently many arguments in the United States on both sides of the issue as to whether the death penalty is a morally permissible form of punishment. The death penalty is the objective punishment for a person who is considered to be a safety threat to the society, and who has been legally convicted. However, the state is obliged to respect the rights of its citizens and should not deprive them of their right to life. The use of the death penalty as a punishment form is not effective and should be dropped.

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One of the disadvantages of the death penalty that is argued out by utilitarian philosophers is that it is too costly. Compared to its closest alternative, which is a life sentence with no parole, the death penalty is much more expensive. According to Vaughn, compared to other murder trials, capital trials are longer and more expensive, involving pre-trial motions, expert witness investigations, selection of a jury, and the need for two trials (671). Besides, most of these capital trials result in a life sentence rather than capital punishment, and the state ends up paying for the cost of life imprisonment on top of the expensive trials.

Another con of the death penalty is that the lack of resources during the trial could lead to the difference between the guilt and the innocence of a person. According to Fagan, the innocence or guilt of a person is not always shown by the death penalty, but rather, shows how much the person is willing to spend in helping the trial go their way (19). To those who cannot afford the evidence they need to set them free, the death penalty is an unfair system, and that makes it a corrupt form of legal justice.

Thirdly, the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights when it is implemented. That is, according to Amnesty International, that goes ahead to state that the death penalty is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by a state in the name of justice. Such an act violates the right to life, which is clearly stated in all the legal statutes and laws of the land. It is an ultimate inhumane, cruel, and degrading punishment, and there can never be any justification for cruel treatment or torture. The definition of justice can be a very tricky component, and how a society chose to punish its offenders is a major reflection of them than it is the choices made by the criminals. When the life of someone gets spared, even if the person took the life of another person, it takes revenge out of the scenario. By definition, to be pro-life means that a person must be for every life, and taking the life of another because of a wrong they committed disqualifies it.

Fourthly, with the death penalty in place, there may still be no deterrence to crime. In practice, the death penalty does more harm than good, and whereas many people still tend to hand on to their beliefs, society is a better off place without capital punishment. The better alternative is life in prison without parole, done in a maximum-security detention facility. There are five specific conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis of data between states that exercise the death penalty as a punishment form, and those that do not. First, states with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those that do not have. Secondly, the local decisions by criminals to break the law are not impacted by national trends, whether there is the death penalty or not. Thirdly, there is no apparent correlation between changes in murder rates and the death penalty. Again, the death penalty is not proportionately or effectively applied, and that is evident from relating the number of murder cases and executions that occur in the United States. For example, in 2014, the United States had 14,000 murders, but only 35 executions took place.

The other disadvantage of the death penalty is that it is rife with ethnic and racial discrimination, so much that more than 38 states in the US have disbursed commissions to conduct investigations on such biases. According to Peffley and Hurwitz, the death rows are majorly populated with African Americans, whose numbers are far much in excess of their proportions in the general population (997). Whereas such statistics cannot be used in fully justifying that the system is racially discriminatory, they are a clear lead to the essential perception of racial discrimination on many people, especially those of African origin. Besides, there is now a new consensus that proves that black assailants that are convicted of killing whiles are most likely to be executed than those who are convicted of killing minorities. And many of such bias is more understated, for example, the jury bleaching practice, whereby African Americans get dismissed from jury pools by district attorneys in capital cases for reasons, and that is not cause. The capital punishment discriminatory nature is, in other words, more than mere perception, but a reality.

Lastly, a family member of those who are convicted through the death penalty gets severely impacted. According to Liptak, family members have higher levels of mental, behavioral, and physical health problems when they go through the process of capital punishment after their loved one becomes a victim, compared to when the perpetrator receives a life sentence in prison (3). Even if this does not occur in every circumstance, some members of the family may feel responsible for the fact that the government is putting their members to death.

There are arguments by proponents that death sentence is the best option as it guarantees that the person will no longer harm others. in as a much as that could be true, that the person will no longer harm others, other factors have to be considered rather than taking such a short-cut like an argument. There are those who are left behind who will be harmed by the act of killing their loved ones, and many families do not feel the sense of satisfaction with such an act.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the use of the death penalty as a punishment form is not effective and should be dropped. Compared to its closest alternative, which is a life sentence with no parole, the death penalty is much more expensive. Besides, the lack of resources during the trial could lead to the difference between the guilt and the innocence of a person. The death penalty is also the ultimate denial of human rights when it is implemented. Again, with the death penalty in place, there may still be no deterrence to crime. It is also riffed with ethnic and racial discrimination.

Works Cited

Fagan, Jeffrey. "Public Policy Choices on Deterrence and the death Penalty: A Critical Review of New Evidence." Testimony Before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts Legislature on House Bill 3834 (2005). Retrieved from https://files.deathpenaltyinfo.org/legacy/files/pdf/MassTestimonyFagan.pdf

Liptak, Adam. "Does the death penalty save lives? A new debate." (2007). Retrieved from http://tony-silva.com/download/deathpenaltystudy-nyt.pdf

Peffley, Mark, and Jon Hurwitz. "Persuasion and resistance: Race and the death penalty in America." American Journal of Political Science 51.4 (2007): 996-1012. Retrieved from http://fbaum.unc.edu/teaching/articles/AJPS-20007-Peffley.pdf

Vaughn, Lewis. Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton & Company, 2015.