Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, more commonly know as the death penalty, has been a fixture in society, dating back to the earliest of civilizations, and continues to be used as a form of punishment in certain countries today. The Eight Amendement of the U.S. Constitution proclaims the right of evey individual to protection
from deprivation of life by stating that no one shall be subjected to cruel and degrading punishment. Today, there remain several arguments that may be used against cpital punishment, such as the fact that it has not been proven to deter criminals from commiting capital offenses. Anothere keen argument is that
when executing the alleged, there is always a slight possibility of their innoocence. The death penalty should be abolished because it has been forbisdden by the U.S. Constitution as a form of cruel and unusual punishment, it has no proof of acting as a deterrent, and it risks teh injustice of innocent people.
The Eighth Amendement clearly states that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.” The methods of inforcing capital punishment have ranged from beheading in France eo those methods used today, such as hanging,electrocution, lethal injection, and the gas chamber. During regular executions things have been known to go wrong and the offender is put through a great deal of pain. In 1983, for example Joseph Tafero was strapped to the electric chair, alive, for a full six minutes before flames began shooting out of his head (The Bureau of Justice Statistics ).
No matter what technique is used, the death penalty is a form of cruel punishment that takes the life of a human being; this cannot be justified.
The most severe probem that comes with capital punishment is that innocent people continue to be sentenced to death and executed. For example, Donald Marshall spent 11 years in prison before being exonerated. In the United States, one study suggested that in the past 200 years over 340 people have been convicted of a crime they did not commit and 25 have been executed (Death Penalty Information Center).
The death penalty, unlike other punishments does not give us a chance to correct mistakes. If the innocent person has been electrocuted, shot, gassed, or poisoned, there is no way to take back what has
been done; dead people cannot stand up and leave.
Contruary to popular belief, capital punishment does not act as a deterrent to crime. A September 2000 New York Times survey found that during the last 20 years, the homocide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48 to101 percent higher than in states without the death penalty. This applies for non death penalty countries as well. For example, while Canada has not had n execution since 1972, the U.S. has executed over 1, 000 people in that time. Canada’s experience suggests that ending executions has led to a drop in murder(Statistics Canada).
Also, the threat of execution at a future dat is unlikely to enter the minds of those acting under the influence of drugs and alcohol, those who are panicking while commiting another crime, or those who suffer from mental illness and do not understand the dravity of their crime.
Although capital punishment has been a fixture in society since early civilizations, its use in different countries around the world has been declining. Today, there are too many flaws in the death penalty, therefore the only reasonable solution is to have it abolished. The Constitution clearly states that everybody deserved “life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness;” by killing a human being this cannot be attained. Capital punishment does not prottect the innocent from the guilty, it kills the innocent and protects the guilty. Capital punishment does not deter crime, it provokes it.America, among oother countries, like our own is guilty of commiting capital crimes by the use of the death penalty. Therefore what, as a society, a country, and a world, is our pounishment?