The death penalty an assessment 16.05.

2015
by Michelle Acosta

I hope that one day we can look back on the evil that we're doing right now like the witches
we burned at the stake
-Thomas Barefoot
(executed the 30.
October 1984)
When people think of the death penalty, one of three things comes to mind.
Number one, the cold-blooded witch hunts which took place between the fifteenth and the
eighteenth century, number two, the unfortunate and cruel executions of innocent people by
terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and number three, the executions by death penalty which
continue to take place in the USA, the most recent having taken place only four days ago.
Some may argue that the difference between the first two and the latter, is that both the witch
hunts and the executions by terrorists were unquestionably cruel, savage and therefore
unacceptable by our civilized society today, while the executions by death penalty are a means
of justice which our so-called civilized society should be willing to accept.
However, others find such arguments hypocritical, since justifying execution is exactly what
witch-hunters did back in less civilized times. In short, we claim to have evolved into a more
civilized race, but really, we have only found more sophisticated names for the cruel things we
do.
Several aspects of the death penalty must be taken into consideration in order to be able to
form a consistent opinion concerning the matter.
Supporters of the death penalty state that innocent people are only safe from serious
offenders, once these have been executed, as offenders can otherwise be let out on parole or
even escape their prisons. No one can guarantee that someone who's murdered another
person won't do it gain. Innocent lives may be spared, if dangerous murderers are sentenced
to death the first time they're convicted. Besides, knowing one less murderer is out on the
streets contributes to soothing the public.
Nevertheless, surely, knowing that a dangerous murderer is in custody and not to be released
any time soon, must be enough reassurance and the death penalty therefore unnecessary. The
fact that a dangerous murderer, who was supposed to be under surveillance, managed to kill
again, points to a serious gap in the (surveillance)system rather than becoming a further
reason to advocate the death penalty.
In most cases, convicted criminals opt for life-sentences over the death penalty, proving that
the human beings' primal desire to survive plays a big role when punishing and also avoiding
crime. Consequently, it seems only logical to believe that the death penalty can deter crime.
Yet, social science research has proven that the belief that a certain amount of murders is
deterred by each execution is completely mistaken. Indeed, states without death penalty laws
do not have lower crime and murder rates than those with.
Once again, having the death penalty does not make us safer. On the contrary, according to a
new study, four percent of all people executed by death penalty is actually innocent. Four
percent may not sound like that much, but you probably wouldn't want to be among those
people yourself...
That said, the death penalty is both morally unjust as well as discriminative of race and status.
When opponents argue about the immorality of the death penalty, supporters declare that
every human being is responsible for his or her own destiny. According to them, being
sentenced to death is not an act of cruelty that others are inflicting upon you and instead the
consequence of the decisions you have made. You are not being treated like an animal that
lacks moral sense, you are being granted the dignity of having the morale to control your own
fate.
So, perhaps an offender has proven that he is too dangerous to wander about freely and it is
clear that he (or she) must be punished accordingly. If you think about it though, isn't being
condemned to death more humane than life-long imprisonment? There are websites in which
you can look up the last words of those who were sentenced to death. More often than not, you
will find that the convicts sounded almost relieved to be finished with their lives.
Even so, who is the federal government to choose who gets to live and who doesn't? Especially
seeing as the justice system is so flawed. Fifty percent of the people sentenced to death in the
USA are African American even though in total, only thirteen percent of the American
population is made up of African Americans. Not only is it mostly the ethnic minorities that
seem predestined to end up on the death row, it's almost always the people who suffer from
poverty.
Concerning this fact, advocates of the death penalty maintain that if poverty breeds crime, as
the left political party says, and the poor are a disproportionate minority, then minorities will
form a disproportionately large part of those sentenced to death.
What they don't mention is the absence of qualified attorneys at the disposal of the poor who
need them. Of three convictions, two were canceled due to misconduct of authorities and
serious errors by the court-appointed attorneys.
So yes, sadly, money does seem to make out a lot of what your odds are likely to be or, in other
words, equality before the law is nonexistent, which is why you never see millionaires on the
death row.
Also, the fact that sentencing people to death is less expensive than imprisoning them for the
rest of their lives (on the long run), seems to have become a valid argument in the eyes of
those who favor the death penalty. Basically, they'd rather sacrifice human lives they don't
consider worthy, than fund the organizations that would otherwise offer convicts a chance to
redeem themselves and attempt to atone for their crimes.
Retribution is another common argument in the interest of the death penalty supporters. The
an eye for an eye principle is, as stated by them, the only way to appease the people who
lost someone by the hands of a capital offender. This argument is rather absurd, seeing as
killing the person who killed somebody you loved, will not bring the loved one back to life.
Instead, it will make you a murderer as well.
Because that is what approving of the death penalty makes us, murderers.
Retribution is just another word for revenge and the death penalty is just another name for
murder.
Killing capital offenders does not make us any better and certainly not any worthier than them.

Stop the killing!