FREE ESSAY ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Capital Punishment?
The question as to whether the state has the right to execute a person found guilty of
murder has been debated at length for decades. As with the subject of abortion, it is one
of the most controversial topics of discussion in our country today. According to the
website religious tolerance.org. about 60 to 80% of American adults say they want to
retain capital punishment ( 2). In fact, there are only 12 states that have chosen not to
enact the death penalty since the ruling of the Supreme Court in 1976 that said it was
constitutionally permissible to have capital punishment (Bonner 1). This strikes me as
being rather odd since a large number of those same people claim to be Christians and the
main thrust of Christianity is love and forgiveness, not vengeance. At the same time, a
number of Christians are opposed to abortion, but are in favor of the death penalty. This
belief does not make sense to me; if the life of the unborn is considered precious, then
all life should be considered precious, including those who have allegedly committed
terrible crimes. Opponents of the death penalty believe that the death penalty is a form
of cruel and unusual punishment, is racially biased, can often times be meted out to an
innocent person, and is not a deterrent against future murders.
Let us begin by first dealing with the issue of the death penalty as being a form of
cruel and unusual punishment. Are there terrible murders being committed in this country
today? Absolutely. And should these murderers be brought to justice? Here again, I would
say without hesitation, of course. However, I do not know how you can execute a person
for committing murder, thereby committing the same act that he is condemned for. In other
words, murder is murder, whether it be by an individual or by the state. Murder is often
a crime of passion and not a preplanned act. Can you say the same thing about executing
someone either by the electric chair or injection? The end result is the same, a person
is dead, and it is very much a premeditated act carried out in a very mechanical,
systematic way. In some respects, capital punishment is no better than the actions of a
serial killer; it is killing for the sake of killing. I feel that if a person is deemed
to be a threat to society then he should be removed from society and not be permitted to
live in society. When you make a man or a woman sit for years on death row, not knowing
from one day to the next if they will live or die, then I feel that this is cruel and
unusual punishment. According to human rights activist Stephen Bright, "Life is the most
fundamental human right there is, the death penalty is like torture - it's beyond the
pale. Most people say it's not right to cut a thief's fingers off but it's ok to cut off
their head?" (Beaudoin 3). 
The next argument that proponents of the death penalty will espouse is that the death
penalty is a deterrent to future murders. Interestingly enough there are many district
attorneys who do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder, and who are
opposed to the death penalty. These are people who deal with murderers and other
criminals every day. In the New York Times Special Report, this article indicates that 10
of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national
average, while Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, that half the states with the
death penalty have homicide rates above the national average (Bonner 1). 
As I stated before, the majority of murders are not preplanned, so how can they be
prevented? This opinion is substantiated by Mr. John O'Hair, the district attorney from
Detroit who states, "I do not think that the death penalty is a deterrent of any
consequence in preventing murders." Most homicides, he said are "impulsive actions,
crimes of passion, " in which the killers do not consider the consequences of what they
are doing." Even though Detroit has a very high murder rate, he does not feel that
capital punishment is the answer (Bonner 4). Why then, do most people feel that capital
punishment is the answer to the rising crime rate in the United States? I believe that
fear is an underlying reason. The public sees a steady barrage of stories on television
and in the newspapers daily about heinous murders, and the media seems to like to tell
all the gory details. People just want to be rid of these killers so they can feel safe
again. However, the problem is that a story told on the television or in the newspapers
does not always tell both sides of the story - sometimes they don't know both sides - and
often times a person is tried and convicted by the press before he even goes to trial. I
have been on a jury and I know that the public is not aware of all circumstances and
evidence that a jury is privy to in a trial.
This brings me to my next argument in opposition to the death penalty, the possibility
that an innocent person may be condemned to death and be executed for a crime that he has
not committed. Some people would argue that with our system of appeals this could not
happen, but it has happened and continues to happen. Fortunately, with the discovery of
DNA testing, innocent men have been proven innocent after spending years in prison for a
crime they haven't committed. An example of this was illustrated in an article from the
Washington Post regarding a recent book written by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim
Dwyer in which they tell of a man by the name of Robert Miller from Oklahoma who spent
nine years on death row for the rape and murder of a 92 year old woman. Even when testing
of his DNA proved without a doubt that he could not possibly have been the man who raped
and murdered this old woman, prosecutors refused to release him from jail. It wasn't
until a determined defense attorney pursued the matter and was able to establish his
innocence and another man was indicted that he was finally released (Will 1). Is this a
fluke or an unusual case? Not according to the Denver Post who also reported on the same
book as illustrated above. Over the past decade, 67 innocent people have been released
from prison since DNA evidence has been used. There was even one man, Ron Williamson, who
was just five days away from execution, when he was granted a stay from the state, and he
was eventually released (Rosenberg). Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. The facts
speak for themselves. Innocent people have been convicted of crimes that they haven't
committed and common sense would have to have you believe that there have been people
executed for crimes they haven't committed. 
How can something like this happen? For one thing, unfortunately, our justice system is
not always fair. If you have the resources to hire a high priced attorney, then the
chances of your either being acquitted or being handed a lesser sentence, or in some
cases, probation are probably much higher. The O.J. Simpson trial proved that point. Even
with the overwhelming amount of evidence that the prosecution had available, they were
not able to convict O.J. Simpson. The prosecution was not able to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that O.J. Simpson had indeed killed his wife and Ron Goldman. The
defense had so much capital at its disposal that they were able to call in expert
witnesses to shed doubt on the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses and the
evidence. Had O.J. Simpson been a black man of average or below average means in the
United States, he would never have been acquitted. In the article "The Death Penalty in
Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides" the author tells of studies conducted in
the city of Philadelphia concerning the increased risks for blacks facing the death
penalty. The evidence revealed that more than half of the death sentences meted out in
Pennsylvania were from cases in Philadelphia, and that 83% of those on death row from
Philadelphia are African-American. The article goes on to show that blacks in
Philadelphia were more likely to get the death penalty than other defendants who
committed similar murders (Dieter 4,5).
I ask you, how can we possibly continue to have capital punishment, when there are so
many problems, not only with the system itself, but also in the way justice is meted out.
I think it would be better to sentence a man to life in prison without chance of parole
than to take the chance of even one innocent man being executed. At least that way, if he
is innocent, he would have the opportunity to prove his innocence. Upon researching this
subject, I was extremely disturbed to find that the United States is one of the few
countries that still has the death penalty. We really need to take another look at our
justice system and try to bring about changes. The answer to society's problems is not to
just get rid of those people we believe are a threat to our security, but try to get to
the root of the problem. If we don't, there are always going to be others who will take
the place of those we have executed. 
Works Cited
Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford. "Absence of Executions" New York Times - 22 Sept.,
2000.
*http://eyore.lcspub.psu.edu.2065/universe/document
Capital Punishment; The Death Penalty - All Sides to the Topic
*http://www.religioustolerance.org/execute.htm
Dieter, Esq., Richard C. The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, 
Who Decides. June 1998
*http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/racerpt.html.
Rosenberg, Paul. "Making a Case to Stop Convicting the Innocent" Denver Post, 
Denver, Colo. 22 April, 2000
Will, George F. "Innocent on Death Row" The Washington Post 6 April ,2000
Bibliography
Works Cited
Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford. "Absence of Executions" New York Times - 22 Sept.,
2000.