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Capital Punishment6

Capital Punishment6 Capital Punishment was basically thought of for the good of society. The objective of Capital Punishment is to stop people from committing violent and offensive acts. Capital Punishment or the death penalty has failed however, to prevent or discourage crime. Moreover, it is cruel and gruesome. At present there are five methods of execution. The most commonly used form of execution is by lethal injection. In this method the convict is first injected with sodium thiopental, which puts him to sleep, then he is injected with pavulon, which finally kills him. The next most common method of execution used is electrocution in which the person is tied with leather straps to a chair and electric current of two thousand or more volts is passed through the body. The initial shock of the electricity causes the person’s body to surge forward. The shock burns the internal organs of the person, which leaves them dead. During this process urination, vomiting of blood, change in skin color, and even swelling or burning of the skin may occur. This method of execution is currently used by only eleven states. The third method is gas chamber execution in which hydrochloric acid and potassium is used to kill the convict. One of oldest methods of executions is hanging and last method is by shooting (Loeb). All the five methods are inhumane and cruel. The convict dies within a few seconds. He never gets the time to realize his mistake, repent over it or to correct it. Killing that person does not kill crime. So, I do not see any purpose of the death penalty. Instead, if the convict is given the punishment of life imprisonment, he has the time to realize his mistakes and correct it in some form. It he is made to do community service, his labor can be used for some good purpose. Capital Punishment or death penalty by its nature is immoral and shameful. Capital Punishment is not an appropriate way to punish any criminal because no one should have right to take another human's life, be it good or for the bad. Therefore, the state or the government should not posses that right. Therefore it should be abolished. it is unfair , unjust and immoral punishment; risk of being killed an innocent is not ruled out. Capital Punishment is more expensive than life imprisonment. Capital Punishment is cheapens the value of human life; Racism exists in Capital punishment. Capital punishment is a highly controversial and emotional subject. Thus it should be abolished. Capital Punishment is unfair, unjust and immoral. “Elementary justice requires that the judicial functions of trial and sentencing be conducted with fundamental fairness, especially where the irreversible sanction of the death penalty in this world”. (Bedau) There has been good number of evidence to show that courts have been biased, unfair, and some extent discriminative or racially biased. Capital Punishment is unjust to the mentally ill people as well. The people who are legally classified, as mentally retarded should not be executed for their actions because these people do not know what they are doing, and the court system should not take their life away. According to Amnesty international " At least 45 people diagnosed as mentally ill or with mentally retardation have been executed in the US since 1983". (59) I do not see any sense in executing someone who does not understand what he or she has done; it is equivalent to killing a baby. Capital Punishment is a manifestly unfair form of punishment, and for this reason the law of Capital Punishment is unfair and morally wrong and therefore should be abolished from our legal system. If someone has been killed why kill another person for it? Killing is also against the bible and just wrong. If Capital Punishment is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated. People who are found guilty and sentenced to death row can truly be innocent. According to Amnesty International “since 1973 at least 53 men were released from death row in seventeen US States due to significant evidence of their innocence and that some prisoners escaped execution by minutes but 23 were actually executed”(73). Humans are not perfect. People can fall victim to false declarations, mistaken identification, community discrimination, and obligations. These are a few ways in which a person can be found guilty of a crime. Innocent people should not have to experience situations so terrifying, leading them to flip out and go insane. There is no reason for an innocent person to be killed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. “Judging by past experience, a substantial number of death row inmates are indeed innocent and there is high risk that some of them will be executed” (56). Some people are judged by their past and not by the current crime they are indicated of committing and conformation contributed in that particular case. When this happens, a person is wrongly taken into custody for a crime he did not commit and now has to pay for it because of uninformed people who do not believe a person can change their bad way to good ways (Draper 45). It is too expensive to impose the Capital punishment. It prolongs the prosecution and in fact the justice. According to Bedau, Litigation costs - including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs –- are all borne by the taxpayer. A 1982 study showed that were the Capital Punishment to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of life term in prison. (The case, par.50) It is less costly to imprison a criminal for the rest of his life than to execute him. This is because there are at least 28 procedures necessary in reaching a death sentence. The cost of proving the crime and investigation is borne by the state. The proposition to keep a criminal imprisoned for the rest of his life is cheaper than to execute him because a lot extra funds are needed to investigate, prosecute, and appeal capital cases. The spending of huge amount on execution of Capital Punishment is shameful and a big waste. It is disrespectful and immoral too. In Florida, " they spend about 3.2 million on each death row inmate compared to about $535,000 for an average of 40 years for each prisoner sentenced to life"(Bender 136). I believe that if we exchange the Capital Punishment for life in prison with no parole we will save a lot of money. Capital Punishment cheapens the value of human life because it does not give chance to the criminal to improve their life. Capital Punishment in fact increases the danger of repetition. According to some critics of Capital Punishment, “life sentence is actually a harsher penalty for murder than death" (Bender 478). Capital Punishment sends a message to the society that human life no longer deserves respect. The one who created life is the only authority to take it; we do not reserve the right to destroy any creation of the almighty. We can only try to preserve it. So our effort should be to mould a criminal into a good person, and not destroy it. Moreover, statistical confirm that racism exists in the Capital Punishment. Between 1930 and 1976, 455 men were executed for rape, of which 405 (or 90 percent) were blacks. A higher percent of the more often executed than that were executed were juveniles; and blacks were blacks whites without having their conviction reviewed by any higher courts (Bedau 83). Thus more black people are likely to receive the Capital Punishment than white people who may have committed the same crimes. Racism discrimination is generally noticed in case of capital punishment. Racial biased was gun of the ground on which the Supreme Court relied in Furman in ruling the death penalty unconstitutional. Many nations have followed the suit and have eliminated the clauses relating to death penalty from there constitutional and contently from their leally system (Bedau The Case). In spite of everything, Capital Punishment is more humane than life imprisonment. Those in support of Capital Punishment feel that making the prisoner suffer by rotting in jail for the rest of this life is more torturous and inhumane than execution. To sum up the basic views of the proponents, imprisonment is simply not a sufficient safeguard against the future actions of criminals because it offers the possibility of escape and release on parole. " We think that some criminals must be made to pay their crime with their lives, and we think that we, the survivors of the world they violated, may legitimately extract that payment because we, too are their victims"(Bedau 317). At such instances the Capital Punishment would be the best punishment. Gradually, Countries are slowly realizing that the death penalty is not achieving the results and it is morally wrong. The world seems to be realizing that death penalty is not the best way to end crime. So death penalty is becoming less popular day by day. “Today, 28 European courtiers have abolished the death penalty either in law or in practice. In Great Britain, it was abolished in 1971; France abolished it in 1981. Canada abolished it in 1976. The United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that, throughout the world, it is desirable to “progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with at view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment”(57). Furthermore, the U.S is popular for its justice and respect for human life. Death Penalty does not to with this image of our country. So death penalty abolishment is necessary, to stick to our values and morals. Thus, I hope I have sufficiently tried to prove my view that Capital Punishment is not right. Because it is unfair and unjust; innocent people are executed; it is more expensive then life imprisonment. Therefore it is a highly controversial and emotional subject. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1679