Death Penalty Paper

Death Penalty- Effective Solution or Legalized Interpersonal Violence? Great controversy surrounds the issue of the death penalty, and if/when it is right to use this severe form of punishment. People on both sides of the issue argue vigorously to gain further support for their movements. While opponents of capital punishment are quick to point out that the United States remains one of the few Western countries that continues to support the death penalty, one must remember that Americans are also more likely to encounter violent crime than citizens of other countries since our culture is so full of aggressive cues for people to follow (Brownlee 31). Interpersonal violence is a shockingly common form of crime, and it involves one person unjustly hurting or violating someone in some way. Justice mandates that criminals receive what they deserve, and this idea of reciprocity demands that justice enforcers use violence against a particularly brutal criminal, if of course it is deemed a fit penalty. Thus, each case is unique, and so the punishment must fit the crime. If a burglar deserves imprisonment, then a murderer deserves death (Winters 168). Therefore, I hold the death penalty as a useful crime deterrent rather than an unjust exploitation of interpersonal violence.
The death penalty is not cruel or excessive. Rather, it is a necessary reaction to heinous crimes, and is a most suitable punishment for capital offenders. Seventy-five percent of Americans support the death penalty, according to Turner, because it provides a deterrent to some would-be murderers and it also provides for moral and legal justice (83). Deterrence is a theory that weighs the effectiveness of a punishment (does it reduce the crime rate?) and makes testable predictions, such as the idea that punishment reduces the crime rate compared to what it would be without a credible threat of punishment (Van Den Haag 29). The deterrent effect of any punishment depends on how quickly the punishment is administered, thus in order for the death penalty to be effectual it would need to be carried out soon after conviction ( Worsnop 16). Executions are so rare and delayed for so long in comparison to the number of capitol offenses committed that statistical correlations cannot be expected (Winters 104). So, one cannot judge the deterrent nature of the death penalty since it is often long-delayed.
The number of potential murders that are deterred by the threat of a death penalty may never be known, just as it may never be known how many lives are saved with it. However, it is known that the death penalty does definitively deter those who are executed. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is the alternative to execution presented by those that consider words to equal reality. People argue that a life sentence may actually be more agonizing, and a greater punishment for ruthless killers. I beg to differ. Nothing prevents the people sentenced in this way from being paroled under later laws or later court rulings. Some criminals are very good at finding loopholes, especially if they have a lifetime to research. Futhermore, nothing prevents them from escaping or killing again while in prison. After all, if they have already received the maximum sentence available, they have nothing to lose. For example, in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court banished the death penalty. Following the lead of other states, Texas commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment. According to Winters, after being released into the general prison population, twelve of the forty-seven prisoners that received commuted sentences were responsible for twenty-one serious violent offenses against other inmates and prison staff. One of the commuted death row prisoners killed a fellow inmate, and another killed a girl within one year of his parole release (21). This does not imply that every death row inmate would kill again if released, but they do tend to be repeat offenders.
The occurrence of repeat offenders is a huge problem that society faces because it tells the story of an incompetent justice system. Criminals who have not been rehabilitated are being released, and since they have not learned from their mistakes, it is likely that they will strike again. Winters states that over forty percent of the individuals on death row in 1992 were on probation, parole, or pretrial release at the time that they murdered (107). Society has a right and a duty to demand a terrible punishment for a terrible crime. According to Walter Burns, an eloquent defender of the death penalty, execution is the only punishment that can remind people of the moral order that human beings alone live by (Hertzburg 4). Van Den Haag states that the desire to see crime punished is felt because the criminal gratifies his desires by means that the non-criminal has restrained from using. The punishment of the criminal is necessary in order to justify the restraint of the non-criminal (30). Society has a moral obligation to see that civil government punishes all criminals, and this calls for the use of capital punishment.
Executing capital offenders helps to balance the scales of moral justice. The death penalty is religiously permissible according to certain passages in the Old Testament, particularly in the eye for an eye teaching advocated in Matthew 5:38. God requires capital justice for premeditated murder when there is no doubt of the guilt of the accused person. This is the one crime in the bible for which there is no restitution possible (Winters 64). The Constitution of the United States also supports the death penalty. Norton quotes James Madison, author of the Bill Of Rights: The Fifth Amendment states ‘no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law' . The Eighth Amendment states that ‘cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted' (A-14). Since both of these amendments were enacted on the same date in 1791, it can be safely assumed that executing someone for a capital offense does not qualify as cruel or unusual punishment as long as the individual has not been deprived of life without due process of the law.
The majority of death sentences are not carried out until all appeals are exhausted, which generally takes several years, if not decades. This long process guarantees that the accused receives due process. In 1974, lawmakers authorized the death penalty for airline hijackings that result in death, and in 1988 they extended the penalty to certain drug trafficking homicides. The crime bill passed in the summer of 1994 approved the death penalty for dozens of new or existing federal crimes, for example: treason, genocide, death caused by train wreck, lethal drive-by shootings, civil rights murders, and gun murders committed during a federal drug felony or violent felony.
A majority of states have reinstated capital punishment laws since the U.S. Supreme Court banished it in 1972 and reinstated it a few years later. Executions make sure that murderers suffer punishment that is proportionate for their offense. Some might argue that it is wrong, however, and just an extension of interpersonal violence in which authority figures use their power and influence to control and hurt (kill) another person. However, if it is wrong to impose the death penalty on murderers, then it would be wrong to forceably take back what a robber took by force. It would be wrong to imprision someone that illegally imprisoned someone else (kidnapper). It would also be wrong for the police to drive over the speed limit to pursue someone who was recklessly speeding. I am certain that few people would consider these examples mentioned to be unjust, yet when a criminal commits the most severe of crimes, society sometimes cuts him too much slack. He gets the same punishment as lower level criminals, yet he has carried out the ultimate evil. Thus, my belief is that the death penalty is a deserved and just punishment for murder. It does deter some murders, which saves an unknown number of innocent lives everyday. Though I must admit that the death penalty is a form of aggressive, violent behavior, it is still necessary because the individual's careless and cruel actions warrant such a stiff punishment. Therefore, it is the one type of interpersonal violence that I consider not only acceptable, but vital for the survival and wellbeing of society.