Phi 200 Death Penalty Research Paper

PHI 200
THE DEATH PENALTY
March 19, 2012

The issue that I chose to write about in my paper is the Death Penalty. The Death Penalty has been a serious issue that has recurrently caused so much conflict in our world today. My argument is that the death penalty is very important to bring justice pertaining to murderers. This issue with the death penalty is one of the highest arguments in the United States. The death penalty is something that countless individuals do not have an unclouded opinion on. The death penalty dates all the way back to 1622. In the eighteenth century the death sentence was used as a stern reprimand if a person defied the laws. In 1930 the U.S. Bureau of Justice started keeping a
trace of all death sentences per year. In the course of that year there were about 150 death sentences that took place. During the year of 1938 the numbers of death sentences started to rise, but weakened in 1967 when the death penalties came to a standstill. Several states councils are trying to eliminate the death penalty, if this does take place what kind of penalty will a murderer get? If the politicians get their way, then 3,000 inmates’ lives will be spared (Healey, 2011). Americans should wrestle with the thought that capital punishment is positive for our society on several grounds. The explanations are the verdict percentage, discouragement, not a brutal and unusual punishment, the misconception of prejudice and in support of life consistency. The death penalty actually saves lives, because when the criminal is put to death there is one less criminal to be worried about. Crime has become so frequent in our world that the general publics all over are crippled with fright. In society so many want to put an end to the punishment, but prison cells are over flowing with criminals because they have no room left in the prison, because there are so many criminals committing crimes, and several of them are recurring lawbreakers. According to the Amendment V in the United States Bill of Rights, no person shall be held to answer for a capital crime, or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment of an indictment of a grand jury (Cornell University). The death penalty is also known as capital punishment which is defined as putting a discredited individual to death. In 1972 capital punishment became legal because of the Furman v. Georgia. During this time the Supreme Court delivered a 5-4 result actually removing most of the federal and state death penalty laws. In the outcome of the Furman v Georgia there were more than 600 prisoners that were sentenced to death, and their sentences were revoked due to the Furman v Georgia (Smith, 2008). There are a lot of people who believe that the death penalty helps to decrease criminal activity. The problem that has repeatedly invented hostility in our world today is if the death penalty can be used as an acceptable and reasonable form of reprimand. The argument for the death penalty will make a case out of criminals so that intimidation will be used, to help keep criminals from performing horrendous crimes. Protesters trust that capital punishment does not daunt others from committing other shocking crimes. This is a shared misunderstanding. Prevention itself would not be a usable reason for capital punishment. Whenever anyone converse about the issue of the death penalty activists from either sides want to state their side of reasoning. There are some of the general public who clash with the idea of the death penalty because they believe that the death penalty helps the grieving parent or family member with resolutions that have so much agony because of the loss of their loved one. Capital punishment has been in the public eye for several years and will always linger on no matter if it did or did not discourage would be offenders. The death penalty should be endorsed in particular circumstances and the guiltiness of the convict should be verified beyond doubt which is the lawful way of existence. The lawyers are guarding the rights of the suspect that the families of the sufferer often get misplaced into the permissible events. The suspect is being safeguarded by legislation and the devastated family obtains insufficient reward for their bereavement. With the death penalty the family can be guaranteed that the criminal that took the life of their loved one will never have the power to hurt or kill another person again. Criminologists believe that our current knowledge does not indicate a deterrent effect. The increasing number of executions or decreasing time spent on death row would not result in deterrence (Radelet & Akers, 1995). There really is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long term of imprisonment. There are 38 states in the United States that has the death penalty. Each state has many dissimilar issues for capital punishment and those felonies are known as capital crimes. The lawbreakers are not frightened by the legal system, because the wrongdoer knows that there is a possibility that will not die. The death penalty has to continue to be a choice for our courts to send an alert to the convict in our population. Capital punishment is needed to make sure the security and ethical principles of citizens are protected. We should not get rid of the punishment, but we should hold our country liable for accurately exercising the death penalty to the criminals who have committed a horrible crime, so therefore they deserve the death penalty. There are citizens that say the death penalty should stay in effect and carried out more often. Given the advantage of capital punishment it is difficult to visualize why any one individual would be against it. The battle on wrongdoing continues everyday and there are two main issues of trying to remove all criminal activity is irresolvable and how to contain it. The major defense that is being used to constrain corruption is discouragement. The government’s way to prevent someone from carrying out murder is the death penalty. Many individuals feel that the death penalty has no position in our cultured world as we know it today.
The issue against capital punishment is that many individuals believe that it disregards the eighth amendment which hinders malicious and rare punishment. Under the state code title eighteen were only particular felonies that could only be penalized by death. People against capital punishment truly believe that it is meaningless and it does not fit in the Christian like tradition. They have their own views of how a criminal should be handled in court and they truly feel that the death penalty is not the answer. Many people who are against the death penalty are against it because the bible says so, and if the bible says so then therefore it must be
true. There are 80 percent of people in the United States that are for the death penalty. The death penalty does not stop anyone from carrying out a crime against another individual. The debate is that studies have shown that capital punishment does in fact save lives (Muhlhausen, 2007). The United States still continues to be the state that still uses capital punishments for specific crimes. The debate in favor of the death penalty is that the advocates of the death penalty say it is an essential instrument for stabilizing law and order, and that the cost is much less than serving life in prison.
They argue that vengeance or an eye for an eye pays respect to the victim, but also it helps to comfort the grieving families (Pojman, 2006). The advocates argue that it guarantees that the criminal of the terrible crimes never will have another chance to cause potential heartbreak. The argument for the death penalty is that many accept as true that if you kill then you deserve to die. When an individual takes another individual’s life they forgo or surrender their own right to their life. Committing a homicide is one of the vilest felonies anyone can do and therefore it should get the nastiest penalty they can receive. The debate for the death penalty is that the adversaries of capital punishment say it has no preventive influence on crime. They argue that it unmanly gives the government the power to take someone’s life, and prolong social fairness by unreasonably pursuing people of color. They argue that the reason they pursue people of color is because they do not have the funds to hire a good
attorney. The dispute not in favor of the death penalty is prejudice. There are eighty two percent of victims that are white and thirteen percent are black (Sharp, 1997). The effect of race on the death penalty is believable and undermining. In other fields of the law safeties have been formed in to control the impact of complete prejudice when the facts of its influence are apparent. With the death penalty such helpful proceedings have been obstructed by those who allege that capital punishment would muddle down if ethnic justice was essential. Effective actions will be determined on the description of the offense and not which ethnic group of the offender. The death penalty is not discriminatory and does not infringe malicious and unusual punishment clause. Adversaries of the death penalty like the NAACP claim that the system regard highly a white individual life more than a black individual life. Researchers at the University of Louisville had founded in 1995that as in other states, blacks who killed whites were more likely to receive the death penalty than any other offender (Keil & Vito, 1995). The NAACP chief says the state and some countries are wasting money on endless death penalty appeals instead of applying those resources to catching criminals and aiding the families of victims (Dresser, 2012). Antagonists of the death penalty point out there are a high possibility of accidently killing a guiltless individual. There is a chance of accidently putting a blameless individual in prison or to death for a crime they did not commit. The sentence by death is the crucial price and once it is done it cannot ever be taken back, because death is irreparable. It has been argued that because of the conclusiveness and seriousness of the death penalty, the outcome of that happening is unlikely. It has never been proven of a blameless individual being executed. The legal system undergoes several safety measures to certify that the basic rights of the innocent are safeguarded. The dispute that is critical of the death sentence is that it is not effective. There is an abundance amount of data that proves that it is not effective in the area of capital punishment. A large amounts of corruption are crimes of obsession that are done in circumstances containing passionate enthusiasm or interest. The individual who carry out this type of crime are usually not of sound mind and body. The psychological mind-set of the criminal is such that they are not able to consider consequences at the time of the crime (Elliot, 2007). The adversaries against the death penalty believe that they have a really great argument. The old saying two sins do not make it morale. Killing an individual is just wrong no matter what. There are no respectable reviews that show that capital punishment function essentially as a preventive way to crime or any capital felony. The death penalty hardly ever disheartens a murderer because they truly feel that they will not be caught. The amount of the prisoners that are on death row are rising. The amounts of death sentences that are actually carried out are overdue. Prisoners are not terrified of the death penalty because it is not used in the way it is suppose to be used in order for it to work the correct way. If a criminal is put in a prison for committing a murder there should be a limited time that they should be allowed to stay on death row, before it is their time to be executed. There are around 3,000 people on death row across the country (Healey, 2011). Since there have been thousands of inmates on death row only 314 of them have been executed. There are many citizens that do not see the purpose of the length of years they are allowed to be behind bars seems so unreal. There are times when criminals cannot be punished enough. Keeping an inmate in prison for life after they have committed a horrible crime is like throwing away limitless money to keep an inmate in prison. What is so annoying is that prisoners after about several years are put on a parole. In fact the criminal is able to eat, sleep, and get an education until their time comes up for them to be executed. In reality the typical convict spends about eleven years on death row before being executed. The domain we reside in can be a really gloomy and brutal place to live in. The domain we live in needs rules because without it the world we live in would be in a muddled place. There is an importance that everyone should be supporters for the death penalty because it helps to keep our world a little peaceful. In every community there are wrongs and disruptions being committed on human rights. With the crimes are committed and the laws are broken this is when a penalty is put on the individual who committed the crime. They argue that a lifetime jail punishment is harsher and not as costly as murdering an individual. Adversaries also state that the death penalty is old fashioned and murders the blameless (Bedeau, 2011).

References
Bedeau, H., (2011). The case against the death penalty
Cornell University Law School. Bill of rights from Cornell University law school
Dresser, M., (2012). NAACP head calls for death penalty abolition this year
Elliot, D., (2007). Experts explain why the death penalty does not deter murder, ABC News
Healey, J., (2011). Surprising views on the death penalty
Keil, T., & Vito, G., (1995). Race and the death penalty in Kentucky: American Journal of Criminal Justice
Muhlhausen, D., (2007). Does the death penalty deter crime?
Pojman, L., (2004). Debating the death penalty: Should America have capital punishment
Radeletp, M., & Akers, R., (1995). Deterrence and the death penalty
Sharp, D., (1997). Death penalty sentencing information
Smith, S., (2008). The supreme court and politics of death: Furman v Georgia