The death penalty

This is a speech I gave for class. I think it was quite good. So did some other people. Read it, enjoy, feel free to comment.

Death penalty- con

I think the death penalty should be abolished. Whether it's a firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, or hanging, it's barbaric to allow state-sanctioned murder before a crowd of people. We condemn people like Saddam Hussein when they murder their own people while we continue to do the same. The 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the use of "cruel and unusual punishment". Many would interpret the death penalty as violating this restriction.

What exactly do we mean when we say “death penalty“? Capital punishment, also dubbed the "death penalty," is the pre-meditated and planned taking of a human life by a government in response to a crime committed by that legally convicted person. In simple English, we are killing a killer.

Hence, there are many moral complexities of the death penalty.

Catholic Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, writes "...the death penalty diminishes all of us, increases disrespect for human life, and offers the tragic illusion that we can teach that killing is wrong by killing."

How can we use death as a lesson to others, to teach criminals not to kill? We teach young children that killing is bad. How then, can we condone the act of murder, even if we use it on someone who has committed murder himself?

As Catholic Sister Camille D’arienzo said, ‘all life, not only innocent life, is sacred.’ In addition, some people believe that to judge a man and put him to death is an attempt to play God. And since when is it our place to act as God? God grants us a certain amount of free choice, free will, and the power of judgment. We need to use it wisely and carefully. I don’t think it is man’s place to decide things such as life or death. That should be left entirely up to God.

In the Mishnah it states, “A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seventy years is called destructive” (Mishnah, Makkoth 1:10).

In Jewish law it is permissible to use death as a form of punishment. But it was a very rare occurrence that they actually implemented it. And a beth din that did use the death penalty was considered to be corrupt.

Now we must ask: what purpose does the death penalty serve?

Is the purpose to remove from society someone who is incapable of rehabilitation? Is the purpose of the death penalty to deter others from committing murder? Is the purpose of the death penalty to punish the criminal? Is the purpose of the death penalty to take retribution on behalf of the victim?

These are all valid questions. The purpose may very well be the removal from society of someone who is incapable of changing his behavior. We cannot let a criminal loose, and let him kill again, can we? But what if this criminal repents, and he is no longer a threat? Where then, is our need to eliminate him?

The case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams illustrates this.

Mr. Williams, an author and Nobel Peace and Literature Prizes nominee who was put to death on December 13, 2005 by lethal injection by the state of California, brought capital punishment back into prominent public debate.

Mr. Williams was convicted of four murders committed in 1979, and sentenced to death.
Williams was the leader of a gang called the Crips. They were responsible for hundreds of murders. Circumstantial evidence against Williams left little doubt that he committed the four murders.

About five years after incarceration, Mr. Williams underwent a religious conversion and, as a result, authored many books and programs to promote peace and to fight gangs and gang violence. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Literature Prize.

Mr. Williams' was a self-admitted life of crime and violence, followed by genuine redemption and a life of uniquely and unusually good works.
There also existed no doubt that Mr. Williams posed no further threat to society, and would contribute considerable good.

Therefore, carrying out the death penalty as his punishment seems detriment to our purpose. If the death penalty is used as a preventative method, to ensure that the defendant doesn’t commit anymore crime, we must bring the defense in Mr. William’s case, that he repented. He turned his life around in prison, and became a good person. Is that not what we want? And yet, he was needlessly killed.

Is the purpose to deter others from committing murder? To that we must answer: capital punishment causes contrary results. There is proof that in the days following an execution of a criminal on death row, there has been a raise in violent acts, not a drop. Because of the publicity of the death, criminals who are inclined to kill find more opportunity to do so. A public execution only serves to rile up society, and causes more deaths, not less. It does not, then, deter others from committing murder.

Some see death as the ultimate form of punishment. But this is not true. To a criminal who is facing a sentence of life in prison, death looks mightily good to him. Some inmates in prison try to kill themselves, as a form of escape from the hellish life they are living. Therefore, to make the criminal suffer to the utmost, we keep him alive, and make him live out the rest of his days locked in a cell. Physical bondage is not life at all. Death is an escape, whereas, a life sentence is punishment.

And what of our last argument, avenging the death of the victim? In Deuteronomy 32:43 it says, "Rejoice, O nations, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And will render vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people." God will be the avenger. It is not up to man to avenge blood.

And to those who argue for the death penalty, seeing it as a form of closure to the families of the victim who was murdered, we answer him, by killing the killer, it does not bring the victim back, and all we are doing is eliminating another human being from this earth, whether or not he was a bad person.

There are lesser arguments that can be brought to argue for or against the death penalty, such as, the financial cost. One might think that an execution is costly. And although in the face of death, a discussion of money seems petty and irrelevant, here we have proof that it is cheaper to house a prisoner in jail for life, rather than kill him. One death sentence costs 2-5 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for the rest of his life. Some prisoners sit on death row for 15-20 years, plus the cost of lawyers, and appeals, and legal procedures. Death is more costly.

And lastly, what about error? Is it not possible that we might come to kill an innocent person? Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. When a jury and a judge rule to put someone to death, they are almost 100% certain that he deserves to die for the crimes he committed. But while that is true, it should not be up to a jury of 12, and a human judge of flesh and blood, to decide the fate of a human life.

In the united states, this is a widely discussed topic. There are many people who are for the death penalty, and an equally great amount rallying against it, and to abolish it.

After all is said and done, I don’t think that the United States of America should use death as a form of punishment. We are a country that stands in front of the world, and everyone watches us to see what we will do. We should not send the message that to kill a killer is okay.

No more violence. No more death. Let’s end it now.