Essay on
Capital Punishment
(First 3 Pages Only)
Majority of the people
believe that the judiciary system should not grant any mercy to the criminals or
grant justice to them, once they are proved guilty of committing crime. The
punishment being awarded to the guilty usually differs from stat to state,
according to the laws of the state but in most of the states the homicidal
criminal is sentenced to death. However, many people believe that awarding a
death sentence should not be considered as an option to punish the homicidal
criminals. They give several arguments in this regard, as to why death penalty
should not be an option for the punishment of criminals. The issue of capital
punishment raises many important questions with respect to the moral and
practical perspectives. These issues are enough to justify as to why capital
punishment is not equitable for criminals. While arguing against the capital
punishment system, people raise arguments against the issue of having “an
eye-for-an-eye” approach. With a moral as well as religious perspective such an
approach is entirely wrong. With the perspective of religion, it is usually
believed by almost all of the religious communities that only God has the right
to take the life of any individual and no other individual is allowed to do so.
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Under the capital
punishment system, the government is taking over the authority of God hence
deciding on its own about the life and death of someone. The disagreement at
this point is that how one can have the right to take the life of an individual,
even though he/she is a criminal, and that in this way they are committing the
same crime that the criminal has committed. It is usually argued that as the
same crime has also being committed by the executor of death penalty, he should
also be put to death as well. Another argument against capital punishment is
that racism and inequality has also negatively affected the smooth and fair
execution of the punishment process. It is believed that the minorities have
been brought to unreasonable death penalties and the major populations have been
granted advantage in this regard. According to some studies, it has been found
that the racial biases have significantly influenced the fair application of
death penalty. People also claim that there are evidences that a person
convicted of killing an individual of a majority group is much more likely to be
sentenced to death than a person convicted of killing a member of a minority
group. Some people also raise the argument that there is a possibility that the
judge or the jury might be biased. If this is true in any case, then a number of
wrongly accused suspects might have been sentenced to death, because of the
biasness of the jury or judge. It is also possible that a mentally retarded
individual is being sentenced to death, which was even not able to understand
his or her actions and deeds. Studies have shown evidences that in some cases,
certain level of discrimination exists against the suspects. This is the reason
that some people claim that even if the crime was not committed, the death
penalty was awarded, as the circumstances were not in favor of the suspect. In
such situations, it is not possible for the judiciary to ensure that the ruling
was fair. In such cases, the system will be bringing undue harm to the suspect
as well as the family of the suspect. While considering punishing the suspect,
if he/she is proven guilty, the judge should not only consider the consequences
of awarding of the punishment, with respect to the suspect but also with respect
to his family. These are the usual reasons given in opposition to the
unsympathetic usage of capital punishment. However, some people also give
reasons in support of the death penalty.
Capital Punishment in the United States
The issue of capital punishment has been one of the most hotly discussed issues
in recent decades. As discussed above, the concept of capital punishment is to
award a death penalty to the persons found guilty of committing a crime. Though
capital punishment is one of the harshest treatments to the criminal but it is
argued that it is not intended to cause any physical pain. It is claimed that it
is one of the forms of punishment and in fact is the best form of punishments
because it permanently removes the criminals from the society, instead of
imprisoning them for a temporary period and again let them go to commit more
crimes. The capital punishment approach to reduce crime is not new. In fact it
is as old as the human civilization. Throughout the history of mankind, people
have been convicted of different crimes and were sentenced to death. These
crimes ranged from theft to murders. In most of the ancient societies, it was
widely accepted that capital punishment was the right approach to combat crimes.
The concept of awarding death penalty was by the British to the American
colonies during their rule. Even though, award of death penalty to the guilty
was a common practice but everyone did not approved it. In the late-eighteen
century, opposition to the death penalty gathered enough strength to lead to
important restrictions on the use of the death penalty in several northern
states, while in the United States, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island
abandoned the practice altogether (Kronenwetter 15). Some of the states
abandoned the practice of awarding death penalty and started to sentence the
guilty offenders to life imprisonment rather or any other kind of punishments
instead of bringing them to death. In the coming years, the public executions of
capital punishments were being ceased by the governments.
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