DEATH PENALTY --Should It Be Banned in the United States?

The American Judicial System was designed to impose sanctions on individuals who violated the laws created to protect society and its members. It was hoped that these sanctions would not only punish the criminal but also serve as a deterrent to other potential criminals. Many Americans believed: the more severe the punishment, the less likely the crime would be committed. However, contrary to that popular belief, statistics have shown just the opposite. In the case of homicides, even with the imposition of the death penalty, murder rates have increased.
People murder for a variety of spontaneous reasons – and under many different circumstances. They murder for financial, economic, and political gains. They murder for love or the lack thereof. People commit murder during domestic disputes when passions are inflamed, and they commit murder when under the influence of alcohol or addiction to other drugs.
Some people are just suicidal and commit murder while attempting to take their own lives. Other people are self-destructive psychopaths who have little regard for human life and believe they deserve to die. They want to be arrested and executed. There are also mentally ill or brain-damaged individuals who experience periods of rage and occasionally kill. These people are unable to accept responsibility for their actions. With the exception of professional hit men, very few people are in a rational frame of mind when they commit murder. Therefore, it may be hopeless to expect any form of punishment to act as a deterrent.
The method of capital executions varies from state to state. Death penalties have been enforced by firing squads, hangings, electric chairs, and gas chambers. With these methods, condemned inmates suffer unimaginable, torturous pain during their final moments. Some suffer more than their alleged victims.
Some Americans consider the brief sufferings of condemned inmates as merely insufficient justice for the victim and the victim’s family. They feel that their sufferings should have been longer and more intense in order to emulate their victims' pain.
Other Americans think these execution methods constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Anti-death penalty advocates and human rights activists have organized various demonstrations to persuade legislators that the death penalty is inhumane. They have staged protests at various penal institutions throughout the nation and have forced many states to adopt a more humane procedure for administering the death penalty. Most states have now instated lethal injections as their system of execution.
Americans have long debated the issue of capital punishment and the use of the death penalty. Capital punishment has gained increased public support because of the mounting fear of crime and the manipulation of the death penalty issue by politicians for their own political agendas. Many Americans have pro or con arguments centered on various religious factors. Those who favor Old Testament – Judaic, Mosaic, or Islamic Law, usually are proponents of capital punishment. Americans following the teachings of Christ and the New Testament tend to be opposed to the death penalty.
Now there are legitimate concerns of the rationality and justification of capital punishment which have also divided the nation. Both sides have delivered interesting and important factual points. These debates revolve around issues of racial bias, execution of the mentally ill or mentally retarded; and execution of child criminals.
However, both pro-death penalty and anti-death penalty advocates share this same belief: executing an innocent person is wrong. If one person out of a hundred executed is later proven innocent – then the executioner; the investigating police; the prosecutor; the judge; the jury; the pro-death penalty supporters; and all those who stood silent and displayed indifference to the death-penalty issue, are all guilty of murder. Although no formal charges or sanctions may be imposed, the guilt is, never-the-less, assessed.
Shakespeare said, “To err is human.” All humans make mistakes. No one is perfect. Many innocent people have been sent to prison – but because of newly discovered evidence or uncovered errors of identification, they were freed. These innocent inmates, after serving years of incarceration, were finally vindicated and released. They were able to return home to their families and friends. They were able to try to pick up the pieces of their lives and begin a new. However, life for the executed innocent inmate was over.
The execution of innocent inmates is becoming more and more prevalent. The irrelevant issue, of whether or not society has inflated the number of innocent inmate executions, is mute. If only one inmate is executed and later proven innocent, there is still an injustice to be rectified because the system is flawed. There can be no doubt that taking the life of any innocent person is murder, whether the act be committed by an assailant or the legal system designed to protect the innocent.
Now the question arises as to how to insure that no innocent person is ever executed through our imperfect judicial system. The answer is simple and requires no debate. In order to prevent indecisive juror pondering and; eliminate the non-correctable and inaccurate judgments rendered in capital offenses and; to remove the murderer-guilt stigma from our society, then the death penalty must be abolished and replaced with alternative sentencing. If we do not abolish the death penalty, it will not matter whether we were dead right in imposing the death sentence on a convicted murderer or; whether we later find out that the inmate was innocent and we were dead wrong – because dead right and dead wrong… are both dead.