Capital Punishment Is Wrong Essay, Research Paper
To this date, Seven hundred and seventy two criminals in the U.S. alone have been
subject to Capital Punishment. (Executions USA 2002). Using specific examples such as
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Timothy McVeigh execution, capital
punishment is seen as inhumane, wrong and an unusual punishment.
The death penalty is greatly rejected and discouraged by many countries and states.
There are more than one hundred countries who have abolished the death penalty in law or
practice, while the United States has increased the rate of executions and the number of
crimes that are punishable by death (The Death Penalty…2000). Many politicians claim
that they are tough on crimes, but they should spend ninety four percent of criminal justice
money on preventing crimes instead of after the crime was committed (Get the
Facts…2000). Protocol No.6 to the European Convention on Human Rights to Abolish is
an agreement to abolish the death penalty in peacetime. The other two protocols, the
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty,
provide for the total abolition of the death penalty but allows states wishing to do so to
retain the death penalty in wartime as an exception (Facts and Figures…2000). There are
several different procedures that are used to execute such as hanging, the electric chair,
gas chamber, lethal injection and the fire squad, which is still used in Idaho and Utah (The
Death Penalty, 2000). The death penalty is abolished for all crimes under the Human
Rights because it is believed to be inhumane, cruel and degrading, but it is still enforced
today. The death penalty should also be abolished because the failure to prevent the
execution of the innocent and the cost for executions are outrageous.
In the eyes of those who are for the death penalty, they believe that the criminal
should lose all rights once they commit a heinous crime and they also believe that the cost
of imprisoning someone for life without parole is extremely higher than just putting them
to death. They also take into consideration that the death penalty is okay by their religion.
They believe that God was for the death penalty and they claim that He once killed men
who crossed Him. Some people believe that there is no proof that an innocent person was
sentenced to death. There has been proof that there are twenty three cases, since the
1900’s, that were proven to be innocent, but it was too late (Death Penalty Facts, 2000).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Punishment has the primary aim of
redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.” If I commit a serious offense against
society, I bring about a disorder, and the point of punishment is to reestablish the lost
order. If I willingly accept my punishment, “it assumes the value of expiation.” And it can
protect you from future crimes I might commit. The Catechism thus gives three purposes
of punishment: defending public order, protecting people, and moral change in the
criminal. Paragraph 2267 reminds us that “the traditional teaching of the church does not
exclude recourse to the death penalty” but then adds, “if this is the only possible way of
effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” This appears to make a
secondary purpose of punishment override the primary. That appearance has led to some
fuzzy thinking. The correct meaning must be that the primary aim of punishment can be
achieved short of exacting the death penalty. A single means-say, life imprisonment
restores the order lost by the crime, protects society against future crimes of the
incarcerated, and gives the prisoner a chance to repent.(The Catechism of the Catholic
Church).
One human right is the right to life and by taking a life away by execution is cruel,
inhumane and degrading. The United Nations pledged to promote fundamental rights of
freedom, justice, and peace in the world which was adopted in 1948, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. (Death Penalty Facts, 2000). There are two rights stated in
the Declaration: 1. A person has the right to protection from deprivation of life and 2. No
one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading punishment. The death penalty clearly violates
both these rights because it is taking a life in cold-blooded, cruel and in an inhumane way.
The techniques used to kill a prisoner are profoundly brutal, humiliating and against the
Declaration. The physical pain caused by electrocution, gassing, hanging, poisoning, or
shooting are all barbarian methods. Prisoners have their flesh burned and their organs stop
during electrocution. Asphyxiation during gassing, tearing of the spinal cord or
asphyxiation during hanging, respiratory paralysis during poisoning, and destruction of
vital organs or the central nervous system during shooting, which one may have to face
when sentenced to death (Death Penalty Facts, 2000). Under no circumstances in the
Declaration of Human Rights does it say that the government has the right to take the
“right of life” away from anyone, but yet they are making that decision quit often. No one
should have to live their last few minutes of life being tortured and put to death; we are
not animals where you can take a life away just because it did wrong. You teach that
animal and train it to where it is suitable to live in the world and imprisoning a person for
life will teach them that lesson. The United Nations Economic and Social Council adopted
the “Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death
Penalty” in 1984 (Death Penalty Facts, 2000 ). The safeguards application of the death
penalty pertain to certain categories of the accused, such as being under the age of 18
years when the crime was committed, which will allow that person sentenced to death to
appeal to a higher court and to petition for pardon or commutation of the sentence. The
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty because they believe that it is inflicted
upon the most vulnerable in society, such as the poor, minorities, and the mentally ill or
retarded persons. They even track down death penalty cases and write letters to clemency
boards and governors asking the executions to be halted for the cases in which the person
was a minor at the time of the crime, mentally impaired or foreign nations because they
oppose the death penalty under law whenever and wherever carried out, irrespective of the
crime and the legal process leading to their implementation (The Death Penalty, 2000).
Human rights are not given or granted by the government, so why should they have the
right to take a life away? Human rights belongs to everyone from the time of birth.
As long as the death penalty still exist, there is not a hundred percent security that
an innocent will not be executed. There are several reasons why an innocent person may
be executed for a crime they did not commit, such as their ethnic background, legal errors,
poor defense or investigation which can all contribute to false imprisonment and death. In
the United States, there has been over four hundred wrongful convicted cases for capital
offenses between the years 1900- 1991. The majority of these cases were found innocent
after years of spending time in prison, but in twenty three cases, their innocence was not
proven until it was too late (Death Penalty Facts, 2000). Though, the study proves that
there were twenty three cases, there are probably more because authors of the report claim
that this number does not represent the total of all innocent victims. This is because once a
victim is executed in the U.S., their case is legally closed which unables them to
investigate for further innocent victims. The U.S. criminal justice system offers no legal
mechanism to review posthumous claims and uncover lethal error (The Death Penalty,
2000). Even though there may be strong doubts about a person’s guilt, the U.S. and
several other countries continue to pursue on the procedures to execute that person.
Approximately seven thousand prisoners were put to death this century and there were
some that were faultless for the crimes they were being convicted for. Amnesty
International has documented numerous cases where there were serious doubt about a
person’s guilt even before the execution. A report from the Subcommittee on Civil and
Constitutional Rights of the US Congress which examined fourty eight cases who were
released from death row because of innocence, concluded: “Americans are justifiably
concerned about the possibility that an innocent person may be executed. Capital
punishment in the United States today provides no reliable safeguards against this danger.
Errors can and have been made repeatedly in the trial of death penalty cases because of
poor representation, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct, or simply the presentation
of erroneous evidence. Once convicted, a death row inmate faces serious obstacles in
convincing any tribunal that he is innocent”. (The Death Penalty, 2000). After serving
many precious years of life in prison, these prisoners were later found not guilty of capital
offenses. There is a need for a better safeguard in protecting the innocent from being
convicted of a capital crime because they do not need to waste their time in prison or be
executed for something they did not do, and the best safeguard is to abolish the death
penalty permanently.
The cost of the death penalty has also been of a great concern to everyone. In the
United States, the cost for executing a prisoner is far higher than imprisoning that person
for life. The United States Supreme Court has recognized this because the death penalty
requires safeguards against this procedure. The main things that are costly, in terms of
money and human resources, in a capital case are the two-phased judgment and sentencing
trial, automatic state review, post-conviction hearing, and Supreme Court petitions. The
cost of maintaining the death row inmates in prisons, clemency hearings, and of the
execution itself are also added to the price of capital punishment. In New York, there was
an in-depth study about capital cases. They proved that over $1.8 million is spent on
execution, which is three times the cost of imprisoning someone for life. This includes
three stages of the judicial proceedings and does not include additional court, security,
counsel fees, estimated millions of dollars associated with state and federal post-conviction
reviews and with the execution itself. California spends approximately an extra ninety
million dollars per year on capital cases and Florida spends $3.2 million on each execution,
which is six times more than incarcerating a prisoner for life. Texas with the highest
murder rates and the highest executions, spend about $2.3 million per case. This is roughly
three times more than imprisoning someone for fourty years. (Death Penalty Facts, 2000).
The cost of incarceration is cheaper than execution because capital cases are not taken
lightly and are long procedures to make sure that no miscarriages occur, which do.
The case of Timothy McVeigh sets an example showing that if the state executes
him, it is involved in state-sanctioned “murder.” Hard cases make hard law. The execution
of McVeigh apply to any other death penalty case and it involves all the same arguments.
Capital Punishment is a morally uneasy venture at best. It gives the state the power to kill
somebody who no longer poses a threat and who has been incapacitated through
imprisonment. Timothy McVeigh is a man who committed a mass murder to get back at
the U.S. government for a previous mass murder and with the execution the U.S.
government will be getting back at Timothy McVeigh, in other words revenge. (Don’t kill
McVeigh, 2001). The issue is not McVeigh, but whether our State and government should
at ant time take the life of anyone convicted of murder. If capital Punishment is wrong, it’s
wrong in all circumstances. Bud Welch, who in the blast lost his only daughter, was
quoted in a New York Times story as saying that Bill McVeigh, Timothy’s father, “he’s
going to lose his only son”. (David McReynolds… 2001). Mr. Welch and Bill McVeigh
have been talking twice a week since the government announced the May 16th date set for
the execution. Julie Marie is the lost daughter of Mr. Welch, he said “…when we take Tim
McVeigh out of that cage and execute him, it isn’t going to bring Julie Marie back”.
(David McReynolds, 2001). If murder is wrong all together, it doesn’t become right when
the State does it. The U.S. remains one of the most barbaric societies in the treatment of
crime and the handling of punishment. A nation that builds prisons faster than low-income
housing. They are one of the few nations left which retains capital punishment. (David
McReynolds, 2001).
The death penalty overall is cruel, inhuman, degrading and against Human Rights.
Even at that, the miscarriages of executing the innocent and the high cost for the
execution to be carried out are extreme. The highest toll we would pay, is not with money
and not with time, but executing the innocent. Those who are also under the age of 18
years when the crime was committed should not be put to death because their minds are
not fully developed and they are still immature. There are even states who executed a
person who was mentally ill or retarded, which the execution should not have been carried
out for obvious reasons. This punishment for any crime is brutal because of the procedures
that are used to carry out the punishment because it inflicts great pain, burning and slow,
barbaric death. This is taking away the right to life, which the government does not hand
out or grant to people, it is automatically given to you by the Declaration of Human
Rights. Capital punishment should be extinguished from the grounds of earth for many
other reasons other than cruel, inhuman, the cost and execution of the innocent, but these
are a few good reasons why to abolish this hideous punishment.
Work Cited
The Catechism of the Catholic Church. N/A. N/A. N/A.
Amnesty International. (2000). Death Penalty Facts (Online).
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/factsinnocence.html
Amnesty International. (2000). Death Penalty Facts (Online).
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/cruelanddegrading.html
Amnesty International. (2000). Death Penalty Facts (Online).
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/cost.html
Amnesty International. (2000). Death Penalty Facts (Online).
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/violationofhrs.html
Amnesty International. (2000). The Death Penalty in the U.S.A. (Online).
http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/dp/index.html
Amnesty International.(2000). Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty(Online).
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/imtcam/dp/dpfacts.htm
Civil Liberty. (9 May 2001). Don’t Kill McVeigh (Online).
http://www.civilliberty.about.com/
CUADP. (2000). Get the Facts, Then Decide (Online).
http://www.cuadp.org
David McReynolds. (27 April 2001). The Case of Tim McVeigh & Capital Punishment (Online).
http://www.zmag.org/mcveigh.htm
ECADP. (30 April 2002). Executions USA 2002 (Online).
http://www.ecadp.org/forall/cont_exec.html
Human Rights Watch. (2000). The DEATH PENALTY(Online).
http://www.hrw.org/about/initiatives/deathpen.htm