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Capital Punishment Applied ethics
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Capital punishment: An introduction
Introduction Supporters of capital punishment bear a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of this irreversible punishment. (Bill Clinton, former US President) Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life. (Orrin Hatch, US Senator) I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again. (Bill Maher, actor) Capital punishment (aka the death penalty), is the execution of criminals by the state for certain crimes known as capital offences. Over the years the range of 'capital' offences an offender may be put to death for have been many and varied, but they typically include murder, sex crimes and treason. In some cases even converting to another religion may led to someone being condemned to death. In the Bible, it is said that an unruly son should be stoned to death: 'If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.' (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Amongst democratic countries today, it is rare to find capital punishment being practiced. In fact, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. are the only ones who still have the death penalty. Typically one finds that only in poor, undemocratic and authoritarian states that the death penalty is still being used, and usually as a means of political oppression. The European Union and the Council of Europe forbids it member states to practice the death penalty, or at least desire them to show that they no longer actively practice it (i.e. a moratorium). Although the United States had suspended executions in 1973, they resumed them in 1977. However not all the states perform capital punishment, with at least 12 of them having banned it at the time of writing. Something to do: Find out which US state has the most criminals sentenced to death each year. According to Wikipedia, a Gallup International poll of 2000 people found that "Worldwide support was expressed in favour of the death penalty, with just more than half (52%) indicating that they were in favour of this form of punishment" (Wikipedia, Capital Punishment). In the U.S., surveys continue to show that a majority of people still favor of capital punishment. However, when asked if they believed the death penalty deterred murderers, six out of ten people in the US said they did not think it did, and that they believed that at least one innocent person has been executed in the past five years.
Something to think about: Do you believe that criminals have the same human rights as everyone else, or do you think they forfeit something of these when they commit crimes? A very brief history of... Most historical records show that the death penalty has always been part of a community justice system. According to www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, the first established death penalty laws can be found in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon (18th century BCE), which set out the death penalty for 25 different crimes. One of the most extreme capital systems in ancient times was the Draconian Code of Athens (7th century BCE), where every crime was punishable by death! Later on under Roman Law in the 5th century BCE, a person could even be sentenced to death for simply writing an insulting song! Probably the most famous and well known examples of the death penalty being administered in ancient times are the deaths of Socrates and Jesus Christ. Socrates was tried and found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, and was sentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock (poison). Jesus was tried and found guilty of being a social and religious agitator, and as such was sentenced to death on a cross. However, soon afterwards Christians began re-interpreting the events of the cross to be something God willed for the sake of saving humanity (see John 3:16). In medieval and early modern Europe the death penalty was largely used as a generalized form of punishment, and often accompanied by torture. One of the most infamous groups who used these methods were the Inquisition, who in order to maintain and regulate Catholic Orthodoxy under the Spanish Monarch. The Inquisition was formed in 1478, and for nearly 400 years they tortured and executed hundreds and thousands of Jews, Muslims and even other Christians across Europe, simply because they were not baptised members of the Roman Catholic Church. By the 1700s, there were 222 crimes listed in Britain which were punishable by death, including such things as cutting down a tree, or stealing an animal: Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. (George Savile - 1st Marquess of Halifax, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)) The last execution in the UK took place on the 13 August, 1964, and capital punishment was finally abolished there in 1998. As modern nation-states have emerged, so the place of the death penalty in judicial systems has been questioned. This is largely because fundamental to these 'states' is the idea of citizenship, which is often grounded in notions of equality and universal natural human rights. Organizations such as Amnesty International now place increasing emphasis on the concept of human rights, and also use this as a basis of arguing against the death penalty. Even where the death penalty is still administered (E.g. USA), 'human rights' have led to nations using less painful, or more 'humane', execution methods. Something to do: Read more about the history of the death penalty, as well as learn about the type and nature of 'crimes' one could be out to death for, in Reggio, M. H., History of the death penalty. Methods People have been put to death for crimes in almost every conceivable way. Some of the most popular (meaning widely used) methods over the years have been:
Advertisement Some arguments for and against the death penalty
The 'wrong convictions' argument is not so much to do with questioning the morality of the death penalty, but to make sure we have a sound justice system with which to administer it. Logically, the argument suggests that if we had a 100% reliable system of justice, then the death penalty could be administered without fear of wrong convictions occurring. Although there have been many people freed from 'death row' due to new evidence of their innocence emerging, it is often the case that under modern democratic systems of justice a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, a person freed from 'death row' is not actually escaping from being wrongly put to death, but being freed because there was not enough evidence to prove their guilt. This means that when there is sufficient evidence to prove a person's guilt, that they are unlikely to be being wrongly convicted for their crimes. If we had no faith in the justice system at all, then no-one could be tried for any crime or even sentenced to a period of time in prison (not matter how long that would be for), without fear of a wrong conviction. Another favourite argument people use against the death penalty is the matter of a person's right to life. In fact, it is often argued that a person's right to life is something independent of any system of law. Furthermore, the 'right to life' argument means that a person is only allowed to take another person's life in exceptional circumstances (often for self-defence, or during times of war). Although abolitionists prioritise a person's natural rights, those who argue for the death penalty suggest that at certain times these rights may be forfeited. For example, criminals forfeit their right to liberty when they are imprisoned for their crime. As even abolitionists have no problem accepting this, so the argument goes that someone might also forfeit the right to life if they (unjustly) take the life of another person.
Other arguments for and against the death penalty are that it is inhumane and a form of torture (although proponents point out that long-term imprisonment might be considered in just the same way), or that justifying the killing of someone in some cases (i.e. death penalty), might encourage people to take the same view in other situations (i.e. the idea of the 'sanctity of life' is gradually eroded in society). An argument against the latter point is that by sentencing murderers to death, one is actually preserving a a very high view of the sanctity of life (something often challenged when those convicted of murder are sometimes freed). One of the questions we need to ask is how much a life is worth? For instance, the number of years a person is imprisoned for can be said to be quite arbitrary, especially when they might serve 25 years for killing a teenager. This has led to some moral philosophers suggesting that the only fair way to punish someone for taking another person's life, is if their life is taken as well. Of course, this then raises the matter of whether their life should be taken in the same manner as they took someone else's, and what to do about serial killers. Capital punishment laws around the world (source: Wikipedia)
Capital punishment in the United States (source: Wikipedia)
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