Downfalls of Capital Punishment
Downfalls of Capital PunishmentLooking out for the state of the public�s satisfaction in the
scheme of capital sentencing does not constitute serving justice.
Today�s system of capital punishment is frought with inequalities and
injustices. The commonly offered arguments for the death penalty are
filled with holes. �It was a deterrent. It removed killers. It was the
ultimate punishment. It is biblical. It satisfied the public�s need
for retribution. It relieved the anguish of the victim�s
family.�(Grisham 120) Realistically, imposing the death penalty is
expensive and time consuming. Retroactively, it has yet to be proven
as a deterrent. Morally, it is a continuation of the cycle of violence
and �...degrades all who are involved in its enforcement, as well as
its victim.�(Stewart 1)
Perhaps the most frequent argument for capital punishment is
that of deterrence. The prevailing thought is that imposition of the
death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing
violent acts. Numerous studies have been created attempting to prove
this belief; however, �[a]ll the evidence taken together makes it hard
to be confident that capital punishment deters more than long prison
terms do.�(Cavanagh 4) Going ever farther, Bryan Stevenson, the
executive director of the Montgomery based Equal Justice Initiative,
has stated that ��people are increasingly realizing that the more we
resort to killing as a legitimate response to our frustration and
anger with violence, the more violent our society becomes�We could
execute all three thousand people on death row, and most people would
not feel any safer tomorrow.�(Frame 51) In addition, with the growing
humanitarianism of modern society, the number of inmates actually put
to death is substantially lower than 50 years ago. This decline
creates a situation in which the death penalty ceases to be a
deterrent when the populace begins to think that one can get away with
a crime and go unpunished. Also, the less that the death sentence is
used, the more it becomes unusual, thus coming in conflict with the
eighth amendment. This is essentially a paradox, in which the less the
death penalty is used, the less society can legally use it. The end
result is a punishment that ceases to deter any crime at all.
The key part of the death penalty is that it involves death --
something which is rather permanent for humans, due to the concept of
mortality. This creates a major problem when ��there continue to be
many instances of innocent people being sentenced to death.�(Tabak 38)
In our legal system, there exist numerous ways in which justice might
be poorly served for a recipient of the death sentence. Foremost is in
the handling of his own defense counsel. In the event that a defendant
is without counsel, a lawyer will be provided. �Attorney�s appointed
to represent indigent capital defendants frequently lack the qualities
necessary to provide a competent defense and sometimes have exhibited
such poor...
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