Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies, Essay Example

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is the death penalty. Capital punishment is used sparingly in the United States and is only ruled in the most brutal scenarios. Debates about the abolition of capital punishment have been going on for decades. Activists, social reformers, and others have been arguing that capital punishment, better known as the death penalty, should not be used in the United States. Nonetheless, it is quite evident that human beings are not inherently good; human nature sometimes causes them to commit questionable acts.  Some acts committed are so devious that the public’s attitudes towards capital punishment have changed in favor of death punishments over the years. Capital punishment in America has existed even before America was an independent nation. In the early years, the death penalty was used for a variety of crimes; however, today it is usually used for first degree murder cases only (Bedau, Hugo Adam. 2007).    Consequently, death has been used as a form of punishment for the worse of the worse crimes that can be committed by man since society began.  Yet, how is that fair? The death penalty is an ineffective way help maintain control of modern society; thus, the death penalty should be prohibited.

Types of Punishment

There are five forms of capital punishment in America today.  They are death by firing squad, hanging, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection. However, firing squads and hangings are only used in a few states-Idaho, Oklahoma, Vermont, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington (Death Penalty Information Center, 2009). First, the firing squad consists of blinding folding and hand cuffing the condemned. Then, five sharp shooters take aim and fire simultaneously at the target. Surprisingly, this method can be less painful than others if the sharp shooters execute the target with a shot directly to the heart.  Next, hanging is the oldest form of execution used in the United States. The condemned is blindfolded and hand cuffed and stood above a trap door. When the door opens, the victim’s body weight falls through the open space.  The jerking motion causes the cervical vertebrae to dislocate and the spinal cord separates from the brain. This leads to death.  Third, electrocution in the electric chair was begun in the nineteenth century. It was thought that this method would be painless. The victim is strapped by the chest, groin, arms, legs, and head to the chair. Five hundred to two-thousand volts of electricity are run through the victim’s body in thirty second intervals (Fellner, 2012). A doctor attends the execution to determine when the victim has died. Sadly, electrocutions often go wrong and can take extended amounts of time for the victim to die. There is one incident that occurred in 1982 where John Louis Evans was not pronounced dead for ten minutes. (Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin 2002).  Lastly, lethal injection is the most widely accepted form of the death penalty. With this form of the death penalty, the victim is administered a combination of drugs and chemicals intravenously. The mixture is an anesthetic that paralyzes the muscles and stops the heart. The victim goes unconscious and is asleep and pain free for the duration of the execution. The death penalty is paradoxical concept. The Constitution prohibits punishment that is deemed “cruel and unusual”, however, the death penalty can be both cruel and unusual in some extreme cases. (Bedau, Hugo Adam. 2007).

The Deterrent Theory

Deterring criminals from committing crimes is difficult. According to the deterrent theory, more protection is needed for society to protect them from offenders. With this theory, it is conveyed that using certain punishments, like the death penalty, will deter criminals from committing crimes of a horrendous nature. Capital punishment can be used as an example to society that if they commit certain crimes they will be punished justly (Donohue& Wolfers, 2005). By using this as an example, this law claims it helps to reduce crime and eliminate would be criminals.  With crime rates being so high, it is obvious that this is not true. By nature, humans fear the unknown. Death is the unknown. Would be criminals will think twice about committing certain crimes out of fear of death. The question of pain is also an issue. None of the forms of death penalties in America are without pain. In some rare cases many forms of the death penalty can go horribly wrong and cause extended periods of pain for the condemned. Obviously, the fear of pain is not a deterrent of crime.  Yet, most Americans support the death penalty.  “Roughly 7 in 10 Americans support the death penalty for those convicted of murder. In the last few years, support has risen, even though the application of the death penalty in the United States remains controversial” (Villaume, A. C.2005).

Victims’ Families

Many of the family members of the victims of horrendous crimes convey that they feel a sense of justice when criminals are sentenced to death (HOOD, 2001). They feel that some crimes are so atrocious that the perpetrators should be sentenced to death. Is the best way to fell better to cause someone else to feel what you are feeling? Currently in the United States 3,095 people are under a death sentence (Death Penalty Information Center, 2009). Since the death sentence was reinstated in 1976, 1369 people have been executed in the United States. In the state of Alabama there are currently 193 men and women on death row(Death Penalty Information Center,  2009).  The state of Alabama sentences more people to death than any other state in the country. Some researchers believe this is due to the fact that Alabama elects judges who can override a jury’s verdict. About 21 percent of the people on death row in Alabama received this sentence by a judge who overrode a jury’s verdict for life in prison (Death Penalty Information Center, 2009).  Dealing with the death of a loved one can be difficult, especially when the loved one was murdered. The normal grieving process usually starts with denial and then anger. When a loved one has been murdered, those in mourning start with the anger phase. They want immediate gratification for the pain they are feeling. They feel frustration and feel that their loved ones have been cheated out of their lives.  For example,

“When death occurs as a result of a violent crime, survivors’ anger may be compounded and their reactions more complicated. Many homicide survivors are surprised and frightened by the intensity of anger and violence they feel toward those who killed their loved ones. Homicide survivors may devise elaborate plans of revenge that involve the murderer suffering more cruelly and graphically than the victim. To fantasize acting out rage or revenge is a normal reaction for a bereaved survivor” (Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin. (2002).

Cost of Prisons

The costs that prisons incur each year are astronomical. In the United States more than 41,000 people are serving life without parole sentences (Death Penalty Information Center, 2009).  Over the past 30 years, there has been an influx of incarcerated population. Operating costs have quadrupled during this time and now exceeds more than 50 billion dollars a year to operate(Death Penalty Information Center, 2009).  Operating prisons costs tax payers about 32 million dollars a year. It costs 22,000 dollars to house one inmate for one year. So, an inmate who gets five years in prison for committing a 1000 dollar theft will end up costing the public more than 100,000 dollars. At that rate, it will cost on average about 1.5 million dollars to house a prisoner for a life sentence(Death Penalty Information Center, 2009). Those who argue in favor of the death penalty say that states are spending more money on prisons than they are on education and educational facilities (Pilkington, 2012). There are cuts to the education fund yearly; one can only imagine that these cuts are being used to take care of the needs of prisoners. Nonetheless, they are people too.

Types of Crimes

In addition to the laws of many states, the federal government can also sentence a person to death. Some crimes that warrant the death penalty are murder of a government official, a kidnapping that results in murder, operating drug enterprise, and treason (Bedau, Hugo Adam, 2007). In 1994, former President Bill Clinton signed the violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act which expanded the federal death penalty to sixty crimes.  A few years later in response to the Oklahoma City bombing, former President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.  This law enforced stricter guidelines for death penalties enforced by the federal court. It was hoped that this would speed up the penalty process. Fortunately, that isn’t always the case (Bedau, Hugo Adam, 2007). For example, serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as the night stalker, died of natural causes in June of 2013 while he was serving a life sentence of death row. Ramirez committed over 30 crimes during the early to late 1980s. He was convicted of 13 murders and sentenced in 1989.  On June 11, 2001, Timothy McVeigh was the first federal prisoner executed in the United States in 38 years. (Bedau, Hugo Adam, 2007).  Since this time, there have been numerous mass shootings and terror attacks. All of which, many believe are deserving of the death penalty, but we must stop and think whether or not death is the answer.

Conclusion

The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment for crimes. However, there are many who agree that the death penalty is warranted for many horrendous crimes. The death penalty is an ineffective way to govern society. Use of the death penalty sends a signal that killing someone is an appropriate punishment. Yes, the family members of the victims want closure and even revenge for the horrible crimes that have been inflicted upon their loved one, but does the state have the right to inflict this revenge. The death should be abolished and other humane ways of punishment should be established.

References

Bedau, Hugo Adam. (2007). Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Death Penalty Information Center.( 2009). States With and Without the Death Penalty. Death Penalty Information Center

Donohue, J. J. And Wolfers, J., (2005) Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 58, 791-846

Fellner, J., (2012) The Human Rights Paradigm: The Foundation for a Criminal Justice System We Can Be Proud Of [Online] Human Rights Watch. Available at: <http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/21/human-rights-paradigm-foundation-criminaljustice-system-we-can-be-proud >

Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin. (2002). Narratives of the death sentence: Toward a theory of legal narrativity. Law and Society Review 36, no. 3: 549–576.

Hood, R., (2001) Capital Punishment: A Global Perspective. Punishment & Society, Vol. 3 (3), 331-354

Pilkington, E., (2012) Ohio resumes lethal injections despite exonerations and botched procedures [Online]. New York: The Guardian. Available at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/18/ohio-lethal-injection-botchedprocedures>

Villaume, A. C. (2005). Life without parole” and “virtual life sentences: Death sentences by any other name. Contemporary Justice Review, 8(3), 265-277