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ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY.   Term Paper ID:28574 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Presents arguments against capital punishment incl. Moral & cultural issues; purposes of criminal punishment; discriminatory application of penalty.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Presents arguments against capital punishment incl. Moral & cultural issues; purposes of criminal punishment; discriminatory application of penalty. Paper Introduction: ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY The death penalty should be abolished in the United States because it embodies the most savage and barbaric instincts of mankind and runs counter to the basic ethical values of Western civilization, because it serves no useful purpose in deterring violent crime and because it has been applied by a flawed criminal justice system to discriminate unfairly against racial and other minorities and to undermine the presumption of innocence. Moral and Cultural Arguments Against Capital Punishment Reverence for the sanctity of human life lies at the heart of all the world's great religions, and finds expression in the Biblical injunction, 'thou shalt not kill,' except in defense of self or others, such as in just wars. However, Biblical Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. AccordingPrejean (1994), the percentage of those polled in favor of capitalpunishment were 62 percent in 1936; 41 percent in 1966 and 76 percent in1991 (p. However, Biblical justification for the death penalty can also befound in Genesis 9:3: 'if anyone sheds the blood of man, by man his bloodshall be shed.' For many centuries, this vengeance-based tradition of aneye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, the Roman lextalionis, prevailed in Western legal systems. (1996) stated that research shows that"overall, death penalty states had a mean murder rate of 7.8 per 1 , population while non-death penalty states had a mean rate of 4.9" (p. The Enlightenment and the spread of subsequent liberal philosophy ledto the progressive elimination of the death penalty throughout almost allof the developed and non-communist world in the 2 th century, except forthe United States. The Supreme Court has rejected the argument that the deathpenalty per se violates the ban on the infliction by the state of cruel andunusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution unless ina given case it can be proven that the death penalty was designed with adiscriminatory purpose in mind and operated in that manner. D'Alembert (1992,August) acknowledged that "for much of our history, our judicial system hasoperated to value white lives more than black lives and to punish moreharshly those who commit crimes against whites" (p. French novelistAlbert Camus (1961) said, "in the thirty-two nations that have abolishedthe death penalty or no longer use it, the number of murders have notincreased" (p. 193).In the United States, Cochran et al. Discriminatory Application of the Death Penalty by a Flawed CriminalJustice System. According to Ross (1994, Summer), 4 percent of inmates then on deathrow were black and although in the early 199 s, "86 black or minorityprisoners have been executed for murdering white victims, [but] only twowhite murderers have been executed for the death of a non-white" (p. However, asJustice Marshall pointed out in Furman, "the burden of capital punishmentfalls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged" (p. 8). . 28-29. Two Supreme Court Justices who hadsupported decisions upholding state death penalty statutes after Furman,Lewis Powell and Harry Blackmun, reached the conclusion that they could notbe administered fairly. ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY The death penalty should be abolished in the United States because itembodies the most savage and barbaric instincts of mankind and runs counterto the basic ethical values of Western civilization, because it serves nouseful purpose in deterring violent crime and because it has been appliedby a flawed criminal justice system to discriminate unfairly against racialand other minorities and to undermine the presumption of innocence. Proponents ofthe death penalty argue that it serves a legitimate purpose of criminalpunishment, the taking by society of retribution for particularly viciousor heinous crimes of murder or rape. (1994). 63). E., L. 36 ). Ross, M. There can be little question that the contemporary American fondnessfor the death penalty runs counter, as Supreme Court Justice WilliamBrennan said in his concurring opinion in Furman v. In his dissent in Collins v. ., especially in Southern states" (p.164). 258.) However, the swings in public sentiment concerning the deathpenalty have nothing to do whether it is right or wrong. Polls have repeatedly showed that,prompted by rising homicide rates up until the early 199 s, a majority ofAmericans favored selective imposition of the death penalty. R. C. A. 29). (1997). D'Alembert, T. (1992, August). Moral and Cultural Arguments Against Capital Punishment Reverence for the sanctity of human life lies at the heart of all theworld's great religions, and finds expression in the Biblical injunction,'thou shalt not kill,' except in defense of self or others, such as in justwars. Kaplan, D. Collins v. American public policy. Is the death penalty racist? 1128). Furman v. According to Bedau (1982) aslate as 1819, more than 2 crimes, including many petty offenses such aspickpocketing, were capital crimes (p. Racial injustice and American justice.American Bar Association Journal, 78, 58-6 . (1994, Summer). (Ed.). Cayer. Carr, & N. Collins, 114 S. Human Rights,21, 32-33 & 4 .----------------------- 7 343). The continuation of scheduledexecutions in other states under such circumstances makes a mockery of thepresumption of innocence. New York: Paulist Press. 238(1972), to "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of amaturing society" (p 27 ). New York: St. Camus 175-236. The American criminal justice system is deeply flawed and inparticular fails to provide adequate resources and attorneys to defendproperly indigent criminal defendants. European convention on the protection of human rights and fundamentalfreedoms, signed November 4, 195 , entered into force 3 September 1953, 213U.N.T.S. Newsweek,pp. Science has now developed tools such as DNA testing of genetic bloodtypes which permit some cases to be revisited retrospectively to ascertainwhether defendants convicted of capital or other crimes were in factguilty. The available evidence suggests that the death penalty has little, ifany, effect in deterring homicide or other violent crime. (1997, June 16). 238 (1972). Conclusion The United States stands alone in the world in its insistence onpreservation its archaic and backward-looking death penalty laws whichstand as a reminder that Americans in this area are falling far short ofpursuing civilized, sensible or fair practices. (1996), of the 4, 47 persons executed between 193 and 1993,the majority, 2,14 , were black (p. J. Death Penalty and The Purposes of Criminal Punishment. Ct.1127 (1994), Blackmun said "the inevitability of factual, legal and moralerror gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants,[and] fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences ofdeath required by the Constitution" (p. These processes take time and are expensive. 221 and the sixth protocol thereto (1983). The death penalty: an historical andtheological survey. Death and the American. (5th ed.,1996). Martin's Press. New York: Random House. Megivern, J. 329). (1997, June 21). Economist, pp. 1127 (1994). According toCochran et al. According to Megivern (1997), executions declined in the UnitedStates from a peak of 199 in 1935 to 56 in 196 (p. Capital punishment is barred by law inonly 12 states, the District of Columbia and four territories (Kaplan,1997, June 16, p. ThePresident of the American Bar Association (ABA) T. Dead man walking. However, retribution is just anotherword for man's most barbaric instinct, its bloodlust or thirst for revenge.As Justice Thurgood Marshall noted in Furman, "retaliation, vengeance andretribution have been roundly condemned as intolerable aspirations for agovernment in a free society" (p. Recently, the Governorof Illinois was so alarmed by evidence showing that a number of innocentcapital defendants had been executed that he ordered a moratorium on allexecutions in that state, pending a review of a fairness of procedures incapital cases, as recommended by the ABA. Georgia, 4 8 U.S. Then after themid-197 s, they increased again to nearly 4 between 1976 and mid-1997(Death and, 1997, June 21, p. 3 5). An immediate nation-wide moratorium should beimposed, followed by a systematic DNA review of pending death row cases,which should then be followed by the abolition of the death penalty itself. 33). JusticeBrennan said in Furman: "there is no reason to believe that it [the deathpenalty] serves any penal purpose more effectively than the less severepenalty of imprisonment" (p. 169).States with the highest execution rates, Texas, Louisiana and Florida, haveconsistently been among the states with the highest homicide rates. (1982). Collins, 114 S. Georgia, 4 8 U.S. Ct. References Bedau, Hugo A. Oxford:Oxford University Press. Prejean, Sister H. (1961). In 1983, the death penalty was abolished underArticle 1 of the sixth Protocol of the European Covenant on the Protectionof Human Rights and the Protection of the Human Rights and FundamentalFreedoms. The death penalty in America. They said "African Americans havebeen executed disproportionately . Mayer, T. 32). Reflections on the guillotine, in Resistance,rebellion and death, A. Life and death decisions. New York: Knopf. 164). First, the Scandinavian nations and the Low Countries,then Germany (1949), Britain (1965), Austria (1968), France (1981) andfinally all the other developed non-communist nations in Europe, Canada andJapan abolished the death penalty, except in some cases for a narrow rangeof crimes against the state. Cochran, C. J. 32-33. Camus, A. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.