Paste your essay in here…Is it ever morally right to kill a human being? Most people would answer no. However, according to a recent study, 54% of Americans believe there should be a death penalty (www.washingtonpost.com). If it’s morally wrong to kill a human being, what is the logic that would lead more than half the country to support capital punishment? What if you are at war, or your life is being immediately threatened? What if you can argue the fear of the death penalty deters crime? Do you trust the government to only kill bad people? Or are you fiscally conservative and believe that the death penalty is acceptable because it saves Americans tax money used for prisons? Somewhere between the moral principle most people have of it is never morally right to kill a human being, and 54% of American’s supporting the death penalty, there is a disconnect. Let’s look at the most common arguments in favor of the death penalty. The idea that the punishment must fit the crime, the idea that having the death penalty is a deterrent of murders, and the idea that it is a painless and efficient way to murder someone. Still, before you can even consider any of those arguments, you have to say, “It is OK to kill a human being.”
Imagine being the parent of an innocent child who was murdered. It’s almost impossible that you can even pretend to understand that pain and anger. In many situations, it’s the parent, family member, spouse, etc., who’s crusading for the death penalty to avenge their loved one. If you were in the same situation, you could easily see that you would agree with that notion. However, the death penalty is not a swift immediate response to an immediate threat. We must remember that law is slow and methodical. As a people we should act more wisely than an individual would. Personal pain is not enough reason to kill a human being. As much as we would like to think the punishment must fit the crime, the reality is that governments are exterminating people. Calling it capital punishment or a penalty does not truly convey what exactly it is that is happening. The death penalty is an act of state killing. Our government is hanging people, gassing them, shooting them, and injecting human beings with poison. What does that say about us as a people to allow and support that?
The idea that the death penalty is a crime deterrent is absurd. According to a Fox News article, there are three motives for murder; financial, passion, and power/compulsion. Let’s take a look at the first motive, financial gain (www.foxnews.com). Someone who is committing a murder in this scenario, whether it’s a robbery, drug deal, or something where money is stolen or gained, believe that they will not be caught. There is no deterrence to a crime where someone believes they have planned out the crime well enough that they won’t be caught. Crimes of passion can’t be deterred because if a wife is angry enough and hateful enough at her husband to kill him, not penalty in the world is going to stop her from killing him in that moment.
Compulsion killings can’t be deterred by the death penalty because they are aware of the consequences and that doesn’t stop them from committing their atrocities. Look at all the famous serial killers: Jeffery Dahmer, Son of Sam, Ed Gein, etc., all of them tried to hide their crimes because they knew what would happen when they were caught, they just couldn’t help themselves. To further disprove this deterrent philosophy, just look at US murder rates. Death penalty states have a higher murder rate than non death penalty states. Texas, the state with the highest number of executed inmates also has a higher murder rate per 100,000 people than the national average.
As of 2006, there have been over 1,000 executions since 1976. 152 by electrocutions, 11 by gas chamber, 3 by hanging, 2 by firing squad, 817 by lethal injection. As for this year, 2018, there have been 21 executions; 20 by lethal injection and 1electrocution. The last common reason given for supporting the death penalty is the idea that it is a quick and painless way to kill inmates on death row. The electric chair, for one, has been known to make a person’s head catch on fire and have their skin melt off their face. As for the far more common method, injection, let’s take a look at the steps to this injection. The first step is getting strapped to a examination table or chair. Then the inmate receives 5,000 milligrams of sodium thiopenthol to put them to sleep. That is followed by 100 milligrams of bromide to paralyze lungs and stop breathing, quickly followed by a shot of potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest (scienceline.org). That sounds quick and painless. The Lancet medical journal examined data from autopsies of 49 executions. Doctors found that 43 of the executed had lower levels of sleeping medication that what is standard for surgery. 21 of those 43 had low enough dosages that they were likely to have been awake and aware of what was going on. The bromide may stop you from moving but does not stop you from being aware. That means those 21 may have experienced suffocation and excruciating pain without anesthesia and without the appearance of suffering. This method fails to meet the standard of putting down animals (www.thelancet.com).
The last thing we all need to realize is that our justice system is consistent of humans, and humans have a margin of error. According to DPIC, since 1973, 121 convicted of murder have been released from death row because they were declared innocent or the charges against them were dropped. Thirty years ago, proving the innocence of the accused with DNA wasn’t even comprehensible. Who knows what we will discover in the future about evidence and proving and disproving innocence. The day is coming where we will be certain that we have executed an innocent person. On that day, we’re all murders. Holocaust survivor and Hungarian philosopher, Agnes Heller, said it best, “If you support the death penalty, and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murders. Therefore, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox.”