Friday, March 30, 2018
A Life for a Life?
Popular support for the death penalty is in decline in the U.S. According to a Pew Research poll conducted last year, support is now below 50% and the lowest in 45 years. Furthermore, 19 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment. Yet, Ohio and several other states still execute prisoners: in fact, Ohio has six scheduled executions for this year. Is Ohio justified in killing these prisoners? Is the death penalty justified under any theory of punishment? Under what circumstances? Should we keep or abolish the death penalty?
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There are many views on whether or not the death penalty is justified. Personally, I do not believe in the death penalty. I believe that an individual should have to spend the rest of their life in prison to learn from what they have done and not get the easy way out, death. Many prisoners who are sentenced to life in prison due to a crime such as murder, often kill themselves as they cannot fathom having to suffer in prison for the rest of their lives. A student in my elementary school's father murdered their mother and was sentenced to life in prison. He later hung himself because he did not want to have to be locked up and have lost all of his freedom. Overall, I feel as if this is the consensus of prisoners sentenced to life or many many years of prison, that death is the easy way out. Therefore, I believe that one should not provide these individuals who have caused so much harm on society the "easy way out". This view can be easily contradicted by individuals who claim the best method is "an eye for an eye". These arguments would be people claiming that since the perpetrator took a life, his own life should be taken in return, as they should not be able to live the rest of their lives when they ended someone else's so abruptly. While I understand how individuals could have this point of view, I do not agree with this due to the fact that I do not believe a person's life, no matter the degree of their crime, should belong in the hand's of the government. If this was justified, it would be a never-ending cycle of killing. Just by taking the life of the perpetrator, it will not justify their actions, and it will not bring back the victim. In conclusion, I believe that instead of placing the life of a perpetrator in the hands of the government, they should receive the appropriate amount of years in prison for the crime they committed.
ReplyDeleteLooking at three key theories of punishment we have analyzed in class, paternalistic, deterrence, and retributive punishment, only one theory justifies the death penalty. A paternalistic view of criminal punishment would not allow for the execution of prisoners. In his essay, A Paternalistic Theory of Punishment, Herbert Morris states paternalistic punishment, “relies essentially on the idea of punishment as a complex communicative act … so a paternalistic theory of punishment will naturally claim that a principal justification for punishment and a principal justification for restrictions upon it are that the system furthers the good of potential and actual wrongdoer.”(file:///C:/Users/18friliz/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/A%20Paternalistic%20Theory%20of%20Punishment.pdf) Simply put, the goal of paternalistic punishment is to further the moral wellbeing of the criminal. This goal does is contradictory to the death penalty, because when killing a criminal the state also kills the potential for the criminal to become a moral actor.
ReplyDeleteThe second theory of punishment, deterrence, would also fail in justifying the death penalty. Deterrent punishment, also known as deterrent violence, is described by Farrell as, “violence that is aimed at inducing someone not to do something she might otherwise be inclined to do… deterrent violence is …a way of "using" one person as a means of protecting ourselves from others.”(file:///C:/Users/18friliz/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/Justification%20of%20Deterrent%20Violence%20(Farrell).pdf) From this definition, the death penalty would only be justified if the threat of the death penalty stopped individuals from committing violent crimes. Recent research has shown no correlation between the death penalty and lowered crime rates as the Washington Post finds, “States have been executing fewer and fewer people over the past 15 years. Several states have recently abolished capital punishment…however, rates of violent crime are still falling steadily.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/04/30/theres-still-no-evidence-that-executions-deter-criminals/?utm_term=.fb1bf4854b99) Furthered by this an article from the Huffington post states, “Among the 25 states with low murder rates, 11 have the death penalty … Having the death penalty means you’re more likely to be a state with a high murder rate.” (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/does-the-death-penalty-re_b_13362760.html) Since state executions don’t stop criminals from committing murder, rather the opposite, the death penalty cannot be justified by deterrent punishment.
Unlike the previous two theories, a retributive theory of punishment would justify capital punishment. Father of deontology, Immanuel Kant, dictates retributive punishment, “can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good …It must always be inflicted …only because [a criminal has] committed a crime. For a man can never be treated merely as a means to the purpose of another.” From this view point, ideas such as deterrence and moral agency should not affect a criminals punishment; the only reason an individual should receive punishment is because they broke the law. Later in his essay, Kant explains his views on the death penalty, “If… [someone] commit[s] murder [they] must die…there is no substitute that will satisfy justice. There is no similarity between life, however wretched it may be, and death, hence no likeness between the crime and the retribution unless death is judicially carried out upon the wrongdoer.” (file:///C:/Users/18friliz/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/Kant%20On%20the%20Right%20to%20Punish.pdf) With retributive justice, the punishment must literally fit the crime; therefor the only legitimate punishment for murder is murder.
DeleteWith these three views of punishment in mind, I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty for two reasons. First, even with jury trials, verdicts are not infallible. In the United States, over 4% of people on death row are innocent. (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/23/1306417111) Even if a majority of the time we gave the death penalty to real murderers, no theory of punishment justifies executing innocent individuals. The only way to make sure non-criminals are not killed is by completely abolishing the death penalty. The second reason I believe the death penalty should be abolished is the philosophical argument in U.S. for having executions is weak. The only theory of punishment that the death penalty can be justified under is a retributive theory. While that idea alone makes logical sense, the United States has no other retributional punishments. For example the punishments for drunk driving or rape are not being hit by a car or being sexually assaulted, they are punished with fines and imprisonment.
The death penalty is an incredibly tricky topic for me, because, like the abortion issue, I see both sides of the argument, and to some extent agree with both. Firstly, one must comprehend the severity of the offenses whose offenders are later executed; the individuals who are typically executed include the likes of mass murderers, domestic terrorists, et cetera, and there is no doubting the heinousness of these offenses. I think that many misinformed individuals are under the impression that just any offender, regardless of the offense, can potentially be executed. These individuals are wrong because it is only the sickest of the sick who wind up with the death penalty. Personally, I believe that under no circumstance should a government have the ability to execute one of its citizens, though I also see why other non-convict tax-paying citizens are fed up with paying for a convicted domestic terrorist to live in jail for sixty years until his natural death. To my former point, I find the execution of a citizen to be archaic and, for whatever reason, I just do not find it to be the government’s place to kill a citizen. To my latter point, I do not see why taxes, no matter the amount, should be collected from a hard-working citizen so an individual convicted of an appalling crime at the age of twenty can live the rest of his long life in jail. Having made this last point, I also believe that jail serves as a place for the convicted to reflect on their offense, and that simply executing them lets them off the hook rather easily, in that they will have no time to ponder on why it was they were convicted. The paternalistic theory would advocate for the convict’s life to be spared, and for him not to be executed. Paternalists believe in a form of punishment that instills in the convicted a certain degree of morality. Therefore, paternalists would be against the death penalty since morality cannot be instilled in the dead. In all honesty, I currently am unsure as to whether the death penalty should be kept or abolished. I see why the death penalty is construed by some to be archaic and immoral, I do not believe it to be the government’s place to execute a citizen, but on the other hand, I do not understand why hard-working individuals should have to pay for the lodging of a mass murderer for what could be decades. I not only understand, but agree with certain parts of differing arguments, and thus am undecided as to whether the death penalty should remain or be done away with.
ReplyDeleteCapital punishment has been a controversially pervasive form of punishment through the United States since its reinstatement by the Supreme Court in 1976 (CNN). The questions today about the death penalty are twofold: should the death penalty exist and when? I will argued that a majority of punishment theories do not support capital punishment while ones that do lack substantial support to merit the death penalty. Throughout our discussions in class, we have covered four separate theories of punishment that seek to explain when and what punishment should be meted for a crime. These four include deterrence, retributivism, paternalism (i.e. rehabilitation), and incapacitation. Deterrence argues that the sole goal of a punishment is to achieve the utilitarian goal of discouraging other acts of violence through the use of a penalty. Retributivism argues that the punishment for a crime ought to meet the crime exactly. An example of this could be fining an individual $10,000 if they stole $10,000 from their neighbor. The third theory we discussed was paternalism where the government has a staked interest in rehabilitating a criminal and transform them into a morally good agent. Programs such as prison education and parole seek to achieve this goal by promoting good character among prisoners. The final theory of punishment we discussed was incapacitation where an individual who can be predicted to commit a dangerous crime is preemptively detained in order to prevent their criminal act. Under any of these theories, only retributivism warrants the death penalty. According to John Lamperti, a professor of mathematics at Dartmouth, “murder has been more common in states with capital punishment than in those where it is not used. Data from 1973 to 1984 showed that murder rates in the states without the death penalty were consistently lower … in 2008[,] the average murder rate in states with capital punishment was 5.2 (per 100,000 people) while in non-death penalty states it was 3.3” (Lamperti). Based on this empirical failure of the death penalty to reduce crime rates, there is no possible way for deterrence theory to support the death penalty’s use. Paternalism itself runs contrary to use of the death penalty since it believes that the government ought to rehabilitate individuals which capital punishment robs the opportunity to. Finally, incapacitation does not support since there is a standard for continual proof of danger. According to Ferdinand Schoeman, “there is reason to require almost continual proof that the person confined is still dangerous” (Schoeman). Since individuals are being detained before any crime has been committed, a standard of continual proof of danger is necessary to justify imprisonment. This means that an individual cannot be reasonably killed by the state since doing so would deny that person their right to habeas corpus. In addition to this, the standard itself is inapplicable in this scenario since we are considering modern-day Ohio law sentencing.
ReplyDeleteThe sole remaining theory that justifies capital punishment is retributivism; however, the support for it is extremely lackluster. In a retributive theory for capital punishment, there is a core assumption that the life of the criminal equals the life of an innocent. This is far from the case though since murder cases are frequently pre-mediated. Many murderers think punishments through and are therefore ready to accept the risk of death. To compare the death of an unsuspecting innocent person to the death of an individual ready to die is unequal in nature. According to Lamperti, individuals sometimes use the death penalty in cases of “‘attempting suicide by homicide’ … In these bizarre cases a person actually kills in order to court death by execution” (Lamperti). Lamperti substantiates this point with the case of an Oklahoman farmer decided to kill a truck driver eating at a café because they “[were] just tired of living” (Lamperti). In these cases, capital punishment is completely unequal in its execution failing retributive theory. Retributive theory also fails to justify capital punishment due to lack of consideration of numerous alternative factors. According to Steiker, a professor of law at Harvard Law School, individuals who commit murder and are usually given the death penalty are “intellectually limited, are suffering from … mental illness, … drug or alcohol addiction, are survivors of childhood abuse, or are the victims of some sort of societal deprivation … it is difficult to say that these defendants deserve all of the blame … if their families or societies share responsibility … death should be considered undeserved” (Steiker). If factors that influence an individual in ways that render them more susceptible to commit a crime, those factors ought to reduce the culpability of the individual for their crime. This does not mean they ought to go unpunished but rather the death penalty for individuals with uncontrollable circumstances is unjustified since the crime does not solely belong to the criminal. Given the overwhelming theory and evidence against the proportionality and use of capital punishment in regards to utility and deontology, the death penalty ought to be abolished.
Deletehttps://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/death-penalty-fast-facts/index.html
https://math.dartmouth.edu/~lamperti/my%20DP%20paper,%20current%20edit.htm
http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2010/04/steiker.pdf
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DeletePersonally I think that the death penalty is justified not because of an “eye for an eye” theory or anything like that but because if it was me impacted by someone murdering someone in my family I would not want them to be able to live in prison and just go on with their life. I do not think prison would give me justice but the death penalty could. I think some crimes are unforgiveable and even though those people would be given life without parole. People should not be given a chance to live after crimes such as murder or rape and should just be killed by the government while in prison. Furthermore, if a prisoner was to escape prison although that being unlikely it is still a possibility. If all prisoners of a certain level are killed then there is zero threat to society because they are gone. Some people might say that they want the people to suffer out the rest of their lives locked in a cell but they are still alive. Prisoners on life sentences do kill themselves while in prison but some of them still do not. This means that they would rather be alive than dead and why would we give them what they want after what they have done to society. In conclusion, the death penalty is completely justified in protecting society and forcing the prisoners into something that they don’t want to do and letting them get what they deserve.
ReplyDeleteI think that Ohio is justified for killing these prisoners because they killed another person, and I believe that it helps the victims family get over the act. I think that it justified under the retributive theory because we want to punish someone who has hurt an innocent person. Although the death penalty costs more than keeping the prisoner in jail, I think it should be up to the family on whether or not the person is killed. It would help the family get over the situation if they had a choice to kill or let the prisoner live. We should keep the death penalty because it helps grant justice to those who have had someone taken away. We need to have a universal view on this. We either need to have it or to abolish it completely.
ReplyDeleteCapital punishment or the death penalty utilizes a retributive method of punishment for criminals who have committed heinous crimes. Upon first inspection the death penalty appears inhumane and contradictive. Firstly, the criminal loses all of their liberty in death and all current accepted methods are gruesome (electric shock, lethal injection, firing squad, ect). Secondly, if the state wants to prevent more unwarranted deaths they how can they justify the killing of another? Looking through the lens of the state, it must know how capital punishment appears to the public. Capital punishment appears as a retributive method of punishment but also functions as a deterrent. With under 50% of the populous in accordance with capital punishment, I have no doubt that it is seen as an inhumane form of punishment. Keeping capital punishment preserves retributive and deterrence forms of punishment and should stay but only for murders. If an individual in a society chooses to take the life of another, it is the duty of the state to eliminate any possible chance for that individual to commit the same crime. With a harsh retributive punishment in place, it will act as a deterrent for possible murders. Capital punishment cannot be utilized for any other type of crime. Since I believe in retributive punishments, I think that the death penalty can only be fully justified in cases of murder. On top of being fully justified in retributive philosophy, it can also be justified in deterrence philosophy. Taking both sides of the argument into consideration, I believe that the death penalty should be enforced but before execution, the criminal must be fully found guilty.
ReplyDeleteCapital punishment has always been one of the many pressing and controversial issues in the criminal justice system. Under what circumstances, if any, is killing a criminal an acceptable form of justice? When speaking philosophically, two of the three main punishment theories are able to create logical arguments. The first argument of these two is retributive justice which essentially can be phrased as, “an eye for an eye”. In retributive justice, the criminal receives a punishment equal to the offense they committed. So, in the case of a murder, using retributive justice as a guiding principle justifies the death penalty, as the killer is receiving a punishment equal to their offense and therefore restores the balance between the victim and perpetrator. The second philosophical theory that proposes an extremely logical and objective argument is the idea of deterrence. By using this theory, the death penalty is justified for the reason that it acts as deterrence for those considering committing a similar crime to what was previously met with death. However, I do not believe this is a sound argument due to the fact that a significant amount of crimes committed that are deemed justifiable with capital punishment are often committed by those who are mentally unstable. This means that no matter what level of deterrence is put into place will not stop all of the targeted crimes, as a clinically insane person will not stop to weigh their desire to commit the crime against the potential punishment. Overall, I do not personally believe in the death penalty, as it gives a government a tyrannical level of power over its citizens that is not tolerable no matter the offense. However, when speaking on just the philosophical idea of punishment, I believe capital punishment is justifiable by using the two theories I touched on.
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