Argumentative paper

A Research Paper

IN SUPPORT OF THE DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER

By

John Inman Kelly

April 1988

ENC 1102

Instructor: Prof. Luse

Background and Thesis

Dozens of anti-death penalty supporters descended upon Raiford, Florida’s maximum security prison, last month when convicted murderer Willie Darden died in Florida’s electric chair. They cried and sang in his defense; even a song, “The Ballad of Willie Darden,” was written for this career criminal who reportedly killed one man and wounded another. After killing his first victim, Darden forced the man’s wife to the floor beside the body and compelled her to give him oral sex as she knelt next to a pool of her husband’s blood. Darden then sodomized her and wounded another man who came upon the scene. Both the wife and the surviving witness positively identified Darden as their assailant. Years later, defense witnesses were produced who swore that Darden was with them at the time of the killing. Darden is now considered a martyr by some of these vigilant but misguided anti-death penalty activists.

Three years ago in Gary, Indiana, fifteen year old Paula Cooper decided to cut class with some friends. After smoking some pot and drinking wine, the four girls visited their Sunday school teacher who lived nearby. Cooper pulled a twelve-inch butcher knife and stabbed the seventy-eight year old woman thirty-three times while the victim recited the Lord’s Prayer as she died. Cooper, who confessed to the crime, was sentenced to death. Anti-death penalty activists in Europe, particularly in Italy, have now rallied around her as a focal point for “…the inappropriateness of capital punishment for juveniles,” calling her “sensitive, intelligent and repented” (“Death Row”).

For death penalty opponents, such rally-to-the-cause behavior is not unusual, even in cases where the accused have been guilty of such extraordinarily barbaric crimes as those committed by Darden and Cooper. The death penalty issue has been debated for centuries; opponents to its inception have included the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greely. But opponents have historically overlooked (or deemed less important) the primary reasons for instituting capital punishment. From its Biblical roots in the Old Testament came the call for just punishment for violators of the sixth commandment – “Thou shalt not kill.” In ancient Babylon and Egypt, death became the sentence for muderers, presumably early cases of the penalty acting as a possible deterrent to the capital crime. And since the death penalty was revived in 1977 (Gregg vs. Georgia), it has served, in addition to the above reasons, as a form of conscience for modern civilizations, the belief being that it is “less tragic to take the life of a convicted killer than to risk the lives of innocent people” by reducing his sentence or allowing him to go free (“The Death Penalty”). More than ninety percent of the United Nations’ members currently employ the death penalty for murder and/or treason. It, then, does have a place in modern society and presently enjoys the overwhelming support of Americans according to nearly all polls. Despite claims that the death penalty is racist and a form of “legalized murder” (Greely 37), seventy-two percent of Americans support its use as a form of punishment (“The Death Penalty”). The death penalty is not only a deterrent to murder, it is a necessary and fitting form of retributive justice for murder in a civilized society.

Opposition

Death penalty opponents base their position on three main points: that a capital sentence is unjust and biased against minorities; that it is not a true deterrent to murder; and that it is inherently immoral and uncivilized, a form of “legalized murder.”

For centuries the punishment of death was misused against the lower and middle classes. There were more than two hundred offenses punishable by death in England during the Middle

Ages, from picking pockets to swearing against the king. In France, tens of thousands were sent to the guillotine for various alleged “crimes.” For nearly one hundred years after the American Civil War, blacks and other minorities were executed at a far higher rate than whites. Even as late as 1987, in Mcleskey vs. Kemp, evidence was produced that showed that killers of whites in Georgia were sentenced to death eleven times more often than killers of blacks (1773). Furthermore, better than forty-five percent of criminals on death row nationally are either black or Hispanic, a far higher number than the general population. Still other opponents claim that minorities, because of their lower financial status, do not receive fair treatment in the courts, where they are often handled poorly by public defenders or inexperienced trial lawyers (“Gridlock” 62).

Death penalty opponents also claim that it is not a true deterrent to murder, especially crimes of passion. Crime and murder continue to rise in all thirty-seven states that have capital punishment. Furthermore, “…there is no evidence that [the number of] murders committed by hardened criminals [has] declined because of capital punishment” (“The Death Penalty”). Some opponents even claim that the death penalty only “incites murder” (West 101).

Like advocates of capital punishment, opponents also use the Bible – “Thou shalt not kill” – as an early source that calls the practice immoral. Rehabilitation or extended incarceration are more civilized alternatives, argue others (Endres 62). When we further extend the pain and tragedy of murder by using a retaliatory form of punishment, the idea of revenge becomes ingrained within society, according to one long-time reform advocate (Vodicka 73).

Refutation

Perhaps it is this great irony – that the punishment should be considered as equally immoral a transaction as the crime itself – that most weakens the argument against the death penalty. The average person, as the statistics seem to indicate, finds it difficult to sympathize with men and women who commit the type of vicious murders of which Darden and Cooper are accused. In a nation that considers itself the most civilized in the world, Darden and Cooper’s actions are not acceptable.

That foundation of morality, the Holy Bible, contains at least six references that demand the death sentence for murder (Mishkin 28-9). Perhaps this passage from the Book of Numbers 35:31 says it best: “Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death, but he shall be surely put to death.” Here it is clear that the penalty of death is not vengeful but just punishment for an inhumane crime. One might argue that human life is cheapened when murderers, instead of being executed, are imprisoned as pickpockets are (Van Den Haag 61).

Ernest Van Den Haag further concludes that retribution differs from revenge in that revenge is a private matter. But the years of appeals to which each death row inmate is treated between the time of the crime and execution date are hardly a private affair. In “Death Row Clerk,” Clifford Sloan, a law clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens, describes just how difficult it is to execute a man today. The sizable number of appeals, the dozens of lawyers who review the case, and the points of legal procedure that must be evaluated assure each man who awaits the death sentence that no form of personal retaliation is possible (23). Haven B. Gow further argues that the death penalty is morally necessary because “…we can’t have our jails filled with people who rape and murder. Everyone’s life is sacred…” ( 81), including those imprisoned for lesser crimes.

Death penalty opponents who call the executions barbaric and uncivilized are forgetting both the brutality of murder and the rights of the victim and his family. Columnist Mike Royko puts it bluntly but succinctly:

It’s because I have so much regard for human life that I favor capital punishment.

Murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is

an insult to the victim and society. It says, in effect, that we don’t value the

victim’s life enough to punish the killer fully. (qtd in Berns 70)

Laws “…must be made awful…commanding profound respect or reverential fear” (72).

The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear in Gregg vs. Georgia that “…the death penalty does not, under all circumstances, constitute a cruel and unusual punishment” (860). The Framers of the Constitution supported capital punishment, and it was recognized for nearly two centuries by the court as a valid form of punishment. Justices Stewart, Powell and Stevens added that: “Retribution…[is] not [an] impermissible consideration…The punishment of death for the crime of murder does not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments” (qtd in Gregg ). The justices concluded that the present forms of execution – by gas, electrocution, injection, hanging, et al. – do not constitute excessive punishment, presumably in comparison to former, legalized forms such as burning, stoning, flogging, and drawing-and-quartering (Gregg).

It is the criminal and the crime – not the punishment – that is immoral.

Opponents of the death penalty are also quick to claim that its process is filled with inherent prejudices, especially against minorities. Some statistics seem to support this claim, yet others disprove the theory. In McCleskey vs. Kemp, Baldus’s study finds that killers of whites

are eleven times more likely to receive the death sentence than killers of blacks; yet the same study also concludes that “…only four percent of black homicide defendants get the death penalty, as opposed to seven percent of white ones” (“The Bench”). So a case can be made that capital punishment discriminates against whites. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Baldus’ study “…at most indicates a discrepancy that appears to correlate with race, but does not constitute a major systematic defect… [It] confirms rather than condemns the system” (McCleskey 1774). The court also found the Baldus survey flawed in several respects, saying that it failed to prove the following:

1. That Georgia’s system of capital punishment violated the Equal Protection

Clause.

2. That statistics do not prove that race enters into any capital sentencing

decisions or that race was a factor in petitioner’s case.

3. That McCleskey, a cop killer, failed to prove that racial discrimination

entered into his case. (1775)

The court added that the installation of juries is not inherently prejudiced:

The inherent lack of predictability of jury decisions does not justify their

condemnation. On the contrary, it is the jury’s function to make the difficult

and uniquely human judgements that defy codification and that build discretion,

equity and flexibility into the legal system.

Other statistics further cloud the issue of racial bias. Since capital punishment resumed in 1977 after a ten year moratorium, nearly two-thirds of those executed have been white, a far higher number than the percentage of whites on death row (“Black and White”). The Washington Legal Foundation contends that the disproportionate number of blacks on death row is due partly to the fact that “…blacks are arrested for murder at a higher rate than whites. When arrest totals are factored in, the probability of a white murderer ending up on death row is thirty-three percent greater than in the case of a black murderer” (“Black and White”).

All death row prisoners – white and black included – are guaranteed lengthy appeals which review every step of the legal process. A set of ten guidelines concerning aggravating circumstances must first be met in order for a man to be sentenced to death (McCleskey 1780); in the end, less than three percent of homicide cases result in the death penalty (North Carolina, Virginia in 1977-80). During that same period, just over seven percent of homicide cases in Florida ended in the death sentence. None of the states in the survey bettered ten percent (“Black and White”). Between forty-five and fifty percent of these sentences are then reversed (“Gridlock” 61). None of these statistics hint that the system of capital punishment has any inherent form of bias. Inmates who have committed lesser crimes rarely see their cases undergo such extensive re-evaluation. As Sloan recalls, “Another dominant impression is that in the vast majority of death penalty cases there seemed to be overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt…there rarely seemed to be any doubt about whether the defendant had committed the crime for which he had been sentenced to death” (20).

Finally, opponents of capital punishment cite the act as a useless deterrent to murder since statistics show that the murder rate has increased each year since 1977, when executions were re-instituted. It can be argued, however, that the murder rate has risen only because there have been so few executions to serve as an example. Neil Bright concludes that “…more executions will deter murder” (107), and Isaac Ehrlich’s study, “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment,” concludes, at least, that fewer executions mean more murders:

Year Executions Murders Year Executions Murders

1957 65 8060 1970 0 15,810

1958 49 8220 1971 0 17,630

1959 49 8580 1972 0 18,520

1960 56 9140 1973 0 19,510

1961 42 8600 1974 0 20,600

1962 47 8400 1975 0 20,510

1963 21 8500 1976 0 18,780

1964 15 9250 1977 1 19,120

1965 7 9850 1978 0 19,560

1966 1 10,920 1979 2 21,460

1967 2 12,090 1980 0 23,040

1968 0 13,650 1981 1 22,520

1969 0 14,590

(Cited in Spence 96)

From 1965-1976, when the “…penalty constituted no real threat in the U.S.” (Spence), total murders more than doubled. In Canada during the same approximate period (1967-74) after hanging was abolished, the murder rate nearly doubled. England and Wales also showed significant jumps in crimes of murder (Carrington 122). A Los Angeles Police Department study in 1971 showed that only seventeen percent of the criminals surveyed were undeterred by the threat of the death penalty; of those, forty-one percent claimed that the lack of enforcement was a contributing factor. Fifty percent claimed that the threat of death deterred them from carrying weapons (124-25).

It is that fifty percent of criminals who are deterred by the possibility of execution that make the death penalty the ultimate warning to would-be murderers. Many murders, such as the glamorized “crimes of passion,” we cannot expect to prevent by any threat, be it death or jail time. In Greg vs. Georgia, Justice Stevens wrote that:

We may nevertheless assume safely that there are murderers, such as those who

Act in passion, for whom the threat of death has little or no deterrent effect. But

for many others, the death penalty undoubtedly is a significant deterrent. There

are carefully contemplated murders, such as murder for hire, where the possible

penalty of death may well enter the cold calculus that precedes the decision to act.

(qtd in Carrington 123)

Others argue a more popular sentiment:

Doing time isn’t nearly as bad as being on death row, and criminals know it.

The threat of death will make criminals think twice about committing crimes.

And for proven killers, the death sentence is a permanent method of preventing

them from ever killing again. (“The Death Penalty”)

If its existence is even partly successful, it may save the lives of both the potential slayer (from execution) as well as his innocent victims.

Conclusion

According to the moral viewpoint of most Americans today and to the most recent judicial decisions, the death penalty is a fair, fitting, and civilized form of punishing murderers. Nearly three quarters of all Americans favor capital punishment, and the Supreme Court generally supports it existence. Though some statistics disagree, there are those that support execution as a deterrent to murder, and which demonstrate that it is handed down fairly in a detailed, responsible manner, and that it is a morally sound punishment necessary to uphold the dignity of mankind and the value of human life.

The old maxim that “ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law” certainly applies here. Robbers, burglars and rapists know the law better than their victims, and they realize the consequences if caught. The same goes for murderers. “Murder is not quite so trifling an offense,” Van den Haag argues. “The discontinuity between murder and other crimes should be underlined by the death penalty, not blurred by punishing murderers as one punishes thieves. To insist that the murderer has the same right to live as his victim pushes egalitarianism too far. It blurs moral distinctions. The victim did, and therefore the murderer does not, deserve to live. His life cannot be sacred if that of his victim was” (61).

Tears and sympathy for murderers should not flow too easily. There are still other reasons for advocating capital punishment that have not been discussed, such as the taxpayer’s exorbitant cost of housing prisoners, estimated at about thirty thousand dollars yearly, and of paying their legal fees, estimated at more than one hundred thousand dollars yearly for each prisoner on death row. A murderer must learn that crime doesn’t pay; he must be held responsible for his crimes; it is a duty to law-abiding citizens who must live alongside the potential murderer who refuses to conform. Those men and women who kill without regard for the lives of others must forfeit their own rights by paying, if necessary, with their lives.

Works Cited

“The Bench and the Chair.” National Review, 22 May 1987, p. 15.

Berns, Walter. “The Death Penalty Dignifies Society.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints, edited by Bender and Leone. Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 69-75.

“Black and White Issue.” U.S. News and World Report, 20 Oct 1986, p. 24.

Bright, Neil. “More Executions Will Deter Murder.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints, edited by Bender and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 105-09.

Carrington, Frank. “Inconclusive Evidence Does Not Invalidate Deterrence.” The Death

Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven

Press, 1986, pp. 115-25.

“The Death Penalty: Pro/Con.” Scholastic Update, 4 Oct 1987, p. 10.

“Death Row: Last Skirmish.” Newsweek, 20 Oct 1986, p. 34.

Endres, Michael E. “The Death Penalty is Immoral.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 60-68.

Gow, Haven B. “Religious Views Support the Death Penalty.” The Death Penalty:

Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986,

pp. 78-88.

Greely, Horace. “The Death Penalty is State-Sanctioned Murder.” The Death Penalty:

Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986,

pp. 35-40.

Gregg vs. Georgia. U.S. Supreme Court Reports, July 1976, pp. 850-865.

“Gridlock on Death Row.” Newsweek, 4 May 1987, pp.60+.

The Holy Bible, King James Version, Containing the Old and New Testaments and the

Apocrypha. Seabury Press, 1949.

McCleskey vs. Kemp. U.S. Supreme Court Reports, April 1987, pp. 1770-81.

Mishkin, Barry. “Capital Punishment: An Issue Once Again.” Cincinnati: Pamphlet

Productions, 1981, pp. 25-30.

Sloan, Clifford. “Death Row Clerk.” The New Republic, 2 Feb 1987, pp. 18+.

Spence, Karl. “The Death Penalty Deters Murder.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints. edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 90-98.

Van Den Haag, Ernest. “The Death Penalty is Moral.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 59-66.

Vodicka, John Cole. “The Death Penalty Degrades Society.” The Death Penalty:

Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986,

pp. 71-77.

West, Louis J. “The Death Penalty Incites Murder.” The Death Penalty: Opposing

Viewpoints, edited by Bruno and Leone, Greenhaven Press, 1986, pp. 100-109.