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Against Death Penalty

When turning on the television, radio, or simply opening the local newspaper, one is bombarded with news of murders, homicides, serial killers, and other such tragedies. It is a rare occasion to go through a day in this world and not hear of these things. So what should be done about this crime wave?. Today, there is a big controversy over the death penalty, whether it is morally right or wrong?

There are a number of issues that are measured notorious in our modern civilization. One of the issues is death penalty.  The public, civil societies and religious societies are constantly involved in debates aimed at proving the legality or illegality of these issues. In this paper we I’m going to discuss death penalty. Death penalty is inhumane, barbarous and does not respect sanctity of life. In the sections of the paper that follow, reasons that make many hold this opinion will discussed.

Death penalty is unkind and unusual. We are now in the 21st century where almost nation is civilized. Gone are the days of slavery and linked barbarous acts when executions were a common place. Death penalty can be compared to killing for delight and with ceremony.  This act has been overtaken by events. State institutions should not execute citizens in the name of law or maintaining order.  There is a widely held myth that death penalty effectively achieves its objectives. Facts, however, disapprove this.

The major cause why death penalty was instituted was to prevent crime but available proof speaks against this. There are other ways that crime can be deterred. The controlling drugs use and, reducing the number of guns in the hands of civilians, are two ways that can efficiently control crime. Death penalty comes last in the list of possible ways of deterring crime.  Long life sentence, as a matter of fact, is a better manner of controlling and deterring crime compared to death penalty.

Some of the arguments on which makes us against the death penalty are:

· The death penalty goes against our most basic human right - the right to life

· Being killed by lethal injection or being electrocuted is not always smooth and painless, sometimes it causes a painful death

· No-one has ever proven with numbers that killing murderers stops other people committing similar crimes

· Mistakes are sometimes made in the law - what if someone is killed who is actually innocent?

Death penalty is typically applied subjectively and is most of the times final This means that application of death penalty denies the due process of law .  Victims once convicted are without the right to benefit from new evidence that may come up after conviction. Life in parole sentences are advocated for by many who are against death penalty as victims may have a chance of being acquitted once new facts comes up.

In the United States and other assorted societies, the public and civil societies always feel that death penalty is violates the constitutional right of fairness and protection.  Available statistical data from different states in the United States prove that death sentence is never applied fairly. There are more blacks who have been executed compared to other races. This does not necessarily mean that blacks are involved more in crime compared to their white or colored counterparts. Instead of people arguing every now and then that Race is not the only factor that determines whether a suspect criminal ends being convicted to die or not. Other factors like education status and social status have been quoted as other basis used to disproportionately apply death penalty .

Those who advocate for death penalty argue that death penalty has far reaching economic benefits compared to other forms of sentencing like life without parole. They argue that maintaining a life sentence criminal costs nations lots of resources compared to death penalty. This, nevertheless, is not necessary true. Capital punishment squanders and energy of the whole justice system.  Prolonged court session before one can be convicted waste resources that could otherwise be used to compensate families of victims.

As it has already been noted, some suspects get executed on the basis of social status.  The numbers of poor people who have been executed in all American states exceed the number of rich suspects who have had the same fate. Poor people may not have enough fees to hire attorneys who can put up a strong defense in court.  Innocent people have thus ended up being executed a simply because they could not hire attorney who could represent them well.  The issue of poverty notwithstanding, suspects may get convicted to die simply because an error was made by a judge who is all human and bound to make mistakes.

90 percent of the world's population belongs to a religious group. All worlds' religions teach against killing. Christians, for example, state that God is the sole provider of life and no human being has the power or authority to take human life. Other religious hold a similar stand.  If almost everyone living on this planet is taught about sanctity of life, why should a state organ, like the judiciary, come in and do something contrary to these teachings.

Arguments against death sentence are solid. Any person looking at these arguments rationally will be convinced that death sentence should be abolished by those who still practice it. We are in the 21st century and so barbaric executions like those of days of slave should be done away with. Death penalty fails to respect sanctity of life and should thus be seen as an unfeeling, immoral and inhumane act. Researchers and analysts have come into  a conclusion this act is applied randomly and that factors like race, social status and education, determine whether suspects end up in death row or not. Innocent people have ended up being victims of errors made by justice systems. All these reasons form a formidable force that should push any stubborn nation, institution or individual to admit that it is a high time that death penalty was abolished.