Ethical Reasoning - Death Penalty
Threatening to kill someone, does that deter crime? The United State remains in the vast minority of nations throughout the world who still uses death as a penalty for certain crimes ("The Death Penalty Worldwide," n.d.). In this paper I will argue that the death penalty should be stopped, it’s morally wrong, expensive, and an ineffective deterrent to crime.
The death penalty is both morally and ethically wrong. Society, as a whole, believes that killing another individual is wrong. It’s morally wrong to take the life of an individual, no matter how despicable that individual may be. Therefore, how can it be acceptable to live in a State or Country in which the government hypocritically puts individuals …show more content…
There is substantial evidence that many mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death. Since 1973, there have been 143 people who have either been acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, or had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution, or have been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence. During the same period of time, 1355 people have been executed. Consequently, for every nine people executed there is one person on death row who statistically should have never been convicted. These statistics represent an unforgivable risk of executing the innocent. Therefore the death penalty should be abolished because of the likely possibility of an innocent person being wrongfully …show more content…
Many supporters for the death penalty may argue that the execution of the murderer provides closure and relief to the victims’ families and loved ones, this is not true in most cases. Death row inmates’ average over 14 years in prison awaiting execution and some have been on death row for over 30 years. This long delay in the death penalty process often requires the families of the victims to relive the pain and suffering of the death of their loved ones for many years, this is a traumatizing experience for the families. The process of the death penalty dwellings on the legal consequences and not the human consequences, the crime and the accused are where most of the attention is directed instead of the family and loved ones of the victim and of the community. If the criminal were to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole this would provide certain punishment without the endless reopening of wounds and it would keep the criminal out of the headlines.
There is too much arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty. The types of crimes that can produce the death sentence as the outcome can vary significantly. While a sentence of death is supposed to be reserved for the most serious of crimes, this is not always the case. An example of this is persons who committed the murders while under the age of 18, or an unintentional murder in the course
Threatening to kill someone, does that deter crime? The United State remains in the vast minority of nations throughout the world who still uses death as a penalty for certain crimes ("The Death Penalty Worldwide," n.d.). In this paper I will argue that the death penalty should be stopped, it’s morally wrong, expensive, and an ineffective deterrent to crime.
The death penalty is both morally and ethically wrong. Society, as a whole, believes that killing another individual is wrong. It’s morally wrong to take the life of an individual, no matter how despicable that individual may be. Therefore, how can it be acceptable to live in a State or Country in which the government hypocritically puts individuals …show more content…
There is substantial evidence that many mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death. Since 1973, there have been 143 people who have either been acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, or had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution, or have been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence. During the same period of time, 1355 people have been executed. Consequently, for every nine people executed there is one person on death row who statistically should have never been convicted. These statistics represent an unforgivable risk of executing the innocent. Therefore the death penalty should be abolished because of the likely possibility of an innocent person being wrongfully …show more content…
Many supporters for the death penalty may argue that the execution of the murderer provides closure and relief to the victims’ families and loved ones, this is not true in most cases. Death row inmates’ average over 14 years in prison awaiting execution and some have been on death row for over 30 years. This long delay in the death penalty process often requires the families of the victims to relive the pain and suffering of the death of their loved ones for many years, this is a traumatizing experience for the families. The process of the death penalty dwellings on the legal consequences and not the human consequences, the crime and the accused are where most of the attention is directed instead of the family and loved ones of the victim and of the community. If the criminal were to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole this would provide certain punishment without the endless reopening of wounds and it would keep the criminal out of the headlines.
There is too much arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty. The types of crimes that can produce the death sentence as the outcome can vary significantly. While a sentence of death is supposed to be reserved for the most serious of crimes, this is not always the case. An example of this is persons who committed the murders while under the age of 18, or an unintentional murder in the course