Van Den Haag's Response To Capital Punishment

Improved Essays
Van den Haag’s response was that the distribution of the death penalty does not change its morality.”no distribution cannot affect the quality of what is distributed.” If the death penalty was misdistributed then it would “actually favor African American murders over white murders, because the misdistribution Is explain by the race of the victim, and murders tend to kill people that are the same race as them.” Misdistribution is irrelevant when it come to those who deserve it. People that deserve the punishment will get it because it is not about equality it is about justice being served.”Justice requires that as many of the guilty as possible be punished, regardless of whether others have avoided punishment.” Race or economic group won't change

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    On page 123, Prejean visits the new prison warden, Franklin C. Blackburn, to clear up rumors that have spread about her supposed “emotional relationship” with prisoner Patrick Sonnier prior to his execution. She then begins to discuss Christianity with the warden, and how her religious beliefs play into her ideals regarding the death penalty. Prejean employs eutrepismus and lists three things in which she is unwilling to accept regarding God and the death penalty. Her listing provides readers with her opinions in a clear and systematic way. First, appeals to pathos are incorporated through referencing God’s name, which sparks the attention of any reader who adheres to the Christian faith.…

    • 238 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This quote talks about that criminal justice targeting racial…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    First, justice emerges in a different way for individuals of various ethnic groups. Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes Malcolm X in Between the World and Me when he says, “If you’re…

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Arguments against the death penalty can be simplified and classified into the categories of the brutality of the process, along with its morality, and the basic reason of why it is apart of the United States Judicial system. The argument in support of the death penalty has been prevalent throughout the decades and although the times have changed the reasons of why it is obligatory to the safety of this nation's citizens. When presented with the question concerning the necessity of the death penalty, an essay by Edward I. Koch titled "Death and Justice" comes to mind in support of capital punishment. Koch starts with two short examples of murderers who were on death row and executed in 1984.…

    • 1818 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Clarence M. Dunnaville in her article Unequal Justice Under the Law— Racial Inequities in the Justice System claims “Unequal treatment of minorities characterizes every stage of the process. Black and Hispanic Americans, and other minority groups as well, are victimized by disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by police and other frontline law enforcement officials; by racially skewed charging and plea-bargaining decisions of prosecutors; by discriminatory sentencing practices; and by failure of judges, elected officials and other criminal justice policymakers to redress the inequities that become more glaring every day.” For example, the police is more strict in arrestating to black than write . the black who is ofeten suspect for a crtime in the black neighbordwood There is racial discrimination in sentencing in America's criminal justice. The length of sentence is not right between black defendant and white defendant .…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice." Desmond Tutu said this and I could not agree more. I think that capital punishment is morality wrong, and that Walter Berns’ “The Morality of Capital Punishment” article in Exploring Ethics fails on many grounds. Berns uses anger and a politically correct government to advocate the use of capital punishment. I am going to try and prove that Burns is wrong, and that by killing we are only fueling the fire and a continuous cycle.…

    • 1468 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Referring to an article from the Law & Society Review (2001) “using data from Maryland, we find that African Americans have 20% longer sentences than whites, on average, holding constant age, gender, and recommended sentence length from the guidelines… Furthermore, judges tended to give longer sentences (relative to those recommended by the guidelines) to people in the part of the guidelines grid with longer recommended sentences (who are disproportionately African American) than they gave to people in the part of the grid with lower recommended sentences” (Bushway, S.D., Piehl, A., 2001). African Americans are incarcerated at 5.6 times the rate in which whites are incarcerated in the United States, a country which has the highest percentage of citizens behind bars (Atwell, M., 2012). While African Americans tend to receive harsher punishments and longer sentences than their white counterparts, this disparity in punishment can fall under warranted and unwarranted reasoning. For example, factors such as criminal history, and crime severity would be regarded as warranted reasoning for harsher punishment, whereas factors such as race, gender, and other factors that have nothing to do with legal…

    • 965 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Certain factors should not impact the decision of who is going to be sentenced to jail or not. Bias in the courtroom should no be happening. Race is impacting a lot of the things that happen when it comes to trials. If african americans are receiving sentences that are higher than whites (Burch) , is there even such a thing as a fair trial? Everyone should know that things such as race, should never determine if someone should be sentenced to prison.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, the system’s envisioned idea of racial neutrality has not been—and cannot, at this point in time be—achieved. There are four key aspects of the inequalities experienced between black and white people: 1) most race-neutral policies have disparate effects on black people, 2) practitioners of the criminal justice system are often unintentionally influenced by racial biases, 3) certain segments of the system are underfunded, and 4) some policies intensify socioeconomic inequalities (Ghandnoosh 3-4). As previously discussed in this essay, there already exist broader, societal disparities between white and black citizens, and these pre-existing discrepancies help contribute to the inequalities found within the justice system. For instance, black people are already significantly more likely than white people to be in poverty, so underfunded programs within the system won’t benefit black people as often as they’ll benefit white people. Additionally, policies that require heavy fines, parole, or other restrictive punishments will disproportionately affect black people.…

    • 1614 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For instance, white individuals are less likely to obtain harsh treatment if they were to be arrested and found guilty of a crime in…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The key features of the argument on supporting the death penalty developed by Ernest Van Den Haag first focuses on matters of mal-distribution and determining if an individual really deserves it, second the miscarriages of justice, third if the death penalty is a better deterrence than other punishments, fourth the incidental issues that the death penalty promotes, and fifth justice, excess, and degradation. The first argument that Ernest Van Den Haag argues is on the matter of mal-distribution, and determining whether an individual really deserves capital punishment. He expresses his view that mal-distribution being compared between those individuals who are guilty or innocent is undeserved. The acts of capital punishment upon an individual who knowingly commits a crime and is considered guilty in that sense deserves the punishment. However, on the other hand he considers that when mal-distribution is then put upon an innocent life that did not commit the crime but is considered guilty is seen as than unjust.…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Van Den Haag argues in defense of the death penalty (Van Den Haag 325). His first defense is against claims that the penalty is not distributed equally (Van Den Haag 326). To answer this objection, he says that the maldistribution of justice does not make the punishment itself immoral. The death penalty itself is just while its distribution is not always fair. He then claims that even those who show statistics to prove racist faults in the distribution of capital punishment fail to present an argument that would warrant abolishing the penalty, since justice is…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Racial Disparity In Criminal Justice Essay

    • 1737 Words
    • 7 Pages
    • 5 Works Cited

    These are acknowledgement of the cumulative nature of racial disparities, encouragement of communication across the key players in all steps of the system, knowing what works at one step of the system may not always work in another, and working together towards a systemic change. The issue of racial disparity builds at each stage of the criminal justice system from arrest through prosecution and sentencing rather than the actions of one particular level of the system. In order to tackle the unwarranted disparity there are strategies that are needed in order to tackle the problem at each individual level of the system and this will need to be done in a coordinated and strategic way. Without a systemic approach to the problem gains in one level may be offset by reversals of another level. Each decision point and area of the system requires their own unique strategies depending upon the degrees of disparity and the specific population in which is affected by the actions of that level.…

    • 1737 Words
    • 7 Pages
    • 5 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, President Obama states “1 in 17 white men and 1 in 3 black men will end up in prison. It results in an unfair system; every study has shown that our institutions are biased.” For minorities the justice system today is not innocent until proven guilty, it’s guilty until proven innocent. Many color children suffer biases in comparison to their white peers. For example, President Obama states “An African American youth is more likely to be suspended from school, than a white youth engaging in the same activity.”…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    I have shown that due to the fact of skin color, one is more likely to be pulled over and serve a longer sentence than that of a non-Hispanic White man. I have shown there is inequality structured within the structure. I have broken it down into three separate races describing what they are most convicted for, how long they are sentenced, and how long they serve their sentence. Racial inequality does exist. This inequality stems from the time of slavery when diversity was not accepted.…

    • 2223 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Brilliant Essays