Death Penalty: The Morality Of Capital Punishment

Capital punishment, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the “execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense” (Merriam-Webster). Generally in today’s society, the offense leading to the death penalty is murder. However, there are times when a person is sentenced to death, even though the convicted committed no crime at all. Typically, this type of execution is carried out through a costly lethal injection and brings about an inhumane way to bring about justice. How is lethal injection any different from Hitler’s execution of the Jews in shower rooms at death camps? In essence, capital punishment is not only expensive by spending thousands of dollars for wrongly convicted individuals and morally wrong, but it also does not always serve justice and, instead, makes the government look more like the murderers they execute. Initially, the death penalty is not fool-proof; sometimes, the wrong …show more content…
In the “Basic Rules of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols” by the International Committee of the Red Cross, it is written that “everyone shall be entitled to benefit from fundamental judicial guarantees. No one shall be held responsible for an act he has not committed. No one shall be subjected to physical or mental torture, corporal punishment or cruel or degrading treatment” (ICRC). Even though that rule does go towards armed conflicts, what makes it acceptable in a civil environment like the soil of the United States? Although the death penalty could take away the criminals that could cause an armed conflict on American soil, there is no exception on taking one’s life without sufficient and proper evidence that clearly states that they committed the crime necessary for the death sentence and, therefore, renders the entire process immoral because of taking what belongs to someone else: their