Why The Death Penalty Is Wrong

While it should now be abundantly clear that the death penalty is fraught with procedural and practical issues, the underlying issue of the death penalty’s immorality remains vital in understanding why capital punishment ought to be done away with. The death penalty’s moral flaws range from the inability to guarantee a pain-free death, to its failure to fulfill the state’s responsibility in the least harmful way possible, to its assumption of absolute certainty. The means of carrying out executions has changed significantly over time. Hanging, firing squads, and the electric chair have given way to lethal injection as society has sought to make execution as humane as possible, in part to avoid accusations that capital punishment is in violation of the eighth amendment’s …show more content…
Any good government should seek to carry out its end of the social contract effectively while minimizing the harm it causes in doing so. Certain states remain effective in upholding their responsibilities to protect their citizens and uphold the law without the use of the death penalty. The death penalty is more harmful than life imprisonment as, by definition, it involves taking a person’s life. Therefore, capital punishment ought to be …show more content…
Should a person imprisoned after being found guilty in court suddenly be determined to be innocent, their punishment can be stopped and, while it may not be possible to put a definitive value on the person’s lost time, they can receive some form of compensation. This room for error makes imprisonment an acceptable form of punishment. The death penalty leaves no such room for error. The inability to resurrect those who are falsely accused and executed makes the punishment unacceptable in a just