Should laws allow capital punishment?

Con: Civilization demands respect for human life. A government ought to set an example of the best human behavior: it demonstrates its value of human life by protecting the lives of even its most hated, dreaded enemies. There must never be an exception made to the principle of respect for human life. No justification for taking a human life could ever be made.

Con: Some methods of capital punishment inflict a great deal of pain and suffering. With hanging, for instance, if the rope with which a person is hanged is too long, decapitation will result. But if the rope is too short, the spinal cord will not break, and the person will only be strangled to death.

Con: It is a cruel and unusual punishment.

Reply: Anxiety and pain are appropriate aspects of capital punishment.

Pro: Capital punishment deters other people from committing crimes.

Capital punishment is an example of what will happen to those who are calculating the risks of committing a most serious crime. It is a factor that they must weigh as they make their decision.

Reply 1: Where capital punishment is practiced, statistics do not support the notion that a threat of death reduces the incidence of crime.

Reply 2: Capital punishment does not work as a deterrent because most of those who would commit the most serious crimes do not make an adequate examination of the adverse consequences of their actions. Those who commit crimes which are likely to be punished by death are, at the time they commit them, not mentally fit for the kind of calculation that would make capital punishment an important factor in their decision-making.

Anyone who is fit to make a calculation of the consequences of committing a crime that might receive the death penalty may think (with some justification) that, in some cases, the criminal can avoid punishment altogether. The police may never capture a suspect. Or the suspect, once captured, may use legal means to reduce the sentence of capital punishment to, say, life imprisonment. All along the way through the legal system, lawyers may make appeals and often win delays and even reversals of judicial decisions. So the uncertainty of the death penalty reduces its effectiveness as a deterrent to serious crimes.

Pro: Capital punishment stops the convicted criminal from committing other crimes.

Reply: Imprisonment also prevents the criminal from committing other crimes.

Pro: Justice demands that the punishment fit the crime. Capital punishment is retribution for the most serious offenses against individuals and society. Some crimes are so heinous that nothing less than capital punishment meets the demand for justice. The punishment the criminal receives is made to correspond with the suffering the criminal causes. It therefore creates or restores a sort of balance.

Con: Life imprisonment is a more severe punishment that the death penalty. Those who want vengeance should consider the living hell to which a person is relegated when given a sentence of life imprisonment. Life imprisonment is most appropriate to the convicts responsible for the worst crimes. Imprisonment for life has the merit of giving inmates ample opportunity to reflect on the consequences of their crimes and realize how serious they were.

Pro: Society pays too great a price to feed and house criminals who have been sentenced to jail for life for the most serious crimes. Capital punishment is more economical for society than other forms of punishment.

Reply: The argument that lifelong prisoners makes too great a drain on the public treasury can be met with a requirement that such prisoners work to support themselves. The prison population can serve as a pool of inexpensive labor. Whether they work inside the prison or outside in 'chain gangs,' inmates may do productive work as a way of earning their keep. Their earnings will defray the costs of running the institution and reduce some of the financial burden on taxpayers.

Con: Capital punishment, because of the number of appeals and expensive legal proceedings to bring it about, is far more costly to society than is life imprisonment for convicted felons.

Con: The application of capital punishment is susceptible to error. Mistakes can be made in the administration of capital punishment: innocent people may be executed.

Con: The application of capital punishment is susceptible to bias. The practice of capital punishment is often associated with racial, socioeconomic, political, or religious inequities. Capital punishment is typically administered to the criminals from disadvantaged minorities. Juries often discriminate against black, poor, and uneducated people. Blacks, for example, are sentenced to death more often than whites for similar crimes.

Reply: To be just, capital punishment need not occur in the same percentage of criminal cases for each and every social group or class. Some groups or classes may have more candidates for capital punishment than others. If there is an unjust distribution of capital punishment among diverse groups, the injustice may not be that some criminals are put to death; the injustice may be that some people who deserve execution are not executed.