is capital punishment good essay

Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments

Life without Parole

Retribution

Victims’ Families

Methods of Execution

Medical Professionals’ Participation

Federal Death Penalty

1. Legality

The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment’s use).

Proponents of the death penalty being legal argue that such a harsh penalty is needed for criminals who have committed the worst crimes, that the punishment deters crime, and that the US Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty as constitutional.

Opponents of the death penalty being legal argue that the punishment is cruel and unusual, and, thus, unconstitutional, that innocent people are put to death for crimes they did not commit, and that the penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color.

Read More about This Debate:

Should the Death Penalty Be Legal?

ProCon.org, “International Death Penalty Status,” deathpenalty.procon.org, May 19, 2021 ProCon.org, “Should the Death Penalty Be Legal?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021 ProCon.org, “States with the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Bans, and Death Penalty Moratoriums,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Mar. 24, 2021

2. Life without Parole

Life without Parole (also called LWOP) is suggested by some as an alternative punishment for the death penalty.

Proponents of replacing the death penalty with life without parole argue that imprisoning someone for the duration of their life is more humane than the death penalty, that LWOP is a more fitting penalty that allows the criminal to think about what they’ve done, and that LWOP reduces the chances of executing an innocent person.

Opponents of replacing the death penalty with life without parole argue that LWOP is just an alternate death penalty and parole should always be a consideration even if the prisoner never earns the privilege. While other opponents argue that life without parole is not a harsh enough punishment for murderers and terrorists.

Should Life without Parole Replace the Death Penalty?

ProCon.org, “Should Life without Parole Replace the Death Penalty?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

3. Deterrence

One of the main justifications for maintaining a death penalty is that the punishment may prevent people from committing crimes so as to not risk being sentenced to death.

Proponents who argue that the death penalty is a deterrent to capital crimes state that such a harsh penalty is needed to discourage people from murder and terrorism.

Opponents who argue that the death penalty is not a deterrent to capital crimes state that there is no evidence to support the claim that the penalty is a deterrent.

Does the Death Penalty Deter Crime?

ProCon.org, “Does the Death Penalty Deter Crime?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

4. Retribution

Retribution in this debate is the idea that the death penalty is needed to bring about justice for the victims, the victims’ families, and/or society at large.

Proponents who argue that the death penalty is needed as retribution argue that “an eye for an eye” is appropriate, that the punishment should match the crime, and that the penalty is needed as a moral balance to the wrong done by the criminal.

Opponents who argue that the death penalty is not needed as retribution argue that reformative justice is more productive, that innocent people are often killed in the search for retribution, and that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Should the Death Penalty Be Used for Retribution for Victims and/or Society?

ProCon.org, “Should the Death Penalty Be Used for Retribution for Victims and/or Society?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

5. Victims’ Families

Whether the death penalty can bring about some sort of closure or solace to the victims’ families after a horrible, life-changing experience has long been debated and used by both proponents and opponents of the death penalty.

Proponents who argue that the death penalty is needed to bring about closure and solace to victims’ families argue that the finality of the death penalty is needed for families to move on and not live in fear of the criminal getting out of prison.

Opponents who argue that the death penalty is needed to bring about closure and solace to victims’ families argue that retributive “justice” does not bring closure for anyone and that the death penalty can take years of media-friendly appeals to enact.

Does the Death Penalty Offer Closure or Solace to Victims’ Families?

ProCon.org, “Does the Death Penalty Offer Closure or Solace to Victims’ Families?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

6. Methods of Execution

Because the drugs used for lethal injection have become difficult to obtain, some states are turning to other methods of execution. For example, South Carolina recently enacted legislation to allow for the firing squad and electric chair if lethal injection is not available at the time of the execution.

Proponents of alternate methods of execution argue that the state and federal government have an obligation to carry out the sentence handed down, and that, given the recent botched lethal injection executions, other methods may be more humane.

Opponents of alternate methods of execution argue that we should not be reverting to less humane methods of execution, and that the drug companies’ objection to use of lethal injection drugs should signal a need to abolish the penalty altogether.

Should States Authorize Other Methods of Execution Such as Hanging or the Firing Squad?

ProCon.org, “Should States Authorize Other Methods of Execution Such as Hanging or the Firing Squad?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

7. Innocence

Reports indicate over 150 innocent people have been found not-guilty and exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973.

Proponents of abolishing the death penalty because innocent people may be executed argue that humans are fallible and the justice system is flawed, putting more Black and brown people on death row than are guilty of capital crimes, and that we cannot risk executing one innocent person just to carry about retributive “justice.”

Opponents of abolishing the death penalty because innocent people may be executed argue that the fact that death row inmates have been exonerated proves that the checks and balances to prevent innocent people from being executed are in place and working well, almost eliminating the chance that an innocent person will be executed.

Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished Because Innocent People May Be Executed?

ProCon.org, “Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished Because Innocent People May Be Executed?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

8. Morality

Both religious and secular debates have continued about whether it is moral for humans to kill one another, even in the name of justice, and whether executing people makes for a moral and just government.

Proponents who argue that the death penalty is a moral punishment state that “an eye for an eye” is justified to promote a good and just society than shuns evil.

Opponents who argue that the death penalty is an immoral punishment state that humans should not kill other humans, no matter the reasons, because killing is killing.

Is the Death Penalty Immoral?

ProCon.org, “Is the Death Penalty Immoral?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

9. Medical Professionals’ Participation

With the introduction of lethal injection as execution method, states began asking that medical professionals participate in executions to ensure the injections were administered properly and to provide medical care if the execution were botched.

Proponents who argue that medical professionals can participate in executions ethically state that doctors and others ensure that the execution is not “cruel or unusual,” and ensure that the person being executed receives medical care during the execution.

Opponents who argue that medical professionals cannot participate in executions ethically state that doctors and others should keep people alive instead of participate in killing, and that the medicalization of execution leads to a false acceptance of the practice.

Is Participation in Executions Ethical for Medical Professionals?

ProCon.org, “Is Participation in Executions Ethical for Medical Professionals?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

10. Federal Death Penalty

The federal death penalty has only been carried out 16 times since its reinstatement after Furman v. Georgia in 1988: twice in 2001, once in 2003, ten times in 2020, and three times in 2021. Several moratoriums have been put in place by presidents in the interims. Under President Joe Biden, the US Justice Department has enacted a moratorium on the death penalty, reversing President Donald Trump’s policy of carrying out federal executions.

Proponents of keeping the federal death penalty argue that justice must be carried out to deter crime and offer closure to families, and that the federal government has an obligation to enact the sentences handed down by the courts.

Proponents of banning the federal death penalty argue that the United States federal government should set an example for the states with a ban, and that only a ban will prevent the next president from executing the prisoners on death row.

Should the US President Reinstate the Federal Death Penalty?

ProCon.org, “Most Recent Executions in Each US State,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Aug. 26, 2021 ProCon.org, “Should the US President Reinstate the Federal Death Penalty?,” deathpenalty.procon.org, Sep. 20, 2021

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Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty

Click the buttons below to view arguments and testimony on each topic.

The death penalty deters future murders.

Retribution

A just society requires the taking of a life for a life.

The risk of executing the innocent precludes the use of the death penalty.

Arbitrariness & Discrimination

The death penalty is applied unfairly and should not be used.

5 Death Penalty Essays Everyone Should Know

Capital punishment is an ancient practice. It’s one that human rights defenders strongly oppose and consider as inhumane and cruel. In 2019, Amnesty International reported the lowest number of executions in about a decade. Most executions occurred in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt . The United States is the only developed western country still using capital punishment. What does this say about the US? Here are five essays about the death penalty everyone should read:

“When We Kill”

By: Nicholas Kristof | From: The New York Times 2019

In this excellent essay, Pulitizer-winner Nicholas Kristof explains how he first became interested in the death penalty. He failed to write about a man on death row in Texas. The man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed in 2004. Later evidence showed that the crime he supposedly committed – lighting his house on fire and killing his three kids – was more likely an accident. In “When We Kill,” Kristof puts preconceived notions about the death penalty under the microscope. These include opinions such as only guilty people are executed, that those guilty people “deserve” to die, and the death penalty deters crime and saves money. Based on his investigations, Kristof concludes that they are all wrong.

Nicholas Kristof has been a Times columnist since 2001. He’s the winner of two Pulitizer Prices for his coverage of China and the Darfur genocide.

“An Inhumane Way of Death”

By: Willie Jasper Darden, Jr.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was on death row for 14 years. In his essay, he opens with the line, “Ironically, there is probably more hope on death row than would be found in most other places.” He states that everyone is capable of murder, questioning if people who support capital punishment are just as guilty as the people they execute. Darden goes on to say that if every murderer was executed, there would be 20,000 killed per day. Instead, a person is put on death row for something like flawed wording in an appeal. Darden feels like he was picked at random, like someone who gets a terminal illness. This essay is important to read as it gives readers a deeper, more personal insight into death row.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was sentenced to death in 1974 for murder. During his time on death row, he advocated for his innocence and pointed out problems with his trial, such as the jury pool that excluded black people. Despite worldwide support for Darden from public figures like the Pope, Darden was executed in 1988.

“We Need To Talk About An Injustice”

By: Bryan Stevenson | From: TED 2012

This piece is a transcript of Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk, but we feel it’s important to include because of Stevenson’s contributions to criminal justice. In the talk, Stevenson discusses the death penalty at several points. He points out that for years, we’ve been taught to ask the question, “Do people deserve to die for their crimes?” Stevenson brings up another question we should ask: “Do we deserve to kill?” He also describes the American death penalty system as defined by “error.” Somehow, society has been able to disconnect itself from this problem even as minorities are disproportionately executed in a country with a history of slavery.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and author. He’s argued in courts, including the Supreme Court, on behalf of the poor, minorities, and children. A film based on his book Just Mercy was released in 2019 starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.

“I Know What It’s Like To Carry Out Executions”

By: S. Frank Thompson | From: The Atlantic 2019

In the death penalty debate, we often hear from the family of the victims and sometimes from those on death row. What about those responsible for facilitating an execution? In this opinion piece, a former superintendent from the Oregon State Penitentiary outlines his background. He carried out the only two executions in Oregon in the past 55 years, describing it as having a “profound and traumatic effect” on him. In his decades working as a correctional officer, he concluded that the death penalty is not working . The United States should not enact federal capital punishment.

Frank Thompson served as the superintendent of OSP from 1994-1998. Before that, he served in the military and law enforcement. When he first started at OSP, he supported the death penalty. He changed his mind when he observed the protocols firsthand and then had to conduct an execution.

“There Is No Such Thing As Closure on Death Row”

By: Paul Brown | From: The Marshall Project 2019

This essay is from Paul Brown, a death row inmate in Raleigh, North Carolina. He recalls the moment of his sentencing in a cold courtroom in August. The prosecutor used the term “closure” when justifying a death sentence. Who is this closure for? Brown theorizes that the prosecutors are getting closure as they end another case, but even then, the cases are just a way to further their careers. Is it for victims’ families? Brown is doubtful, as the death sentence is pursued even when the families don’t support it. There is no closure for Brown or his family as they wait for his execution. Vivid and deeply-personal, this essay is a must-read for anyone who wonders what it’s like inside the mind of a death row inmate.

Paul Brown has been on death row since 2000 for a double murder. He is a contributing writer to Prison Writers and shares essays on topics such as his childhood, his life as a prisoner, and more.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

• Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?
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Capital Punishment:Our Duty or Our Doom?

But human rights advocates and civil libertarians continue to decry the immorality of state-sanctioned killing in the U.S. Is capital punishment moral?

About 2000 men, women, and teenagers currently wait on America's "death row." Their time grows shorter as federal and state courts increasingly ratify death penalty laws, allowing executions to proceed at an accelerated rate. It's unlikely that any of these executions will make the front page, having become more or less a matter of routine in the last decade. Indeed, recent public opinion polls show a wide margin of support for the death penalty. But human rights advocates and civil libertarians continue to decry the immorality of state-sanctioned killing in the U.S., the only western industrialized country that continues to use the death penalty. Is capital punishment moral?

Capital punishment is often defended on the grounds that society has a moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens. Murderers threaten this safety and welfare. Only by putting murderers to death can society ensure that convicted killers do not kill again.

Second, those favoring capital punishment contend that society should support those practices that will bring about the greatest balance of good over evil, and capital punishment is one such practice. Capital punishment benefits society because it may deter violent crime. While it is difficult to produce direct evidence to support this claim since, by definition, those who are deterred by the death penalty do not commit murders, common sense tells us that if people know that they will die if they perform a certain act, they will be unwilling to perform that act.

If the threat of death has, in fact, stayed the hand of many a would be murderer, and we abolish the death penalty, we will sacrifice the lives of many innocent victims whose murders could have been deterred. But if, in fact, the death penalty does not deter, and we continue to impose it, we have only sacrificed the lives of convicted murderers. Surely it's better for society to take a gamble that the death penalty deters in order to protect the lives of innocent people than to take a gamble that it doesn't deter and thereby protect the lives of murderers, while risking the lives of innocents. If grave risks are to be run, it's better that they be run by the guilty, not the innocent.

Finally, defenders of capital punishment argue that justice demands that those convicted of heinous crimes of murder be sentenced to death. Justice is essentially a matter of ensuring that everyone is treated equally. It is unjust when a criminal deliberately and wrongly inflicts greater losses on others than he or she has to bear. If the losses society imposes on criminals are less than those the criminals imposed on their innocent victims, society would be favoring criminals, allowing them to get away with bearing fewer costs than their victims had to bear. Justice requires that society impose on criminals losses equal to those they imposed on innocent persons. By inflicting death on those who deliberately inflict death on others, the death penalty ensures justice for all.

This requirement that justice be served is not weakened by charges that only the black and the poor receive the death penalty. Any unfair application of the death penalty is the basis for extending its application, not abolishing it. If an employer discriminates in hiring workers, do we demand that jobs be taken from the deserving who were hired or that jobs be abolished altogether? Likewise, if our criminal justice system discriminates in applying the death penalty so that some do not get their deserved punishment, it's no reason to give Iesser punishments to murderers who deserved the death penalty and got it. Some justice, however unequal, is better than no justice, however equal. To ensure justice and equality, we must work to improve our system so that everyone who deserves the death penalty gets it.

The case against capital punishment is often made on the basis that society has a moral obligation to protect human life, not take it. The taking of human life is permissible only if it is a necessary condition to achieving the greatest balance of good over evil for everyone involved. Given the value we place on life and our obligation to minimize suffering and pain whenever possible, if a less severe alternative to the death penalty exists which would accomplish the same goal, we are duty-bound to reject the death penalty in favor of the less severe alternative.

There is no evidence to support the claim that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent of violent crime than, say, life imprisonment. In fact, statistical studies that have compared the murder rates of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty have shown that the rate of murder is not related to whether the death penalty is in force: There are as many murders committed in jurisdictions with the death penalty as in those without. Unless it can be demonstrated that the death penalty, and the death penalty alone, does in fact deter crimes of murder, we are obligated to refrain from imposing it when other alternatives exist.

Further, the death penalty is not necessary to achieve the benefit of protecting the public from murderers who may strike again. Locking murderers away for life achieves the same goal without requiring us to take yet another life. Nor is the death penalty necessary to ensure that criminals "get what they deserve." Justice does not require us to punish murder by death. It only requires that the gravest crimes receive the severest punishment that our moral principles would allow us to impose.

While it is clear that the death penalty is by no means necessary to achieve certain social benefits, it does, without a doubt, impose grave costs on society. First, the death penalty wastes lives. Many of those sentenced to death could be rehabilitated to live socially productive lives. Carrying out the death penalty destroys any good such persons might have done for society if they had been allowed to live. Furthermore, juries have been known to make mistakes, inflicting the death penalty on innocent people. Had such innocent parties been allowed to live, the wrong done to them might have been corrected and their lives not wasted.

In addition to wasting lives, the death penalty also wastes money. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it's much more costly to execute a person than to imprison them for life. The finality of punishment by death rightly requires that great procedural precautions be taken throughout all stages of death penalty cases to ensure that the chance of error is minimized. As a result, executing a single capital case costs about three times as much as it costs to keep a person in prison for their remaining life expectancy, which is about 40 years.

Finally, the death penalty harms society by cheapening the value of life. Allowing the state to inflict death on certain of its citizens legitimizes the taking of life. The death of anyone, even a convicted killer, diminishes us all. Society has a duty to end this practice which causes such harm, yet produces little in the way of benefits.

Opponents of capital punishment also argue that the death penalty should be abolished because it is unjust. Justice, they claim, requires that all persons be treated equally. And the requirement that justice bc served is all the more rigorous when life and death are at stake. Of 19,000 people who committed willful homicides in the U.S. in 1987, only 293 were sentenced to death. Who are these few being selected to die? They are nearly always poor and disproportionately black. It is not the nature of the crime that determines who goes to death row and who doesn't. People go to death row simply because they have no money to appeal their case, or they have a poor defense, or they lack the funds to being witnesses to courts, or they are members of a political or racial minority.

The death penalty is also unjust because it is sometimes inflicted on innocent people. Since 1900, 350 people have been wrongly convicted of homicide or capital rape. The death penalty makes it impossible to remedy any such mistakes. If, on the other hand, the death penalty is not in force, convicted persons later found to be innocent can be released and compensated for the time they wrongly served in prison.

The case for and the case against the death penalty appeal, in different ways, to the value we place on life and to the value we place on bringing about the greatest balance of good over evil. Each also appeals to our commitment to"justice": Is justice to be served at all costs? Or is our commitment to justice to be one tempered by our commitment to equality and our reverence for life? Indeed, is capital punishment our duty or our doom?

(Capital punishment) is . . . the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated . . can be compared . . . For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life. --Albert Camus

If . . . he has committed a murder, he must die. In this case, there is no substitute that will satisfy the requirements of legal justice. There is no sameness of kind between death and remaining alive even under the most miserable conditions, and consequently there is no equality between the crime and the retribution unless the criminal is judicially condemned and put to death. --Immanuel Kant

For further reading:

Hugo Adam Bedau, Death Is Different: Studies in the Morality, Law, and Politics of Capital Punishment (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987).

Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment (New York: Basic Books, 1979.)

David Bruch, "The Death Penalty: An Exchange," The New Republic , Volume 192 (May 20, 1985), pp. 20-21.

Edward I. Koch, "Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life," The New Republic, Volume 192 (April 15,1985), pp. 13-15.

Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad , The Death Penalty: A Debate (New York: Plenum Press, 1983).

This article was originally published in Issues in Ethics - V. 1, N.3 Spring 1988

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During recent student protests, the universities able to find common ground with students have done so by engaging with them directly in dialogue, setting boundaries that are consistently applied, and working to achieve compromise, rather than digging in firmly with a resolute stance against discussions of divestment from Israel and the arms industry.

Capital Punishment: Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

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The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the lawful imposition of death as punishment for a crime. In 2004 four (China, Iran, Vietnam, and the US) accounted for 97% of all global executions. On average, every 9-10 days a government in the United States executes a prisoner.

It is the Eighth Amendment , the constitutional clause that prohibits "cruel and unusual" punishment, which is at the center of the debate about capital punishment in America. Although most Americans support capital punishment under some circumstances, according to Gallup support for capital punishment has dropped dramatically from a high of 80% in 1994 to about 60% today.

Facts and Figures

Red state executions per million population are an order of magnitude greater than blue state executions (46.4 v 4.5). Blacks are executed at a rate significantly disproportionate to their share of the overall population.

Based on 2000 data , Texas ranked 13th in the country in violent crime and 17th in murders per 100,000 citizens. However, Texas leads the nation in death penalty convictions and executions.

Since the 1976 Supreme Court decision that reinstated the death penalty in the United States, the governments of the United States had executed 1,136, as of December 2008. The 1,000th execution, North Carolina's Kenneth Boyd, occurred in December 2005. There were 42 executions in 2007 .

More than 3,300 prisoners were serving death-row sentences in the US in December 2008. Nationwide, juries are delivering fewer death sentences: since the late 1990s, they have dropped 50%. The violent crime rate has also dropped dramatically since the mid-90s, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2005.

Latest Developments

In 2007, the Death Penalty Information Center released a report, “ A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty .”

The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty should reflect the "conscience of the community," and that its application should be measured against society's "evolving standards of decency. This latest report suggests that 60% of Americans do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. Moreover, almost 40% believe that their moral beliefs would disqualify them from serving on a capital case.

And when asked whether they prefer the death penalty or life in prison without parole as punishment for murder, the respondents were split: 47% death penalty, 43% prison, 10% unsure. Interestingly, 75% believe that a "higher degree of proof" is required in a capital case than in a "prison as punishment" case. (poll margin of error +/- ~3%)

In addition, since 1973 more than 120 people have had their death row convictions overturned. DNA testing has resulted in 200 non-capital cases to be overturned since 1989. Mistakes like these shake public confidence in the capital punishment system. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that almost 60% of those polled—including almost 60% of the southerners—in this study believe that the United States should impose a moratorium on the death penalty.

An ad hoc moratorium is almost in place. After the 1,000th execution in December 2005, there were almost no executions in 2006 or the first five months of 2007.

Executions as a form of punishment date to at least the 18th century BC. In America, Captain George Kendall was executed in 1608 in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia; he was accused of being a spy for Spain. In 1612, Virginia's death penalty violations included what modern citizens would consider minor violations: stealing grapes, killing chickens and trading with Indigenous peoples.

In the 1800s, abolitionists took up the cause of capital punishment, relying in part on Cesare Beccaria's 1767 essay, On Crimes and Punishment .

From the 1920s-1940s, criminologists argued that the death penalty was a necessary and preventative social measure. The 1930s, also marked by the Depression, saw more executions than any other decade in our history.

From the 1950s-1960s, public sentiment turned against capital punishment , and the number executed plummeted. In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled in Trop v. Dulles that the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." And according to Gallup, public support reached an all-time low of 42% in 1966.

Two 1968 cases caused the nation to rethink its capital punishment law. In U.S. v. Jackson , the Supreme Court ruled that requiring that the death penalty be imposed only upon recommendation of a jury was unconstitutional because it encouraged defendants to plead guilty to avoid trial. In Witherspoon v. Illinois , the Court ruled on juror selection; having a "reservation" was insufficient cause for dismissal in a capital case.

In June 1972, the Supreme Court (5 to 4) effectively voided death penalty statutes in 40 states and commuted the sentences of 629 death row inmates. In Furman v. Georgia , the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment with sentencing discretion was "cruel and unusual" and thus violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1976, the Court ruled that capital punishment itself was constitutional while holding that new death penalty laws in Florida, Georgia and Texas—which included sentencing guidelines, bifurcated trials, and automatic appellate review—were constitutional.

A ten-year moratorium on executions that had begun with the Jackson and Witherspoon ended on 17 January 1977 with the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah.

There are two common arguments in support of capital punishment : that of deterrence and that of retribution.

According to Gallup, most Americans believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to homicide, which helps them justify their support for capital punishment. Other Gallup research suggests that most Americans would not support capital punishment if it did not deter murder.

Does capital punishment deter violent crimes? In other words, will a potential murderer consider the possibility that they might be convicted and face the death penalty before committing murder? The answer appears to be "no."

Social scientists have mined empirical data searching for the definitive answer on deterrence since the early 20th century. And "most deterrence research has found that the death penalty has virtually the same effect as long imprisonment on homicide rates." Studies suggesting otherwise (notably, writings of Isaac Ehrlich from the 1970s) have been, in general, criticized for methodological errors. Ehrlich's work was also criticized by the National Academy of Sciences - but it is still cited as a rationale for deterrence.

A 1995 survey of police chiefs and country sheriffs found that most ranked the death penalty last in a list of six options that might deter violent crime. Their top two picks? Reducing drug abuse and fostering an economy that provides more jobs.

Data on murder rates seem to discredit the deterrence theory as well. The region of the county with the greatest number of executions—the South—is the region with the largest murder rates. For 2007, the average murder rate in states with the death penalty was 5.5; the average murder rate of the 14 states without the death penalty was 3.1. Thus deterrence, which is offered as a reason to support capital punishment ("pro"), doesn't wash.

Retribution

In Gregg v Georgia , the Supreme Court wrote that "[t]he instinct for retribution is part of the nature of man..." The theory of retribution rests, in part, on the Old Testament and its call for "an eye for an eye." Proponents of retribution argue that "the punishment must fit the crime." According to The New American : "Punishment—sometimes called retribution—is the main reason for imposing the death penalty."

Opponents of retribution theory believe in the sanctity of life and often argue that it is just as wrong for society to kill as it is for an individual to kill. Others argue that what drives American support for capital punishment is the " impermanent emotion of outrage ." Certainly, emotion not reason seems to be the key behind support for capital punishment.

Some supporters of the death penalty also contend it is less expensive than a life sentence. Nevertheless, at least 47 states do have life sentences without the possibility of parole. Of those, at least 18 have no possibility of parole. And according to the ACLU :

The most comprehensive death penalty study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment (Duke University, May 1993). In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.

More than 1000 religious leaders  have written an open letter to America and its leaders:

We join with many Americans in questioning the need for the death penalty in our modern society and in challenging the effectiveness of this punishment, which has consistently been shown to be ineffective, unfair, and inaccurate... With the prosecution of even a single capital case costing millions of dollars, the cost of executing 1,000 people has easily risen to billions of dollars. In light of the serious economic challenges that our country faces today, the valuable resources that are expended to carry out death sentences would be better spent investing in programs that work to prevent crime, such as improving education, providing services to those with mental illness, and putting more law enforcement officers on our streets. We should make sure that money is spent to improve life, not destroy it... As people of faith, we take this opportunity to reaffirm our opposition to the death penalty and to express our belief in the sacredness of human life and in the human capacity for change.

In 2005, Congress considered the Streamlined Procedures Act (SPA), which would have amended the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). AEDPA placed restrictions on the power of federal courts to grant writs of habeas corpus to state prisoners. The SPA would have imposed additional limits on the ability of state inmates to challenge the constitutionality of their imprisonment through habeas corpus.

• America's Most Famous Murder Cases
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• Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty
• Furman v. Georgia: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• The Death Penalty in the United States
• 5 Arguments in Favor of the Death Penalty
• Coker v. Georgia: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• History of Capital Punishment in Canada
• Abolition of Capital Punishment in Canada
• The Eighth Amendment: Text, Origins, and Meaning
• Ewing v. California: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact
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• The Main Classifications of Criminal Offenses
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Historical considerations

• Moral arguments
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• The abolition movement
• Capital punishment in the early 21st century

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capital punishment , execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law . The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment , though imposition of the penalty is not always followed by execution (even when it is upheld on appeal), because of the possibility of commutation to life imprisonment.

Capital punishment for murder , treason , arson , and rape was widely employed in ancient Greece under the laws of Draco (fl. 7th century bce ), though Plato argued that it should be used only for the incorrigible . The Romans also used it for a wide range of offenses, though citizens were exempted for a short time during the republic. It also has been sanctioned at one time or another by most of the world’s major religions. Followers of Judaism and Christianity, for example, have claimed to find justification for capital punishment in the biblical passage “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” ( Genesis 9:6). Yet capital punishment has been prescribed for many crimes not involving loss of life, including adultery and blasphemy . The ancient legal principle Lex talionis ( talion )—“an eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life”—which appears in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi , was invoked in some societies to ensure that capital punishment was not disproportionately applied.

The prevalence of capital punishment in ancient times is difficult to ascertain precisely, but it seems likely that it was often avoided, sometimes by the alternative of banishment and sometimes by payment of compensation . For example, it was customary during Japan’s peaceful Heian period (794–1185) for the emperor to commute every death sentence and replace it with deportation to a remote area, though executions were reinstated once civil war broke out in the mid-11th century.

In Islamic law , as expressed in the Qurʾān , capital punishment is condoned . Although the Qurʾān prescribes the death penalty for several ḥadd (fixed) crimes—including robbery, adultery, and apostasy of Islam —murder is not among them. Instead, murder is treated as a civil crime and is covered by the law of qiṣās (retaliation), whereby the relatives of the victim decide whether the offender is punished with death by the authorities or made to pay diyah (wergild) as compensation.

Death was formerly the penalty for a large number of offenses in England during the 17th and 18th centuries, but it was never applied as widely as the law provided. As in other countries, many offenders who committed capital crimes escaped the death penalty, either because juries or courts would not convict them or because they were pardoned, usually on condition that they agreed to banishment; some were sentenced to the lesser punishment of transportation to the then American colonies and later to Australia. Beginning in the Middle Ages, it was possible for offenders guilty of capital offenses to receive benefit of clergy , by which those who could prove that they were ordained priests (clerks in Holy Orders) as well as secular clerks who assisted in divine service (or, from 1547, a peer of the realm) were allowed to go free, though it remained within the judge’s power to sentence them to prison for up to a year, or from 1717 onward to transportation for seven years. Because during medieval times the only proof of ordination was literacy, it became customary between the 15th and 18th centuries to allow anyone convicted of a felony to escape the death sentence by proving that he (the privilege was extended to women in 1629) could read. Until 1705, all he had to do was read (or recite) the first verse from Psalm 51 of the Bible—“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions”—which came to be known as the “ neck verse” (for its power to save one’s neck). To ensure that an offender could escape death only once through benefit of clergy, he was branded on the brawn of the thumb ( M for murder or T for theft). Branding was abolished in 1779, and benefit of clergy ceased in 1827.

From ancient times until well into the 19th century, many societies administered exceptionally cruel forms of capital punishment. In Rome the condemned were hurled from the Tarpeian Rock ( see Tarpeia ); for parricide they were drowned in a sealed bag with a dog, cock, ape, and viper; and still others were executed by forced gladiatorial combat or by crucifixion . Executions in ancient China were carried out by many painful methods, such as sawing the condemned in half, flaying him while still alive, and boiling . Cruel forms of execution in Europe included “breaking” on the wheel, boiling in oil, burning at the stake , decapitation by the guillotine or an axe, hanging , drawing and quartering , and drowning. Although by the end of the 20th century many jurisdictions (e.g., nearly every U.S. state that employs the death penalty, Guatemala, the Philippines , Taiwan , and some Chinese provinces) had adopted lethal injection , offenders continued to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia and occasionally stoned to death (for adultery) in Iran and Sudan . Other methods of execution were electrocution , gassing, and the firing squad.

Historically, executions were public events, attended by large crowds, and the mutilated bodies were often displayed until they rotted. Public executions were banned in England in 1868, though they continued to take place in parts of the United States until the 1930s. In the last half of the 20th century, there was considerable debate regarding whether executions should be broadcast on television, as has occurred in Guatemala. Since the mid-1990s public executions have taken place in some 20 countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria , though the practice has been condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee as “incompatible with human dignity.”

In many countries death sentences are not carried out immediately after they are imposed; there is often a long period of uncertainty for the convicted while their cases are appealed. Inmates awaiting execution live on what has been called “ death row ”; in the United States and Japan, some prisoners have been executed more than 15 years after their convictions . The European Union regards this phenomenon as so inhumane that, on the basis of a binding ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (1989), EU countries may extradite an offender accused of a capital crime to a country that practices capital punishment only if a guarantee is given that the death penalty will not be sought.

16 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Death Penalty and Capital Punishment

Human civilizations have used the death penalty in their set of laws for over 4,000 years. There have been times when only a few crimes receive this consequence, while some societies, such as the seventh century B.C.’s Code of Athens required the punishment for all crimes to be death.

The death penalty in the United States came about because of the influences of the colonial era. The first recorded execution in the colonies occurred in 1608 in Jamestown. Captain George Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. It only took four more years for Virginia to institute the death penalty for minor offenses such as stealing grapes or trading with Native Americans.

Today, capital punishment is reserved for brutal and heinous crimes, such as first-degree murder. Some countries use the death penalty for repetitive violent crime, such as rape and sexual assault, or for specific drug offenses. Here are the pros and cons of the death penalty to review as we head into 2021 and beyond.

List of the Pros of the Death Penalty

1. It is a way to provide justice for victims while keeping the general population safe. There is an expectation in society that you should be able to live your life without the threat of harm. When there is someone who decides to go against this expectation by committing a violent crime, then there must be steps taken to provide everyone else the safety that they deserve. Although arguments can be made for rehabilitation, there are people who would continue their violent tendencies no matter what. The only way to keep people safe in those circumstances, and still provide a sense of justice for the victims, is the use of the death penalty.

2. It provides a deterrent against serious crimes. The reason why there are consequences in place for criminal violations is that we want to have a deterrent effect on specific behaviors. People who are considering a breach of the law must see that the consequences of their actions are worse if they go through without that action compared to following the law.

Although up to 88% of criminologists in the United States report that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to homicide, the fact that it can prevent some violence does make it a useful tool to have in society.

3. It offers a respectful outcome. A critical component of justice in modern society involves punishing criminal behavior in a way that is not cruel or unusual. That societal expectation has led the United States to implement capital punishment by using lethal injections. Although some regions struggle to purchase the necessary drugs to administer lethal injections, the process of putting someone to sleep before they stop breathing eliminates the pain and negative outcomes associated with other execution methods.

Modern processes in modern societies are much more compassionate compared to the historical methods of hanging, firing squads, or other gruesome methods of taking a life under the law.

4. It maintains prison populations at manageable levels. Over 2 million people are currently part of the prison population in the United States. About one in five people currently in jails across the country are awaiting trial for charges that they face. That is about the same amount of people who are labeled as being violent offenders. By separating those who are convicted of a capital crime, we create more room for individuals who want to work through rehabilitation programs or otherwise improve their lives and live law-abiding futures. This structure makes it possible to limit the financial and spatial impacts which occur when all serious crimes require long-term prisoner care.

5. It offers society an appropriate consequence for violent behavior. There are criminals who have a desire to rehabilitate their lives and create new futures for themselves within the bounds of the law. There are also criminals who desire to continue their criminal behaviors. By keeping capital punishment as an option within society, we create an appropriate consequence that fits the actions taken by the criminal. The death penalty ensures that the individual involved will no longer be able to create havoc for the general population because they are no longer around. That process creates peace for the victims, their families, and society in general.

6. It eliminates sympathetic reactions to someone charged with a capital crime. The United States offers a confrontational system of justice because that is an effective way to address the facts of the case. We make decisions based on logic instead of emotion. The law must be able to address the actions of a criminal in a way that discourages other people from conducting themselves in a similar manner. Our goal should be to address the needs of each victim and their family more than it should be to address the physical needs of the person charged with a capital crime.

7. It stops the threat of an escape that alternative sentences would create. The fastest way to stop a murderer from continuing to kill people is to eliminate their ability to do so. That is what capital punishment does. The death penalty makes it impossible for someone convicted of murder to find ways that kill other people. Failing to execute someone who is taking a life unjustly, who is able to kill someone else, makes us all responsible for that action. Although there are issues from a moral standpoint about taking any life, we must remember that the convicted criminal made the decision to violate the law in the first place, knowing full well what their potential outcome would be.

List of the Cons of the Death Penalty

1. It requires one person to kill another person. In an op-ed published by the New York Times, S. Frank Thompson discussed his experience in executing inmates while serving as the superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary. He talked about how the death penalty laws forced him to be personally involved in these executions. He came to a point where, on a moral level, he decided that life either had to be honored or not. His job required him to kill someone else. Whether someone takes a life through criminal means, or they do so through legal means, there still is an impact on that person which is unpredictable.

2. It comes with unclear constitutionality in the United States. In the 1970s, the Supreme Court of the United States found the application of the death penalty unconstitutional, but four years later, allowed the death penalty to resume with certain limitations on when and how it must be carried out. Some justices have called for a review of the death penalty due to current information about the risk of sentencing innocent people to death and other concerns about the death penalty.

After four decades of surveys, studies, and experiences with the death penalty, there are three specific defects that critics state exist. There is unreliability in the systems that are used to put prisoners to death, there are delays that can last for 20 years or more before executing a prisoner, and the application of capital punishment has been called arbitrary.

3. It does not have a positive impact on homicide rates. The United States implemented the death penalty 22 times in 2019, and imposed 34 death sentences. Crime statistics for that year indicate that there were 16,425 reported murders and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the U.S. Some claim that criminals do not think they’ll be caught and convicted, so the death penalty has a limited deterrence effect. Statistics on crimes show that when the death penalty is abolished, and replaced with a guaranteed life in prison, there are fewer violent acts committed.

4. It creates a revenge factor, which may not best serve justice. No one can blame families of victims for wanting justice. There is enough reason because of their pain and loss to understand concepts like vengeance. The problem with the death penalty is that it implements only one form of justice. It can be seen to create the framework for allowing for an eye for an eye, rather than taking a morally higher ground. If we permit the killing of people as a consequence of their own murderous decisions, then do we devalue life itself? It cannot be assumed that something that is legal is necessarily morally correct.

5. It costs more to implement the death penalty. The average case brought to trial which involves the death penalty costs taxpayers $1.26 million (counted through to execution). Cases that are taken to a jury which do not involve capital punishment cost an average of $740,000 (counted through to the end of incarceration). When you compare the costs of maintaining a prisoner in the general population compared to keeping someone on death row, taxpayers save money by avoiding the death penalty.

Maintaining a prisoner on death row costs $90,000 more per year than keeping that person in the general population. When one considers the cost of keeping someone on death row for 20 years or more, it is cheaper to sentence someone to life in prison without the possibility of parole in most states that it is to put them to death.

6. It comes with a risk that an innocent person could be executed. Although we like to think that our criminal justice systems are perfect, it is not. A study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that at least 4% of the people that are on death row are likely to be innocent. Since 1973, over 170 people have been taken off of death row because evidence showed that they were innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.

The justice system has flaws in our justice system. There have been cases where prosecutors knowingly withheld exculpatory information. There have been times when the justice system has introduced false evidence against defendants. People can be coerced into entering a guilty plea, or admitting their guilt, because of external pressures placed on them.

7. It does not always provide the sense of justice that families require. Research published in 2012 by the Marquette Law Review found that the victim’s family experienced higher levels of psychological, physical, and behavioral health when the convicted criminal was sentenced to life in prison, instead of the death penalty. The death penalty might be considered to be the ultimate form of justice, but it does not always provide the satisfaction people think it will once it is administered.

8. It does not seek alternative solutions. About one in every nine people in the U.S. is the population is currently serving a life sentence. Many more are serving a sentence that keeps them in prison for the rest of their lives because it will last for 15 years or more. Violent crime has declined dramatically since it peaked in the early 1990s. According to FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018, and using the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it fell 71% during that same period. In 2016, 2,330 prisoners escaped from prison in the U.S.

There are numerous ways to prevent someone from breaking out of prison and hurting someone else, and the decreased number of violent crimes should mean a smaller prison population to work with to seek alternative solutions.

9. It automatically assumes that the criminal cannot be rehabilitated. There will always be people who decide they will live with a disregard for others. These people may never successfully complete a rehabilitation process after committing a crime. Sentencing someone to death makes the assumption that the person cannot be rehabilitated and suggests that there is no other way to help society except to get rid of that criminal.

These death penalty pros and cons are not intended to serve as a moral framework but are an attempt at a balanced look at reasons why capital punishment is a useful tool within societies, as well as reasons to the contrary. There are also specific outcomes that occur when the death penalty is not a potential sentence, which can be beneficial. That is why these critical points must continue to be discussed so that we all can come to the best possible decision to keep one another safe.

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Capital Punishment Argumentative Essays Samples For Students

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While studying in college, you will inevitably need to pen a bunch of Argumentative Essays on Capital Punishment. Lucky you if linking words together and turning them into meaningful text comes naturally to you; if it's not the case, you can save the day by finding an already written Capital Punishment Argumentative Essay example and using it as a model to follow.

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Thesis statement: Capital punishment is a good thing as it exists to eliminate these people and to make society safer for everyone.

Against human rights.

For the continued development of civilization. Deterrent Capital punishment as reducing murders. The human element – 1995 bombing. Capital punishment as a modern controversy Ethical and moral implications 1990 – increased checks on potential innocence

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People unable to manage themselves The state as managing behaviour

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Argumentative essay on capital punishment, historical background.

Capital punishment is the newer term for death penalty which has existed since 18th century AD and originated in Babylon. “The death penalty was also part of the Fourteenth Century B.C.’s Hittite Code; in the Seventh Century B.C.’s Draconian Code of Athens, which made death the only punishment for all crimes; and in the Fifth Century B.C.’s Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets.”(Death Penalty 2011) Over the centuries many civilizations followed this example. Until the 5th century the most common methods used were hanging, crucifixion, drowning, burning alive and beating to death.

Argumentative Essay on The Death Penalty in America

Ethical arguments against capital punishment.

Morality can be defined as “The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.” (thefreedictionary).

The morality of capital punishment is an heavily contested issue and one that often polarises people’s views. However, in 2011 and in a leading civilised nation such as the U.S. it is arguable that there can be no circumstances in which sentencing a person to death is acceptable. America is known around the world as being a well-respected, leading democracy. The act of punishing people by death is an ancient one; it is also one that no longer has place in society.

Inspiring Argumentative Essay About Argumentation In Support Capital Punishment

Argumentative essay: capital punishment.

Introduction Capital punishment is one of the most controversial topics pertaining to criminal punishment. For many years, this issue has been debated, yet until today, no conclusive position has been reached especially in the United States. Discussing the issue of capital punishment is important primarily because people are divided on whether capital punishment should be imposed or abolished. Furthermore, capital punishment raises an ethical dilemma that needs to be resolved since it is crucial in achieving a just justice system. This paper would like to argue that capital punishment is a just form of punishment.

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Death penalty law provides for a legal Process for the killing of a person by a state, as a punishment for the crime committed. Death sentence refers to the judicial ruling against a person receiving this kind of punishment. Death penalty is a subject matter that creates a great controversy worldwide with varying opinions from one country to another (Muhlhausen, “Death Penalty Deters Crime, and Saves Lives”)

Those Who Cannot Be Rehabilitated Should Receive The Death Penalty Argumentative Essay Examples

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Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment

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Introduction

Overview of utilitarianism: death penalty, utilitarian view on capital punishment, utilitarian argument against death penalty, works cited.

The death penalty is arguably the most controversial legal punishment imposed by the Criminal Justice System of our country. This form of punishment stands out from the rest due to its harshness and severity. There is general agreement that capital punishment is the most severe punishment that a judge can give an offender.

Due to the perceived severity of the death penalty, there has been intense controversy surrounding the issue. Opponents of the death penalty declare that it is barbaric and inhumane hence the government should do away with it. On the other hand, its supporters maintain that the death penalty is a necessary form of punishment that should be used on the most vicious offenders in society.

The highly polarized debate on the death penalty has continued to exist for decades. Ethical theories can be used to come up with a solution to this highly controversial issue. Ethics determine what is the right course of action in a given situation. A number of solid ethical theories have been proposed by scholars and philosophers over the years. This paper will make use of one of the most widely applied ethical theories, which is utilitarianism, to demonstrate that the death penalty is indeed justified.

Utilitarianism is a popular and widely applied ethical theory that was first proposed by John Stuart Mill. According to this theory, the moral nature of an action can be deduced by calculating its net utility. According to the utilitarian, an ethical action is one that “maximizes the happiness for the largest number of people”. Actions are viewed as having either benefits or negative consequences.

Individuals should act in a manner that increases the benefits since if the consequences outweigh the benefits, the action will be considered unethical. From a utilitarian perspective, actions that promote the happiness of the majority in society should be pursued while those that deter this happiness should be avoided. The utilitarian theory can be applied to the issue of capital punishment since this form of punishment produces both positive and negative consequences.

Net Benefits

The first major benefit offered by the death penalty is that it plays a significant deterrence role. The most important goal of the criminal justice system is to discourage people from engaging in crime.

This is achieved by attaching punishments to crimes so that a person perceives the merits of engaging in illegal actions as being outweighed by the consequences. As such, an ideal society would be one where no one is punished since the threat of punishment keeps everyone from engaging in crime. The death penalty is the most severe punishment and its availability is likely to deter people who might not be scared by long prison sentences.

Research indicates that there is a negative relationship between executions and murder incidents thereby suggesting that the death penalty plays a deterrence role (Kirchgassner 448). From a utilitarian perspective, the deterrence role is ethical since it contributes to the overall happiness of the society. When criminals are deterred from engaging in crime, the society is safer and people enjoy the peace and security in their communities.

Another significant benefit offered by the death penalty to the society is that it leads to the permanent incapacitation of the convicted person. Unlike other forms of punishment which only restrict some of the freedoms of the offender, the death penalty takes away his life.

Once the convicted person is executed, the community can be assured that he/she will never commit another vicious crime against the society members (Sunstein and Vermeule 848). While other forms of punishment such as life imprisonment also have an incapacitation effect, this effect is not as definite.

A person who has been imprisoned for life can still engage in vicious crimes against his fellow inmates or even the prison guards. The probability of recidivist murder is removed by implementing the death penalty. From a utilitarian point of view, this benefit is significant since it completely safeguards the society from future offences from a convict. The community’s peace of mind is also ensured since the death penalty permanently gets rid of vicious criminals, ensuring that they are not able to reenter society.

The death penalty leads to a sense of justice for the individuals affected by the crime perpetrated by the convicted person. As has been highlighted, the death penalty is only given to individuals who have engaged in vicious crimes such as violent murder. When a person commits a violent murder, he causes significant emotional distress to the family and friends of the victim (Stambaugh and Gary 1).

This pain and suffering can be alleviated if the convicted person is given a punishment that fits his crime. Without the death penalty, the convicted person is given a long prison sentence. This might expose the family of the victims to future emotional suffering as they might be required to attend parole hearings for the convict. The death penalty provides maximum retribution and therefore gives peace to the family and friends of the victim.

The final benefit of the death penalty is that it gives the judge the ability to provide adequate retribution for any crime. For justice to be served, it is necessary for the severity of the punishment to equal the crime committed. If the punishment is regarded as lenient, then there will be a sense of injustice by society members.

There are crimes that cannot be punished satisfactorily without the death penalty. Without the death penalty, people found guilty of these crimes would be given the maximum life imprisonment sentence. This would create a sense of injustice therefore decreasing the credibility of the justice system.

This might cause people to engage in extrajudicial killings (Steiker and Jordan 649). A utilitarian approach would support a punishment that leads to a sense of justice and hence increases the credibility of the justice system. Capital punishment fulfils this role and leads to the perception of justice therefore preventing the breakdown in law and order that might occur if people seek out their own justice.

A significant consequence of the death penalty is that is has a high fiscal cost compared to the alternatives. The taxpayers have to shoulder the financial burden associated with implementing the death penalty. Traditionally, the death penalty was considered to be a cheaper method of punishing convicts compared to the alternative, which is a longer prison term. However, this has changed as procedures that are more stringent have been put in place when dealing with capital cases.

Instead of tackling these cases as other criminal cases, the prosecutor and defender are required to be thorough and make use of expert witnesses. Once the judgment has been passed, the offender can engage in numerous appeals making the case last for many years. While it is possible to reduce the costs associated with capital punishment, such a move would require neglecting some of the procedural safeguards put in place to ensure that the risk of wrongful conviction is reduced to the minimal.

From a utilitarian perspective, the huge financial cost is a negative consequence to the society. Opponents of capital punishment point out that the society would benefit more if the money currently used to sustain the death penalty was used for other pursuits such as building rehabilitation centers or increasing the police force in order to deter crime in the community (Dieter par.15).

Another major consequence of the death penalty is that it might lead to a miscarriage of justice. If this happens, an innocent person can be put to death by the criminal justice system. While miscarriages of justice occur even in non-capital cases, there is the hope that the innocent person can be exonerated in the future through appeals.

However, the death penalty is final and once the sentence has been carried out, there is no chance for the innocent person to challenge the wrongful conviction and attain his freedom. Aronson and Cole reveal that the danger of wrongful conviction remains to be the most dominant issue in capital punishment discussions (604).

This situation can lead to a crisis of confidence in capital punishment since killing an innocent person is unacceptable. To a utilitarian, the wrongful killing of an innocent person is a great loss to the society since he can no longer make a positive contribution to his society. In addition to this, wrongful execution might lead to emotional distress by the people who were involved in the trial. It therefore has a negative impact and reduces the happiness of the society.

Ethical Analysis

To determine the ethical nature of an action using utilitarianism, one must weigh the benefits against the consequences. In this case, the benefits of the death penalty include deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and the preservation of law and order. On the other hand, the consequences include high fiscal cost and a potential loss of innocent lives.

As can be seen, the benefits of implementing the death penalty outweigh the consequences. It can therefore be asserted that the death penalty is ethical from a utilitarian perspective since it has a net beneficial effect, which leads to the maximization of the happiness of the greatest amount of people.

This paper set out to demonstrate the ethical nature of the death penalty using the utilitarian theory. It began by acknowledging that the death penalty issue is highly controversial and people are divided in their opinions concerning its usefulness.

The paper then demonstrated how the utilitarian theory, which seeks to maximize the happiness of the majority, could be used to ascertain the ethical nature of capital punishment. It has shown that the death penalty has major advantages to society including deterrence, incapacitation, and an increase in the credibility of the criminal justice system. However, the death penalty also has major consequences since it is costly to the citizen and it might lead to wrongful executions.

However, the benefits are more prominent and when implemented, the death penalty reaffirms the value of observing the law, thus creating a safer society for all citizens. From the arguments provided in this paper, it is clear that the death penalty has the most favorable results for the majority in society. This punishment should therefore be implemented more often in our country since it is ethically sound and leads to overall benefits to the society.

Aronson, Jay and Cole Simon. “Science and the Death Penalty: DNA, Innocence, and the Debate over Capital Punishment in the United States.” Law & Social Inquiry 34.3 (2009): 603-633. Print.

Dieter, Richard. “Capital Punishment Is Too Expensive to Retain.” Death Penalty Information Center 21.2 (2009): 1-2. Web.

Kirchgassner, Gebhard. “Econometric Estimates of Deterrence of the Death Penalty: Facts or Ideology?” Kyklos 64.3(2011): 448-478. Web.

Stambaugh, Irl, and Gary Stam. “Death Penalty Would End Punishment of Victim’s Family.” Anchorage Daily News . 2009. Web.

Steiker, Carol and Jordan Morris. Capital Punishment: A Century of Discontinuous Debate. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 100.3 (2010): 643-689. Print.

Sunstein, Cass and Vermeule Adrian. “Deterring Murder: A Reply.” Stanford Law Review 58.1 (2005): 847–857. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2019, January 17). Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-utilitarian-approach-to-the-death-penalty/

"Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment." IvyPanda , 17 Jan. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/a-utilitarian-approach-to-the-death-penalty/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment'. 17 January.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-utilitarian-approach-to-the-death-penalty/.

1. IvyPanda . "Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-utilitarian-approach-to-the-death-penalty/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Death Penalty: Utilitarian View on Capital Punishment." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-utilitarian-approach-to-the-death-penalty/.

Capital Punishment Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on capital punishment.

Every one of us is familiar with the term punishment. But Capital Punishment is something very few people understand. Capital punishment is a legal death penalty ordered by the court against the violation of criminal laws. In addition, the method of punishment varies from country to country. Where some countries hung the culprits until death and some shoot or give them a lethal injection.

Types of Capital Punishments

In this topic, we are going to discuss the various methods of punishment that are used in different countries. But, before that let’s talk about the capital punishments that people used in the past. Earlier, the capital punishments are more like torture rather than a death penalty. They used to strain and punish the body of the culprit to the extreme that he/she dies because of the pain and fear of torture.

Besides, modern methods are quicker and less painful than traditional methods.

• Electrocution – In this method, the criminal is tied to a chair and a high voltage current that can kill a man easily is passed through the body. In addition, it causes organ failure (especially heart).
• Tranquilization – This method gives the person a slow but painless death as the toxin injections are injected into his body that takes up to several hours for the criminal to die.
• Beheading – Generally, the Arab and Gulf countries use this method. Where they decide the death sentence by the crime of the person. Furthermore, in this method, they simply cut the person’s head apart from the body.
• Stoning – In this the criminal is beaten till death. Also, it is the most painful method of execution.
• Shooting – The criminal is either shoot in the head or in his/her chest in this method.
• Hanging – This method simply involves the hanging of culprit till death.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Advantages and Disadvantages of Capital Punishments

Although many people think that it’s a violation of human rights and the Human Rights Commission strongly opposes capital punishment still many countries continue this practice.

The advantages of capital punishment are that they give people an idea of what the law is capable of doing and the criminal can never escape from the punishment no matter who he/she is.

In addition, anyone who is thinking about committing a crime will think twice before committing a crime. Furthermore, a criminal that is in prison for his crime cannot harm anyone of the outside world.

The disadvantages are that we do not give the person a second chance to change. Besides, many times the real criminal escape the trial and the innocent soul of the prosecution claimed to guilty by false claims. Also, many punishments are painful and make a mess of the body of the criminal.

To conclude, we can say that capital punishment is the harsh reality of our world. Also, on one hand, it decreases the crime rate and on the other violates many human rights.

Besides, all these types of punishment are not justifiable and the court and administrative bodies should try to find an alternative for it.

FAQs about Capital Punishment

Q.1 What is the difference between the death penalty and capital punishment?

A.1 For many people the term death penalty and capital punishment is the same thing but there is a minute difference between them. The implementation of the death penalty is not death but capital punishment itself means execution.

Q.2 Does capital punishment decrease the rate of crime?

A.2 There is no solid proof related to this but scientists think that reduces the chances of major crimes to a certain level.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Human Rights — Capital Punishment

Essays on Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is a controversial and thought-provoking topic that has been debated for decades. Writing an essay on capital punishment can be a challenging task, especially when it comes to choosing the right topic. In this article, we will discuss the importance of the topic, provide advice on choosing a topic, and present a detailed list of recommended essay topics, divided by category.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a highly divisive issue that has sparked fierce debate around the world. It raises questions about morality, justice, and the role of the state in taking the life of a convicted criminal. Writing an essay on capital punishment allows students to explore these complex issues and develop critical thinking skills. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to examine the social, ethical, and legal implications of the death penalty, making it an important and relevant topic for academic study.

When choosing a topic for a capital punishment essay, it is important to consider your interests and the specific aspects of the death penalty that you find compelling. You may want to explore the history of capital punishment, its ethical implications, its effectiveness as a deterrent, or its impact on society. Additionally, consider the current debates and controversies surrounding the death penalty, as these can provide a rich source of material for your essay.

Recommended Capital Punishment Essay Topics

History of capital punishment.

• The origins of capital punishment
• The evolution of execution methods
• Famous historical cases of capital punishment
• The abolition of the death penalty in certain countries

Ethical and Moral Considerations

• The morality of the death penalty
• Religious perspectives on capital punishment
• The rights of the condemned
• The ethics of executing the innocent

Effectiveness and Deterrence

• The effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent
• Comparing crime rates in states with and without the death penalty
• The psychological impact of the death penalty on society
• Alternatives to capital punishment

Legal and Social Justice Issues

• Racial disparities in death penalty sentencing
• The role of capital punishment in the criminal justice system
• International perspectives on the death penalty
• The impact of capital punishment on victims' families

Contemporary Debates and Controversies

• The use of lethal injection as an execution method
• The debate over capital punishment for juveniles
• The role of the media in shaping public opinion on the death penalty
• The impact of public opinion on the future of the death penalty

These are just a few examples of the many possible essay topics related to capital punishment. Regardless of the specific topic you choose, it is important to approach the subject with an open mind and a willingness to engage with different perspectives. By considering the historical, ethical, legal, and social aspects of the death penalty, you can develop a well-rounded and insightful essay that contributes to the ongoing discourse on this important issue.

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Bolivian General Is Arrested After Apparent Coup Attempt

The general declared he was leading an effort to “re-establish democracy,” but he and other members of the armed forces later pulled back after trying to storm the presidential palace.

By Julie Turkewitz ,  Genevieve Glatsky and María Silvia Trigo

A top general and allied members of the military tried to storm the presidential palace in Bolivia on Wednesday, before quickly retreating in an apparently failed attempt at a coup.

Hours later, the general was taken into custody on live TV.

Video on Bolivian television showed security forces in riot gear occupying the main square in the administrative capital, La Paz, a camouflaged military vehicle ramming a palace door and soldiers trying to make their way into the building.

Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the general, Juan José Zuñiga, disappeared, and his supporters in the armed forces pulled back and were replaced by police officers supporting the country’s democratically elected president, Luis Arce.

Mr. Arce ventured onto the plaza after calling on Bolivians “to organize and mobilize against the coup and in favor of democracy.”

“Long live the Bolivian people!” he shouted in a televised address. “Long live democracy!”

In all, the attempted afternoon incursion into the palace lasted just three hours. As time wore on, it became clear that General Zuñiga’s plan had little support.

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