...Further, in his book, he makes the following statement, sometimes quoted as an example of extremism in support of capital punishment: “Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murdered remaining in the prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insistent upon this punishment; for otherwise, the people can be regarded as collaborators in this public violation of injustice.” “Kant absolutely insists on capital punishment of murderers because no matter how difficult life might be, it is still better...
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...death, the individual is held in death row pending any habeas corpus or appeals, and if these fail, until the convict is convicted. Those opposed to capital punishment have contended that the isolation of a convict and the uneasiness over his or her destiny constitutes a kind of mental depravity and that long-term death row convicts are particularly prone to become mentally unstable. This condition is commonly known as death row phenomenon. In severe cases, some convicts may try committing suicide. Issues relating to the administration of capital punishment are vast and varied. Often, talk about the use of death penalty concentrates more on sentimental arguments pertaining to the moral issue emanating from the administration of death penalty. This paper attempts to study the issues that surround capital punishment by making use of the system analysis approach. It shall endeavor to explore the dehumanizing effects brought about by the recommencement of capital punishment. While there are no clear-cut answers regarding the matter of capital punishment and death sentence, this paper will attempt to shed more light on the normally intricate social issue. Impact of Death Row on the Correction System In June 1972 in a case concerning Furman v. Georgia brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, the court submitted that capital punishment was unlawful and unconstitutional and revoked the state death penalty legislations across the entire U. S. Several death sentences were adjusted...
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...Capital Punishment What is Capital Punishment? Capital Punishment which is also known as the Death Penalty. Death Penalty is the infliction of the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes according toDictionary.com. In the following essay will show why Capital Punishment is implemented to our society. Capital Punishment in any form is acceptable according to the following to the following articles will help justify this concept. To some people Capital Punishment would be considered an act of cruel and unusual punishment; while for others it is a system that should be considered needed in all the States in order to keep the country more safe for the people. Many states within the U.S. have performed executions of convicts since the early 1600’s. Views on capital Punishment vary with people in different ways; there are various organizations within the country that have different opinions on the subject, and organizations such as Religions, Political, or Humanitarian have diverse perspectives on the Death Penalty. “The death penalty is also most commonly argued to be a violation of the right to life or of the "sanctity of life." Many national constitutions and international treaties guarantee the right to life. the right to life demands that a life only be taken in exceptional circumstances, such as in self-defense or as an act of war, and therefore that it violates the right to life of a criminal if she or he is executed, since this is purely murder by the State” according...
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...Lethal Justice?: Is Capital Punishment right or wrong Capital punishment and the practice of the death penalty is an issue that is passionately debated in the United States. Opponents of capital punishment often view the sentence to be cruel because it is ethically unjust. For example, ethical problems involve the moral issues in addition to whether it is ever right to execute another human. On the other hand, pro death penalty supporters regularly claim that the punishment is just because it may provide closure to the victims loved ones and it is the direct answer to a murder. Additionally, it is argued that as a result of the injection the supposed criminal may never commit further crimes. Both sides of the issue have strong claims to support...
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...Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty from http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/ ARGUMENT 1 DETERRENCE The death penalty prevents future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life. For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty....
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...Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty from http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/ ARGUMENT 1 DETERRENCE The death penalty prevents future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life. For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use...
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...death penalty is the most severe punishment that may be imposed on an individual by the United States government. It denies a person one of their most basic human rights, which is the right to live. One of the purposes of the death penalty is to serve as a deterrent for other would-be criminals. There have been studies conducted to determine if the death penalty is effective in this regard. There is another point of disparity surrounding the death penalty related to the equality of its application. Are all citizens treated equal? This paper takes a closer look at the equality in the application of the death penalty and its effectiveness as a deterrent. Is the Death Penalty a Fair and Effective Deterrent in the United States? The death penalty came to the United States with the first European settlers and continued until the 1960’s. “The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.” (Bohm, 1999) Since the 1960’s courts have been battling the issue of the death penalty. Currently there are 38 states that have provisions for the death penalty. What is the purpose of the death penalty? The death penalty is the ultimate punishment for a crime. It ensures that the...
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...Running head: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Capital Punishment [Name of Customer] [Name of Institute] [Law] Capital Punishment Introduction Capital punishment that also known as the death penalty or sentence has been one of the most widely debated and contentiously oriented topic in countries and diverse societies in terms of its promulgation, legitimacy, conformity towards humanitarian principles and norms and its abolishment. Argument regarding the topic has been segregated on the basis of its advocacy and opposition. Since we all constitute an integral part of a democratic system where people are provided the autonomy to voice their opinion and perspectives irrespective to the nature of the issue and hence being a part of the system I could cast my vote in favor and advocacy of capital punishment. (Hodgkinson and Rutherford, 1996) The Dual Analysis of Capital Punishment There are a number of reasons behind my perspective related to the advocacy and support of capital punishment. One of the simple and straight forward reasons for voting in favor of this form of punishment which is viewed as discordant and diabolical by many is my strong adherence towards the famous quotation which says ‘One thief dead, is one thief less’ it is a self-evident fact that a dead criminal does not possess the tendency of committing any more crime and hence the fear and the intimidation that he has created will cease to exist with his death. It is worth mentioning here...
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...Maira De Leon Professor Bell ENG 1102 July 27th, 2015 Right Denied: The Effects Being Ignored Death by lethal injection, death by electrocution, or any form of the death penalty given that people find to be fit for capital crimes is not a human’s right. We as humans do not have the right to end someone’s life based on the fact that they committed a crime. We have to take into accountability the countless amounts of lives that are impacted by this. Even on the international level, there are hundreds of countries who have abolished the death penalty completely. There is more to this than others think, yet they do not take the time to research or study the adverse effects of what this kind of punishment can cause. The death penalty violates the human right to life and causes a ripple effect that destroys the lives of the families of the individuals being executed. Death penalty supporters can be very profound with their opinions on what they believe is an excellent crime deterrent. In an article written for the Journal of Criminal Justice between May and June 2009, one of the authors by the name Shanhe Jiang stated, “Supporters of the death penalty argue that sentencing criminals to death deters others from committing a similar crime in the future.” He states that future crimes could indeed be deterred because of the continued support for the death penalty. In many cases, people see the death penalty as a form to punish those who commit murder, mass murder, rape and any...
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...[pic] BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION WITH HONOURS MAY / 2012 MPW2153 MORAL STUDIES MATRICULATION NO : 740704125850-001 IDENTITY CARD NO. : 740704-12-5850 TELEPHONE NO. : 016-3699817 E-MAIL : : madelinaj@maybank.com.my LEARNING CENTRE : SABAH LEARNING CENTRE Tables Of Contents 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Drug Laws 2.0 DISCUSSION 2.1 Global Overview on the Status of the Death Penalty for Drug Offences 2.2 The Pros of Death Penalty 2.2.1 Precedent Server 2.2.2 Just Punishment 2.2.3 Society Safety Concerns 2.2.4 Excess Sympathy 2.3 The Cons Of Death Penalty 2.3.1 Wrong Convictions 2.3.2 Costs 2.3.3 Deterrence 2.3.4 Rehabilitation 2.4 Religious Views On Death Penalty 2.4.1 Buddhism 2.4.2 Hinduism 2.4.3 Christianity 2.4.4 Islam 3.0 SUGGESTION TO REPLACE DEATH PENALTY 3.1 Life Imprisonment 3.2 Prison with Parole 3.3 Rehabilitation or Reformatories 3.4 Community Service Orders 4.0 SUMMARY REFERENCE 1.0 INTRODUCTION Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior. Laws are made by governments, specifically...
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...electrocution, and hanging are the methods of death afforded for those who commit such heinous acts. However, does knowing the possible consequences of capital offenses deter individuals from committing the crimes? Did it make you stop and think? In the United States the death penalty is used as a punishment for capital offenses. These specifically can vary from state to state, but commonly include first-degree murder, murder with special circumstances, rape with additional bodily harm, and the federal crime of treason. (Facts) The goal of the death penalty then, is to deter these crimes from even taking place, to be so feared that offenders think twice about committing such horrible crimes. But does it? In the following paper, the above question will attempt to be answered by looking at the background of capital punishment and the death penalty, the ideas behind it, viable alternatives, and finally, the effectiveness of the death penalty at deterring crime. Early death penalty laws date back to the Eighteenth Century B.C.. The death penalty also had a heavy presence in the Fourteenth Century Hittite Code, the Seventh Century Draconian Code of Athens, and the Fifth Century Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets. (History, 1) Today, thirty-four states in the United States of America still practice the death penalty as a means of punishment for capital offenses and heinous crimes. The death penalty debate is one that Americans are no strangers to; it has been abolished and repealed numerous times...
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...Outline the moral arguments against capital punishment. 1. The death penalty has been distributed in a discriminatory manner because African American or poorer defendants are more likely to be executed than equally guilty others, especially when the victim is white (Russell 1998: 134). 2. Miscarriages of justice occur and the innocent are executed. The American Bar Association (ABA) has urged the appointment of experienced, competent, and adequately compensated trial counsel for death penalty cases and has lobbied for the adoption of its Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. Clearly, the ABA believes that standard professional qualifications are insufficient for capital cases. 3. The death penalty expresses a desire for vengeance—a motive too volatile and indifferent to the concept of justice to be maintained in a civilized society. The notion that revenge can stand as a motive for official policy on punishment is entirely inconsistent with a rational system of justice conducted by the state on behalf of society (Bedau 1999: 50). 4. Capital punishment is considered to be degrading to human dignity and inconsistent with the principle of the sanctity of life. The argument is that human life, having infinite value, should be respected and protected and that even murderers’...
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...Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America Mark Peffley Jon Hurwitz University of Kentucky University of Pittsburgh Although there exists a large and well-documented “race gap” between whites and blacks in their support for the death penalty, we know relatively little about the nature of these differences and how the races respond to various arguments against the penalty. To explore such differences, we embedded an experiment in a national survey in which respondents are randomly assigned to one of several argument conditions. We find that African Americans are more responsive to argument frames that are both racial (i.e., the death penalty is unfair because most of the people who are executed are black) and nonracial (i.e., too many innocent people are being executed) than are whites, who are highly resistant to persuasion and, in the case of the racial argument, actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks. These interracial differences in response to the framing of arguments against the death penalty can be explained, in part, by the degree to which people attribute the causes of black criminality to either dispositional or systemic forces (i.e., the racial biases of the criminal justice system). he conventional wisdom on public opinion toward the death penalty in the United States, as summarized nicely by Ellsworth and Gross, is that people “feel strongly about the death penalty, know little...
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...Sylver Baker 2016 Professor Hendrix ENC 1102 23 May 2016 Formal Assignment 1: Analysis of “A Hanging” by George Orwell “A Hanging” by George Orwell is a short story based on the author’s experience while working as a police magistrate. In the story he talks about the experience of witnessing an execution. The prisoner is escorted to the gallows by the warders for his hanging. Once there everyone is ready for the execution to be done so that they can all go have a drink. Using descriptive words so that one feels and experiences what he experienced Orwell argues that Capital Punishment is wrong. Orwell focuses on the negative to set the tone of how unpleasant and depressing an execution is. He describes the day “a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil” which sets a gloomy tone. He describes the cells, “condemned”, “a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages”. In creating such a gloomy setting Orwell proves he is concerned and nervous about the execution. If he was not affected by the hanging, then the mood would not be so melancholy. Orwell can’t simply ignore the capital punishment and nor can anyone else. All people feel some kind of anxiety about the inhumane and cruel punishment. Orwell describes the superintendent and other characters’ emotions before and after the hanging, who is against capital punishment. The prisoner cries out in a rhythmical tone, “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”, not out of fear or for help but as though...
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...times most governments have punished a wide variety of crimes by death and have conducted executions as a routine part of the administration of criminal law. The Age of Enlightenment was the first significant movement to abolish the death penalty. Britain was very influential in America’s use of the death penalty. The European settlers that came to the new world are the one’s that brought the practice of capital punishment, death penalty. The first execution was recorded in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia in 1608. The Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws were enacted in 1612 by the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale. The death penalty was established for minor offenses such as killing chickens, stealing grapes, and trading with Indians. It was Cesare Beccaria’s 1767 essay, On Crimes and Punishment that caused policy makers to have a different view of the death penalty. Becarria theorized that there wasn’t any justification for the state’s to take the life of a human being. The essay led to Tuscany and Austria abolishing their policy of the death penalty as a punishment for the crimes that were committed. It also gave an authoritative voice and renewed...
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