Capital Punishment Essay

          Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is punishment by death for a crime. According to the human rights group Amnesty International, as of 2011, two-thirds of countries worldwide have abolished capital punishment. Over the past decade, an average of three states per year has abolished the death penalty. The ability of a state to impose the death penalty (Capital Punishment) goes back to the sovereign rights of kings.  According to John Locke, political power itself is “the right of making laws with the penalties of death.” In the 18th Century, England had 223 capital crimes. In the United States, death was a standard punishment for even non-violent crimes such as burglary, robbery, counterfeiting, theft, fraud, blasphemy, idolatry, sodomy, bestiality, and even altering inspected tobacco. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes.  For centuries, capital punishment has been revoked and applied. Lately, capital punishment still exists in certain country. According J.R.R. Tolkien (n.d.) “Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.” In the modern world now people live in, capital punishment should be abolished because of human rights, and its deterrent effects.

          According to the morality of human rights, every human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable. The death penalty is a denial of the most basic human rights; it violates one of the most fundamental principles under widely accepted human rights law that states must recognize the right to life. The UN General Assembly, the representative body of recognized States, has called for an end to the death penalty and human rights organizations agree that its imposition breaches fundamental enshrined human rights norms. Convention is quickly moving towards a position in support of worldwide abolition. The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR), which the U.S. helped draft in the aftermath of World War II and adopted in 1948.Under Article 3 of the UDHR, life is a human right. This makes the death penalty our most fundamental human rights violation. On October 10, 2011, CCR joined the world in commemorating the 9th Annual World Day Against the Death Penalty, by issuing a position paper entitled, The US Tortures Before it Kills: An Examination of the Death Row Experience from a Human Rights Perspective, which analyzes life on death row—including decades in solitary confinement with limited human contact, and the intolerable process of repeatedly coming within hours of execution—as torture under international human rights law. According to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), a treaty ratified by the US in 1994, torture is defined, in part, as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is inflicted on a person for such purposes as […] punishing him for an act he […] has committed or is suspected of having committed.” Torture is a crime against humanity, a war crime, and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, as reflected in the statutes of the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, among other judicial authorities. Over the last 15 years, a substantial body of law has developed that sets forth the elements of torture under customary international law, which largely reflects the definition of torture under the CAT. Examining the death penalty from a human rights perspective not only highlights the impact of denying the most basic right on all other rights but also demonstrates why the only “solution” to the death penalty is to permanently end its use. If the injustices and practicalities associated with capital punishment could somehow be erased—the costs cut, the racial and class biases removed, and all possibilities for “error” eliminated–the government still cannot do it because it violates fundamental human rights. A human rights based approach does not take issue with the accuracy, technique, or timeliness of an execution. It provides a strict standard with which to say simply and unequivocally—the death penalty is wrong.

          Whether or not the death penalty has a deterrent effect is a hotly debated topic in the popular press, political forums, and academic literature. High-profile executions, such as that of the Crips gang cofounder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Tookie Williams on December 13, 2005, bring the death penalty and its potential deterrent effects  to the forefront in the national media. However, based on the recent studies, capital punishment does not have deterrent effects and does not deter murder. A New York Times survey demonstrated that the homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty.According to W.L.Williams (n.d.)  “I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime.” Most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act.  Even authorities recognize that capital punishment does not deter crime. Based on research of Death Penalty Information Center, 2 out of every 3 law enforcement officers do not believe that capital punishment decreases the rate of homicides. According to the research, 84% of current and former presidents of the country’s top academic criminological societies reject the notion that research shows any deterrent effect from the death penalty. We must define the question correctly.  We are not asking whether the threat of punishment, in general, deters crime, nor whether there should be heavy penalties for murder.  The issue at stake is this:  Does capital punishment, in a form which has been or might be practiced in the world, provide a better deterrent to the criminal than long imprisonment?  In particular, is it likely that expanding the death penalty will lead to fewer murders?  If not, capital punishment offers no practical benefits to weigh against its social costs.

          In conclusion, capital punishment has no benefit whether from human rights perspective or its deterrent effects. In other hand, capital punishment sometimes sends innocent people to death. Innocent people will be killing for something that they did not commit. According to P.Simon (n.d.) “As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.” In my opinion, punish the criminal with death penalty is being too kind. They don’t even have enough time to feel the pain during the execution, but long life imprisonment will make them suffer and will the pain. Isolated in the prison is the best way to punish the criminal. Therefore the Death Penalty should be abolished. I am completely against the Death Penalty and Pro-Suffering for these criminals by living the rest of their lives in jail.

References 

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Center for Constitutional Rights. (n.d.). The Death Penalty is a Human Rights Violation: An Examination of the Death Penalty in the U.S. from a Human Rights Perspective.

Retrieved December 28, 2012, from http://ccrjustice.org/files/CCR%20Death%20Penalty%20Factsheet.pdf

FACT SHEET: THE DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT DETER CRIME. (n.d.).

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GAVRILĂ, A. (2011). SHOULD THE DEATH PENALTY BE ABOLISHED? ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE CENTURIES-OLD PUNISHMENT. Retrieved from http://jcc.icc.org.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/JCC-vol-1-no-2-2011-pages-82-98.pdf.

Hood, R. (2010). Towards Global Abolition of the Death Penalty: Progress and Prospects. Retrieved from http://www.deathpenaltyproject.org/assets/12/original/Towards_Global_Abolition_of_the_Death_Penalty_by_Prof_Roger_Hood.pdf?1273573377.

Lamperti, J. (n.d.). Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? A brief look at the evidence. Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/JLpaper.pdf.

Mcdonald, J. F. (n.d.). Capital Punishment. Retrieved from http://www.catholicpamphlets.net/pamphlets/CAPITAL%20PUNISHMENT.pdf.

Michigan State University and Death Penalty Information Center (2006). The Death Penalty. Retrieved December 29, 2012, from http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/history/history.PDF.

Rubin, P. (2006, February 1). Statistical Evidence on Capital Punishment and the Deterrence of Homicide. Retrieved December 28, 2012, from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/TestimonyPaulRubin.pdf

Schabas, W. (2003). The Abolition of Capital Punishment from an International Law Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.isrcl.org/Papers/Schabas.pdf.

Teton County Model UN (2011). General Assembly Third Committee, Topic 3: Abolishing the Death Penalty. Retrieved from http://www.ic21.org/assets/415/GA-3_2011Death_Penalty_final.pdf?1317319464.