2.3 Rogerian Against the Death Penalty, but Compromise is still an Option

I was raised to cherish all life, but at the same time I was taught at a young age that bad behavior will result in negative consequences from my parents and teachers. My childhood reflects these beliefs. I was always a good boy who mostly did what was right and after realizing some actions were wrong, did not do them again. My childhood learning of good and bad differs much from the real world. This can be seen within the death penalty. The death penalty takes what I have learned to the next level. The issue that covers the death penalty is what should a criminal receive for a serious case of murder? Do we as a state cherish life over justice? Or do we take a page out of the rules of Hammurabi and use the old saying “An eye for an eye”? I am a person who believes that the death penalty should not be used in the United States.

Since 1973, when the death penalty was reinstated in a majority of the states, a total of 135 inmates have been released from the death row and are now considered innocence (“Death Penalty 101”). All of these verdicts were overturned due to new DNA evidence that revealed the criminal was innocence to begin with. It is easy to feel remorse for the criminals that spent a good portion of their life in jail, but no one realizes the problem of these people wasting their life in the correctional system. This is due to the people who made the mistakes of conviction not admitting to their flawed decisions. As a result, no one will ever be blamed when a situation like this occurs. This brings up new ideas about how inaccurate the death penalty process can be.

The supporters of the death penalty will state that my views of the death penalty are inaccurate or highlighting the wrong parts, but the supporters themselves have a wide range of credible reasons for supporting the death penalty. First of all, supporters will believe that the use of the death penalty will produce lower crime rates and in result produce a safer society for families to live in. The Death Penalty Information Center has collected data since 1990 that the murder rate has been higher in states with the death penalty verses states without the death penalty (“Murder rates nationally and by state”). This shows that supporters of the death penalty will urge the need for the death penalty to fight back on the high murder rates by letting criminals know that a crime could lead to their death. Hopefully, this knowledge will make some criminals think twice about their actions. Secondly, supporters of the death penalty will make the claim that DNA evidence will prove whether someone is guilty or innocence. From the academic journal “Science and the Death Penalty: DNA, Innocence, and the Debate over the Capital Punishment”, Jay Aronson, author of many books relating to the use and discovery of DNA, states that DNA evidence is “more accurate and reliable than other forensic sciences” (Aronson, 1). With the use of DNA evidence as a conclusive way to prove if someone is guilty or not, supporters of the death penalty will not have to fear an accidently execution of someone that is innocence. Finally, the people who support the death penalty will believe that justice must be served. To honor the victim’s families and to protect the reputation of the United States of America, many supporters of the death penalty will be in favor of providing justice to the victims’ families by taking the life of the criminal that harmed their own. Even though there are many more credible reasons why people support the death penalty, I feel the removal of the death penalty will result in fewer problems and less controversies.

My view of the death penalty is that it is not needed in the United States. The death penalty in my opinion does not cherish the life of criminals and does not make fair and equal judgments on all criminals that go through the judicial process. Also, I feel there could be bias within the people who run the process, which creates an unfair trial and could result in a wrongful verdict. The main reason why I don’t agree with the death penalty is because the people placed in prisons have a chance to change their views and ways of life. To give someone another chance to change their way of life seems like a better option than taking their life away.

First of all, I feel there is inconsistency with the consequences assigned for similar actions. For example, a person who commits murder can get 10 years in jail and another person who commits murder can receive the death penalty. Could that be due to the way the murderer killed their victim? Or could it have been the type of person the criminal killed? In the end, the result is exactly the same, a person was murdered. From the Charlotte Observer(A North Carolina Mainstream News paper) article “Death Penalty System irretrievably broken”, the authors stated “there was no way to ensure essential fairness and consistency of the system because it produces such widely varying results” (“Death Penalty system irretrievably broken, 2). It doesn’t seem fair that one murderer could receive the death penalty for killing a person and another murderer could receive 10 years in prison. This just frames some of the inconsistencies with the death penalty system.

Secondly, a person can only receive the death penalty by a jury of people making a unanimous decision in the United States. I feel people could possibility receive the death penalty through unfair trials because jury members could be bias or could have racial stereotypes in their mind before the court hearing. Jury members are screened and asked questions in order to prevent any them from having any bias towards a person or race, but in reality bias can never be prevented or eliminated. It is not that every human being is racists, but all people have some idea of a certain type of person or race. These ideas could be positive or negative ideas, but it is nearly impossible to find a jury full of people who are not biased. An example of bias towards African Americans from the Death Penalty Information Center states that the “odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black” (Dieter 3). Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center and attorney, explains that an existing bias towards African Americans in some regions in the United States does exist and could produce an unfair trial. In 2006, a total of 649 African Americans were executed in all the states that allow the death penalty (“Capital Punishment, 2006- Statistical Tables”). It is unknown if those African Americans received a fair trial with an unbiased jury. The idea that people can be bias towards other people and can result to a decision that produces a wrongful death sentence makes the idea of using the death penalty less appealing to me.

The death penalty has left this country divided. While researching this topic, I realized that a compromise can never be made with the idea of taking the life of a criminal away for their crime. However, things can be changed about how the criminal is executed and different sentencing for crimes. Rather than being executed, more people can be placed into jail with a life sentence. This is the only compromise that can ever be made with the issue of executing someone or not executing someone. Even though it will cost more tax payer dollars to keep these criminals in jail, it is the only way to satisfy both sides. Another compromise could be to eliminate some of the methods of execution. The current methods of execution are electric chair, lethal injection, hanging, firing squad and lethal gas (“Methods of Execution” 1). The best thing to do is to eliminate the inhumane methods of execution and to only use lethal injection. The lethal injection process was created with the intent to provide the criminal a painless death. The most moral thing to give to a criminal should be a humane and painless death. This also ties into the issue of public executions. The idea that the criminals know that many people are watching them die can make them suffer mentally before they die. From the academic journal “Neither Justice nor Mercy: Public and Private Executions in Rhode Island,” the idea of public executions and its history through the state of Rhode Island is explained. It explains that originally people were supporting the idea of public executions through “hangings” so they can see criminals suffer. But in the end, the novel explains how people decided to step in to abolish these “unruly behaviors” (Chambers 1). To eliminate situations where criminals are executed without suffering seems to be the most humane situation possible. By taking out cruel methods of execution and removing situations that will produce suffering to criminals during the execution will result in fewer arguments and more agreement about the death penalty from both sides.

When looking at the death penalty, we can realize that the issue of the death penalty will never be completely solved in the United States. This is because the extremes of both sides can never be combined into one solution which will fully satisfy both sides. In my opinion, I feel that the death penalty should not be used because of its unfairness towards minorities and other situations. But with some compromise between both sides of the issue, I feel the arguing between both sides can be lessened. Maybe in the long run after all extreme issues are settled; the United States can cherish the life of criminals and use the methodology of Hammurabi simultaneously.



CITATION LIST

1) Aronson, Jay. “Science and the Death Penalty: DNA, Innocence, and the Debate over Capital Punishment in the Untied States”. Law and Social Inquiry. Vol. 34. Issue 3(2009): p 603-633. Print

2) “Capital Punishment, 2006- Statistical Tables”. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2006. Office of Justice Programs. Web March 10, 2010

3) Chambers, Stephen. “Neither Justice nor Mercy: Public and Private Executions in Rhode Island” New England Quarterly. Vol 82. Issue 3(2009): p 430-451. Print

4) “Death Penalty 101”. American Civil Liberties Union. April 7, 2007. American Civil Liberties Union. Web March 10, 2010

5) “Death Penalty system ‘irretrievably broken’”. Charlotte Observer. March 21, 2010. Charlotte Observer. Web March 10, 2010

6) Dieter, Richard. “The Death Penalty in Black and White; who lives, Who Dies, Who Decides” The Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty Information Center. Web March 10, 2010

7) “Methods of Execution”. Prosecuting Attorney. The Clark County. Web March 10, 2010

8) “Murder rates nationally and by state”. Death Penalty Information Center. September, 2009. FBI Uniform Crime Report. Web. April 9, 2010.