Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Death Penalty - Eseu
Death Penalty - Eseu
Another thing to take into consideration is the psychological impact on the jurors,
governors, executioners, and the victim’s family and convicts family. Death penalty
does not represent only the consequence of the murderer, the one who committed
the crime, but also it involves and collateral damage. Jurors, who must decide
whether a defendant should live or die, have to live with their decisions for the rest
of their lives, they are unrecognized victims of the death penalty. Like many of the
capital jurors, who stated that they often “regretted” the life and death decisions
they made as jurors, some Supreme Court justices have also looked back with
regret. Also, some family members of murder victims feel that a death
sentence will provide closure. But death penalty court proceedings can drag out for
years, which prolongs their pain. By contrast, a life sentence is swift and certain,
allowing families to move on.
For example, The Capital Jury Project interviewed 1,198 jurors from 353 capital
trials in 14 states and found that 81% of female jurors and 18% of male jurors
regretted their decisions, and 63% of female jurors and 38% of male jurors
sought counseling after the trial. As the former superintendent of the Oregon State
Penitentiary said, "After each execution, I had staff members who decided they did
not want to be asked to serve in that capacity again. Others quietly sought
employment elsewhere. A few told me they were having trouble sleeping, and I
worried they would develop post-traumatic stress disorder if they had to go through
it another time." (Cozachevici Alexandra)
Bibliography
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ (Accessed on 09-12-2019)
Edited by Radelet, Michael L., Facing the Death Penalty, Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, 1989
Meltsner, Michael, Cruel and unusual: the Supreme Court and capital punishment, Quid
Pro Books, New Orleans, 2011
Stern, Vivien, Creating Criminals, Zed Books Ltd, New York, 2013
Prime, Megatron, Death Penalty, Smashwords, 2017