There are vast differences in the way people view the death penalty.

Some oppose it and some agree

with it. There have been many studies trying to prove or disprove a point regarding the death penalty.
Some have regarded the death penalty as a deterrent, and some have regarded it as state sanctioned
murder and not civilized. The death penalty has been attributed to societies for hundreds of years. More
recently, as we become more civilized, the death penalty has been questioned to be the right step
towards justice. During the course of this paper I will review the pros and cons of the use of the death
penalty as we, Americans, know it. The death penalty is a highly controversial subject.No one knows
who’s right or who’s wrong-it’s fifty percent speculation and fifty percent research. It’s just a lot of thoughts
and beliefs from people who have contributed to the death penalty hype. Who’s right and who’s wrong?
That is the question.
First I need to highlight briefly into to the history of the death penalty to fully understand why people feel
the way they do about the death penalty. Almost all nations in the world have had the death sentence and
had enforced it in many ways. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards
that were expected of them. Some of the historical methods of execution were restricted only by one’s
imagination-they include flaying or burying alive, boiling in oil, crushing beneath the wheels of vehicles or
the feet of elephants, throwing to wild beasts, forcing combat in the arena, blowing from the mouth of a
cannon, impaling, piercing with javelins, starving to death, poisoning, strangling, suffocating, drowning,
shooting, beheading, and more recently, electrocuting, using the gas chamber, and giving lethal injection
(Silverman 73). The ancient societies had some pretty brutal methods that were just plainly inhumane.
Fortunately, most of the disgraceful practices were largely unknown in Anglo-American tradition. America
inherited most of its capital punishment from the United Kingdom or English laws. But not so many
generations ago, in both England and America, criminals were occasionally pressed to death, drawn and
quartered, and burned at the stake (Isenberg 35). Had any of these punishments survived the eighteenth
century, there is little doubted that public reaction would have forced an end to capital punishment long
ago (Isenberg 35). Throughout England, the rotting corpses of executed criminals specked the country,
which sent out a warning to all those who dare defy the law, or otherwise acted as a deterrent. Executions
were always conducted in public and often became the scene of drunken gatherings to witness the
execution. It reminds me of all these horrifying blood-ridden movies we watch today. People are drawn to
such spectacles, because they are not getting killed. Furthermore, death is one of the great unknowns in
all of mankind. Crimes of every description against the state, against the person, against property, against
public peace were made punishable by death in early English laws (Isenberg 26). It is somewhat curious
that any of these horrendous and inhumane methods of execution survived as long as they did, for the
English Bill of Rights of 1689 proscribed “cruel and unusual punishments”(Isenberg 27). Which is still in
use today in the American Constitution. Even with fairly relaxed law enforcement after 1800, between two
thousand and three thousand persons were sentenced to death each year from 1805 to 1810 (Isenberg
26). Which is a very large amount even by today’s standards. Furthermore, several decisions, later on in
history, handed down by the Supreme Court in the post-World War II years have had a significant affect
on the effects of both proponents and opponents of capital punishment. They include Louisiana v.
Resweber (1946)- cruelty dealing with humane ways of execution, next was the United States v. Jackson
(1967)- the provisions that dealt with kidnapping, next was Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968)- determined
excluding juries that had a bias towards death penalties being unconstitutional, and finally McGautha v.
California (1971)- juries discretion upon the death penalty and the fourteenth amendment’s “equal
protection clause” (Isenberg 23-24). All of these have impacted the nature of the death penalty, as we all
know it today in the United States. These have all influenced the way people view the death penalty and
help explain why some people oppose it and some impose it.
The people who oppose the death penalty have very different reasons than people who agree with it.
Those who oppose it feel that no matter how bad of an offense that the criminal has committed, they
should not be executed. One argument is that the convicted could be innocent. Once the state kills an
innocent person, the effects are irreversible. There have been at least 96 instances since 1973 of
wrongfully convicted people set free before the states had a chance to kill them (Internet). If there are 96
cases, caught before they could be sentenced to death, then think about all of the cases that haven’t
been caught. DNA evidence has come a long way to help these innocent people to their freedom. The
following person is an example of one of those people wrongfully condemned by lack of evidence. “Nate
Walker. In May 1976, Nate was sentenced to life in prison for a 1974 Elizabeth, N.J., kidnapping and
rape. Ten years later Nate’s trial prosecutor agreed that Nate Walker was an innocent man. A twelve-
year-old semen specimen was located and analyzed. It proved that Nate had a different blood type from
the real rapist. Nate was officially cleared and freed by the county’s presiding judge. His release won
national attention (Dicks 237).” This can only prove that if the state had executed him, or any other case
that were similar, the effects would be irreversible. This is among one of the highest regards to the
abolitionist movement towards the death penalty. Thousands have been put to death under one
government and when another government came in, or new evidence came in, they were proven to be
innocent (Dicks 226). The only way to prevent this from happening is to abolish the death penalty
altogether. These wrongful convictions clearly occurred due to some ill proper investigating, prejudice,
courtroom laziness, or politics. The discrimination that is inescapable in the selection of the few to be
killed under our capital punishment laws is unfortunately of the most irreversible and unacceptable nature
(Isenberg 114). Among the more high-powered nations in the world the United States remains the leading
advocate of death as a punishment for crime, even though innocent people may have been put to death
(Isenberg 117).
The abolitionists also assert that the deterrent theory does not actually work. It merely produces a
brutalizing effect that says to others that killing is o.k. Since the state has the right to kill, having the death
penalty reinforces the perpetrator in that it says it is o.k. to kill when not respected by others. Similar to
the state killing, when citizens don’t respect the states laws. It is clear that American prosecutors, judges,
and juries are not likely to cause the execution of enough capital offenders to increase the claimed
deterrent effect of capital punishment laws or to reduce the “jackpot” effect of unlikely odds (Isenberg
112). To even approach the number of people to be sentenced to death, to reach the deterrent effect, is
unimaginable. Hundreds of thousands, in my opinion, would have to be put to death to reach the deterrent
goal. Isenberg believes that, “most Americans, even those who feel it is necessary, are repelled by capital
punishment; the attitude is deeply rooted in our own reverence to live, the Christian belief that man is
created in the image of God” (107). So those juries that are commanded to use the death penalty have
often acquitted, due to beliefs, or charged the perpetrator with a lesser offense (Isenberg 112). Even
though hundreds of thousands go to trial for murder, juries are reluctant to convict. So our system clearly
does not even give room for the deterrent effect, which would be hundreds of thousands put to death, to
affect the way perpetrators would think before killing. States in the United States that do not use the death
penalty usually have lower murder rates than states that do (Internet). For example, between 1945 and
1954, the average murder rate among seven abolitionist states ranged from a high of 1.6 per 100,000
(Iowa) to a low of 1.0 per 100,000 (Rhode Island) (Galliher 209). A closer look shows that murder rates
play a contributing role in death penalty arguments across the United States (Galliher 209). An example
is, between 1945 and 1955, the states of West Virginia (not yet an abolitionist state) and Michigan had
relatively higher murder rates of 5.3 and 4.4 per 100,00 comparatively (Galliher 209). Therefore,
reinforcing the fact that the brutalization effect is right. Also, reinforcing theorists saying, “that executing
murderers both legitimates killing as a means of dealing with conflict and also stimulates those who have
violent tendencies” (Nathanson 28). So if it doesn’t act as a deterrent, then it comes down to the fact that
we are willing to put up with the extermination of human beings as long as we don’t know who they are.
Maybe since we are in the television revolution, we should televise it more than the little it is today.
There are those that are pro-death penalty advocates. They believe that the death penalty serves as a
deterrent. They believe others will see that the offender is getting executed for their heinous crime, and
this will deter them from ever committing such an act. They feel that not only is the person who is
executed unable to commit another murder, but other potential killers may also be dissuaded from killing
(Silverman 46). One scientist concluded that every additional execution prevents about seven or eight
people from committing murder (Bender 114). It mainly deters rational calm everyday citizens. Not those
who act on emotion or the heat of the moment. One could argue that there are far more rational civilized
people in this country than there are emotionally disturbed people. The death penalty works because it
instills psychological resistance to the act of murder, not because it offers a rational argument against
committing the act at the time that the decision to murder is made (Bender 115). So every day citizens
have instilled into their heads that it is bad to murder someone. But murders still occur on occasions when
people are in an irrational state of mind. Even though a person may be rational one day they could
become irrational on another day. The irrational people are mainly at the hands of alcohol and drugs, but
there are occasions where unusual circumstances exist. For example, a husband catching his wife in the
act of adultery could drive him mentally into a rage and into a very irrational state of mind, which could
ultimately lead to murder. But there are also those people who are just straight up mentally disturbed that
kill for no reason at all. But for the most part most Americans are rational people who are able to properly
control themselves, because of proper patience and problem solving learned through schooling. Most
Americans have goals to look forward to in life also. So the death penalty is a deterrent for the most part
of society. That’s one reason most drugs (poisons) are illegal in American society, because they tend to
cause people to act in an irrational manner. Therefore the greater the punishment, the fewer people will
behave in the irrational state of mind, because of the fact that the vast majority of Americans are (most of
the time) drug free. So the punishment of death deters their rational minds from the act of committing
murder, because (I would like to believe) most Americans are rational, free thinking people. Those who
oppose the death penalty can only picture the offender being executed, they do not think about how many
innocent people would be killed if there wasn’t a death penalty to act as a deterrent (Bender 118).
Another reason pro-death penalty advocates give for their belief is that it serves as retribution, or an eye
for an eye. These are the two main types of retribution: revenge, in which the victim gets satisfaction, and
“just deserts”, which the offender should have an obligation to repay society (Silverman 44). An eye for an
eye relies on what people deserve for their crime, which determines what kind of punishment they will
receive (Nathanson 73). Or in other words we should treat people the way they have treated others. If
someone murders someone, then they should be murdered. This type of punishment would not have any
prejudice, because they would receive whatever they dished out. It tells us that the punishment is to be
identical to the crime (Nathanson 73). Which in a way is a repayment towards the victim’s family, or “just
deserts”. This view of the death penalty wouldn’t rely on a jury to decide what should be done to the
offender. Let’s say the offender was black and raped a white woman, and the jury sentenced them to life
in prison. People could say in the same circumstances a white man would only get ten years. But using
an eye for an eye, both men would be raped in return. No discrimination. And the same goes for the death
penalty, there wouldn’t be no prejudice, it would just simply be “you kill, you die—end of story”, enough
said.
Nobody can really prove that any of these views are right or wrong. In my opinion, God should have the
final say on life. But on the other hand the offender didn’t let God give the victim an O.K. to die. So who
knows what to do? As a society we should determine the fate we have dealt ourselves. We have
developed these offender’s, we should therefore deal with them as a society. It is true that the varieties of
ways in which men have put one another to death is horrific (Isenberg 35). It is society that should
determine if we (as a society) want to be murderers. These offenders, murderers, and killers are a mirror
image of our own reflection in society. Two wrongs don’t make a right! You choose! Civilization or
Brutalism?