Boreland 1

Northern Caribbean University College of Humanities, Behavioral and Social Sciences Department of Communication Studies
Title: Argumentative Essay

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Course:

COMM316: Debate & Argumentation

Presented by: Tantra Boreland Presented to: Miss Noreen Daley Due Date: March 29, 2012.

Boreland 2

Topic: Capital Punishment should be abolished worldwide According to Stuart Banner in his book, The Death Penalty: An American History, capital punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment also referred to as the death penalty. The death sentence can come in five forms: electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, gas chamber and firing squad. The death penalty began in England by 1500. However, in the 1750s, Italian jurist, Cesare Beccaria, the French philosopher, Voltaire, and the English law reformers, Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Romilly fought against the death penalty. They argued that the death penalty has been needlessly cruel and over-rated as a deterrent and occasionally imposed in fatal error. Life imprisonment is a more rational alternative. Capital punishment should be banned worldwide because the justice system is not 100% accurate and many innocent lives can be lost as it is inhumane to punish someone in such a manner and it does not decrease the level of crime. Yes we do have a burning issue when it comes to criminals who have committed serious crimes to get what they deserve but the question is who determines how we should be judged? Man or God? You may say who feels it knows and that is true but if we care for the innocent as much as we despised the criminals then we would know that capital punishment is wrong in every way. It would be the same cry if a person was on the death row and it is known that person is innocent. If we think as murderers then we are not much better than the killers themselves. They are denied the freedom as they once had. What could ever been worse? BBC Ethics guide in their article stated that retribution is wrong and this is true. We believed that if a murderer is caught then the punishment should be death. Therefore, there is no way we claim to be seeking to get justice for killing by recommending killing. Evil should not be

Boreland 3

conquered by evil. Capital punishment is also unfair because it is inhumane to have persons on death row for an extensive period of time. Zimbabwe Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa traces his opposition to the death penalty to his own experience as an inmate on death row before Zimbabwes independence. My views on the death penalty are, to a large extent, informed by the harrowing experiences I went through while on death row, the sanctity of life and the need to rehabilitate offenders. According to BBC Ethics Guide, many offenders are kept on the death row for a very long time. They explained further that in the United States of America, the average wait is 10 years. According to The New Press is also very costly to execute the prisoners than it is to keep them in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. Imprisonment of life without parole is a more justified punishment than the death penalty. In a report made by Amnesty International in March 2012, China People facing the death penalty in China continued not to receive fair trials in 2011. It is said that victims have been tortured to confess and also they do not have the right to seek pardon or commutation of their sentences from executive branch. This act is very inhumane because they are facing the risk of chance of life. A case in which this is evident is of Chen Ruiwu of China. He was pronounced innocent in 2011 by the courts and later spoke of his experience of police investigations and death row in China. According to Amnesty International, the Heilongjiang Daily reported that Ruwiu had copper wires from an old telephone were wrapped around his fingers and toes and the telephone handle was cranked, sending an electric current through the wires and he was beaten by the police to sign a confession. If the victims are already been punished then why kill them? It is said that capital punishment will give the victim families some peace of mind. However, the reality is that the pain of losing a love one will still remain and cannot be removed

Boreland 4

by killing the offender. The justice system should not take the risk of sentencing a criminal to death who may not be guilty. What can be said about that? There are times when alleged suspects or criminals are made free because there is not enough evidence to convict them. Therefore, it shows that the law has failed to do its job in making good judgments and discovering accurate evidence to make the environment safer for innocent people There are many cases in which the justice system has been flawed. One example is that of Troy Davis a 42 year old man from Georgia who was executed on September 21, 2011. According to the Guardian.com, seven of the nine non-police witnesses recanted their original story creating reasonable doubt in his case; however, the court still went through with the execution. Jimmy Carter, former U.S president, called a stay on the execution stating, When there's doubtful evidence about whether someone's guilty, they certainly shouldn't be executed. The evidence was inconsistent against Davis which proves that there was not enough evidence to convict him of such an inhumane sentence. How many more cases like this should be allowed to happen? According to Amnesty International, The death penalty legitimizes an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims. As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated. How would we even try to correct an act of violence committed against an innocent? What then would be the states punishment? An apology to the families affected would not be enough. Our only concern should not be about getting retribution but we should be as concerned about the innocent as much as we are concerned about punishing the guilty. The innocent have families who will be suffering if their lives are lost through incompetence of the system. It would be unfair to them to

Boreland 5

go through that same dilemma. Most people will think that at least 80% of the people on trial are guilty. How can we really tell that when we do not have the power to know everything? Many will argue that the death penalty will cause a deterrent in crime rates however based on a research done by Amnesty International it did not show where the death penalty has prevent others from committing similar crimes. Continuous research findings concluded: ". . .it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment." The death penalty stops a person from committing the crime again but so does life imprisonment and who knows if the person would commit another crime if given the chance to life. Counter supporters of the death penalty argues that once a person has taken someones life he has already given up his own right to life. According to the BBC Ethics Guide, their claim is further supported by Theologian Thomas Aquinas when he stated, Therefore if any man is dangerous to the community and is subverting it by some sin, the treatment to be commended is his execution in order to preserve the common good... Therefore to kill a man who retains his natural worthiness is intrinsically evil, although it may be justifiable to kill a sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as Aristotle points out, an evil man is worse than a beast and more harmful. However, we cannot support killing in any form. Sentencing a person to death has taken away their right to live and is a violation on their part. According to the U.S Catholic Conference, cannot teach someone that killing is wrong by killing. We would be hypocrites because we are against an act but we support when it benefits our cause. The law already provides life imprisonment without parole which in my opinion is a more justified form of punishment than the death penalty.

Boreland 6

The death penalty, is a violation of fundamental human rights, and should be considered wrong even if it could be shown that it uniquely met a vital social need. What makes the use of the death penalty even more indefensible and the case for its abolition even more compelling is that it has never been shown to have any special power to meet any sincere social need. It should be abolished worldwide and adhere to a lesser punishment such as life imprisonment.

Boreland 7

Works Cited

"Arguments against capital punishment." BBC Ethics Guide. N.p., 2012. Web. 14 Mar 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/against_1.shtml Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge,Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002. eBook. Bedau, Hugo, and Paul Cassell. Debating the death penalty: should America have capital punishment?. Oxford University Press, 2005, 2005. Print. Clark, Richard. "The pros and cons of the death penalty in the USA." The Capital Punishment UK. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar 2012. "Death sentences and executions in 2011." Amnesty International. BBC, n.d. Web. 29 Mar 2012. <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ACT50/001/2012/en>.