The death penalty has come to be a very huge deal in the 21st century. Back in the day, this was the only way people felt they can punish others for breaking the law. There are many people that are for the death penalty then individuals who are opposed to it. Though, a question to really ask ourselves is what truly qualifies a person to receive the death penalty. As children we were always taught the golden rule; treat others the way you want to be treated. Immanuel Kant believes in the “eye for an eye” principle.
What ever a person does, it should be affiliated to what that person deserves. Kant states, “Accordingly, any undeserved evil that you inflict on someone else among the people is one that you do to yourself” (481). What ever harm you are committing to others, you are committing to yourself with an example he has given, “if you kill him, you kill yourself” (481). To me, this conclusion is very reasonable because it is known that if you carry out a murder, the chances are you may be sentenced to death. Therefore you ARE killing yourself.
Likewise, Ernest van den hag believes in the death penalty as well. More so that the fact that deterrence will make people more afraid of committing a murder. People fear death more than anything else in most cases which should bring the homicidal rates down. Some may argue that the death penalty is an unjust way of punishment. Jeffrey Reiman believes that being sentenced to life in prison without parole is an equal form of punishment that is accepted. “…Life in prison is still life, however unpleasant.
In contrast, the death penalty does not just threaten to make life unpleasant—it threatens to take life all together” (Reiman 492), he explains. This is true because being sent to prison takes away all aspects of living and being free in society. Their homes, families, friends and everything they’re used too is being stripped away while they’ve been casted behind bars with people they don’t even know. In a similar perspective, James Liebman, and three other colleagues of his, is extremely convinced that the death penalty should be abolished simply because of the fact that the error rates are so high.
They’ve found in their research that “68 percent of capital cases that underwent judicial review, the death sentences were overturned owing to various errors including incompetent legal representation of the accused and suppression by the prosecution of evidence that the accused was in fact innocent of the crime in question” (Liebman 495). There’s obviously something wrong with our judicial system if the number of errors is more than half. The rising rate of errors makes me believe more innocent people are being wrongfully executed.
Capital punishment, in the death penalty stance, should be the only way to punish a murderer for their actions. The dispute over the death penalty should end. The best form of retribution of guilty criminals is capital punishment. Although putting an end to someone’s life is seemingly harsh, it isn’t as nearly crude as it was for them to inflict death upon an innocent victim. We must threaten these punishments severely in order to lessen the amount of crime. These murderous people should get what they deserve which is death.
