Capital Punishment: Punishment or Murder?

Capital punishment does not prevent murder nor does it deter crime. Statistics show that from 1976 to 1996 there has been an increase in executions but the number of murders have not decreased but only to have increased slightly. (United States 24) The criminal does not think about the punishment in the heat of the crime but only to concentrate to escape conviction or arrest. (Hudson 71) If capital punishment were a big threat to murderers there would be a decrease in numbers of murders but statistics show that the number of executions have increased only to show that the number of murders have increased slightly as well. This clearly shows how over a period of time even with the threat of capital punishment that capital punishment itself is not a deterrence to crime. Also murder is an act committed by different individuals from society. By removing an individual that murders does not remove murder itself. (Steffen 103) The function of the law is to prevent murder, not enforce it. To kill those who kill shows that the law is not preventing murder yet only demonstrating that they are murderers themselves. The law should protect those who are innocent and to not execute those who have killed and those who have even been killed on the account of wrongful convictions.

There have been cases of wrongful convictions where an innocent person has been sentenced to death. There have been 23 documented cases of wrongful convictions in the United States in the 20th century where the accused was wrongfully executed. (Lifton and Mitchell 169) There is the case of Jesse Tafero who was executed in Florida in 1990. He had been convicted in 1976 along with his wife, Sonia Jacobs, for murdering a state trooper. In 1981 Jacobs' death sentence was reduced on appeal to life imprisonment, and 11 years later her conviction was vacated by a federal court. The evidence on which Tafero and Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced was identical; it consisted mainly of the perjured testimony of an ex-convict who turned state's witness in order to avoid a death sentence. Had Tafero been alive in 1992, he no doubt would have been released along with Jacobs. Tafero's death is probably the clearest case in recent years of the execution of an innocent person. (Steffen 81) A wrongful execution is irreversible. An innocent person who has been sentenced to death cannot be brought back to life nor can the person be released from death itself. Errors of justice cannot be rectified and possibilities of reconsideration are taken away. These cases of wrongful convictions and executions show how capital punishment has taken lives of innocent people and can only be accounted for by the law itself. It shows how it has murdered the innocent on wrongful convictions through means of punishment and is a cruel and unusual form of punishment.

Capital punishment is a cruel and unusual form of punishment. The methods by which executions are carried out can involve physical torture. In 1983, there was the case of John Evans who was executed by electrocution. According to witnesses at the scene Mr. Evans was given three charges of electrocution over a period of fourteen minutes. After the first and second charges Mr. Evans was still conscious and smoke was coming from all over his body as a result of his flesh burning. An official there even tried to stop the execution on account of it being cruel and unusual punishment, but was unsuccessful. Witnesses later called the whole incident a "barbaric ritual." (Lifton and Mitchell 121) This case was a cruel and inhumane taking of a human life it violates the 8th amendment of the in the United States Constitution which condemns cruel and unusual punishment. Delight in brutality; pain, violence and death may always be with us. But surely we must conclude that it is best for the law not to encourage such impulses. When the government sanctions, commands, and ceremoniously carries out the execution of a prisoner, it lends support to this destructive side of human nature. (Steffen 149) Capital punishment involves torture, which inhumanely takes the lives of those who murder through means of cruel and unusual punishment, and is a form of punishment that is more costly financially and economically than incarceration.

It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. Litigation costs - including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs - are mostly borne by the taxpayer. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. Capital punishment has never been a more economical alternative to life imprisonment. It is a form of punishment that is time consuming and wastes resources, which is more costly financially than any other type of punishment in the justice system. (Hudson 134) Study shows, that estimated cost of the execution itself and the trials costs 3.2 million dollars, which is 6, more times the cost of life imprisonment. Murder trials take longer when the death penalty issue is introduced therefore leading to consumption of time and more legal fees. Wherever the death penalty is in place, it takes away resources, which could be going to the front line in the war against crime. The only way to make the death penalty more "cost effective" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's only protection against the most aberrant miscarriages of justice. (Hudson 136)

The miscarriages of justice lead to unjustified and unfair trials, which ultimately end in an unfair punishment. Substantial evidence show courts have sentenced some to prison and others to death in a manner that has been arbitrary, racially biased and unfair. There is the case in 1980 a black high school janitor, Clarence Brandley, and his white co-worker found the body of a missing 16-year-old white schoolgirl. Interrogated by the police, they were told, "One of you two is going to hang for this." Looking at Brandley, the officer said, "Since you're the nigger, you're elected." In a classic case of rush to judgment, Brandley was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The circumstantial evidence against him was thin, the police ignored other leads, and the courtroom atmosphere reeked of racism.

(Steffen 128) It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should be punished according to their crime, "making the punishment fit the crime." If this rule means punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable: It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again - punishments that are, of course, impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murder.

In conclusion, the 6 arguments stated in this essay clearly deny this form of punishment and conceive it to be a form of murder. Capital Punishment does not define the concept of punishment yet can only be defined as a legalized way of murder, which should be illegal. It does not serve its duty as a form of punishment to prevent murder but is an act of murder itself and serves no purpose in carrying out justice. It is the function of the law to prevent murder; hence by killing those who kill does not take away murder itself. To some it is perceived to be a form of punishment and to others it is perceived to be murder. But murder is murder when ones life is taken away through acts of violent and horrendous measures. Capital punishment involves these measures so therefore is considered to be murder.

Murder is an act of different individuals driven by evil passion or vengeance to take away ones life, which ultimately makes Capital punishment a form of murder rather than a form of punishment.