Second, the passing of death penalty may be unfair and biased against a certain minority group in the country. Such people may include those who are too poor to employ competent lawyers to defend them, racial discrimination and predjudice, and those mentally ill. This may lead to the conviction of innocent people. For example, a 1986 study in Georgia showed that people who killed whites were four times more likely to be sentenced to death that those who killed non-whites. The Texas Civil Rights Project also issued a report in 2000-SEP, which criticized the fact that poor people and members of the minority groups are more likely to be targeted because of prejudice and bigotry in the Texas justice system. Thus, passing the death sentence may be more of an injustice as it may be used as a tool to victimize groups of people.
Finally, capital punishment may not be so great a justice after all as not only does it accomplish nothing, but it also inflicts pain on the criminal’s loved ones. Killing a murderer does not bring the victim to life, and thus it achieves nothing but the death of yet another person. In addition to that, the family of the criminal is victimized and punished by having their loved one murdered by the state. More often than not, the family is innocent of the crime. Thus, capital punishment only afflicts the innocent families and causes more harm.
However, capital punishment may seem like a necessary justice to prevent further loss of innocent lives. The death sentence may be the only way to prevent unremorseful murderers from taking more lives. Many more innocent people have been killed by released, paroled or escaped murderers than innocent people executed, For instance, in New York, Arthur Shawcross was paroled after serving 15 years for the brutal rape and murder of two children in upstate New York. In a subsequent 21-month killing spree, he took 11 more lives before being caught again. Thus, under such circumstances, the use of capital punishment seems to be the most practical form of justice to be administered.
Another case is the case of genocide. It is a crime on a larger scale as compared to all other crimes against humanity, as it implies an intention to completely exterminate a race or group of people. Genocide is therefore both the gravest and the greatest of the crimes against humanity and such infamy should not be condoned and the only just thing to do seems to be to put the criminals to death. An example of genocide is during World War Two, where fascist leaders driven by the fanatic idea of Nazism, aimed to exterminate the whole Jewish race. Mass murder methods such as machine gunning, drowning and burying them proved to be ineffective, and so millions of people with Jewish origin were sent to concentration camps and poisoned to death in gas chambers. To counter the spread of seeds of genocide such as these, a stronger message should be brought across and that is best done through the use of punishment by death. Accordingly, the capital punishment is a suitable form of justice for people who commit heinous crimes such as genocide.
In conclusion, capital punishment being a form of justice in response to causing death hardly seems like a good excuse for its implementation. In the first place, such a sentence may not be as much a form of justice as it is an injustice, as it may be used to aggrandize societal problems such as prejudice against minority groups and it victimizes innocent loved ones of the convicted. Hence it is fitting that one should not view the death penalty as the only justice for causing death as it is but an alternative that can be considered only under very special circumstances such as genocide.