The risk of an innocent person being executed is higher than you would perhaps have thought. Whenever there is a heinous crime, there is always a public outburst for ‘justice’ to be done. This puts pressure on the police to solve the case quickly, which sometimes results in the wrong person being convicted.
A good example of this is the ‘Birmingham Six’. At the height of the troubles with the IRA, six men were found guilty for bombing a bar in Birmingham and killing many people. A public ‘outcry’ caused the police to look for someone to blame and six men were found guilty. Years after the trial new, fresh evidence was found, and after a re-trial the men were found innocent and were set free. Under the death penalty system, all of these innocent men would have been executed.
- A question we should also ask ourselves is, - Is the death penalty morally wrong? The death penalty promotes the idea that if someone does something terrible, you should do something bad back to them. Do two wrongs really make a right? Does executing someone help relieve the pain and grief felt by the victims’ families? Does it bring the victims back to life? I do not believe so.
Surely life in prison should be enough punishment for a serious crime. A life sentence should be exceptionally hard - why stoop to the level of murderers and take another life?
- I believe the death penalty is also religiously wrong. “Thou shall not kill” – one of the Ten Commandments that Christians are meant to follow is proof of this. How can anyone claim that the execution of a ‘guilty’ person is religiously right.? We do not have the right to decide whether a person should live or die and should remember this. People need to be punished for committing a serious crime, but to kill someone is a sin, and should not be promoted. By executing those found guilty, are we ourselves guilty of murdering someone?
- Another huge reason why I believe the death penalty should not be brought back is this - it does not help stop crime. In America, there are more executions than anywhere in the world, but it does not have a good murder crime rate. In fact America has the worst rate in the world. This proves that the death penalty does not work as a deterrent. Also in certain States they execute children of age 16 if found guilty of murder. In America at this age you cannot marry without adult permission, vote or drink alcohol because you are thought of as a child, but you can be executed. However, these same States have numerous children on “death row”. Obviously the threat of the death penalty had no affect on their behaviour and did not stop them from committing their crimes.
5. As an extreme point I personally feel that the introduction of the death penalty could affect the way a jury would vote at a trial. I for one would not want to find a person guilty of a crime if I knew by doing so he could be executed. I would not want that on my conscience. However, life in prison would not affect my judgement.
6. My final point is this – I acknowledge that murder is a terrible act but surely the barbaric way in which people are executed is inhumane and, in a way, execution seems worse than the original crime. If re-introduced, what form would the death penalty take - lethal injection, electrocution, or hanging. Perhaps it would follow some of the more primitive methods such as be-heading or stoning that is acceptable in some Countries. Some of these methods are slow and painful – as seen in the film “The Green Mile”.
In conclusion, the death penalty – a system that does not work – should not be brought back. It is religiously and morally wrong and also has the risk of innocent people being killed in error. If we are to allow executions to continue, surely we would in fact be the real murderers?
