Any Justifications?

Typically, there are five justifications for the use of the death penalty (Gray, Pg 255):

• Reducing to zero the chances that the offender will return to society 

• Closure for the victim’s families/friends 

• Deterrence against future violations by other offenders 

• This is the appropriate punishment for the offender of such a serious crime 

• Rightful societal vengeance (an eye for an eye).

This blog will demonstrate logically that these justifications are not all together sound.

With regards to reducing to zero the chances that the offender will return to society, most convicted of first degree murders have very little chance of leaving prison without demonstrating to a Parole Board that they have been rehabilitated and will not re-offend.  In this case, it can be argued that the individual is not the same person who committed the crime previously.

In California, the penalty was implemented in 1978 but they have only had 13 executions since then. They have 680 convicted offenders on death row, 112 have been there for more than 25 years, 217 have been there for more than 20 years and 546 have been there for longer than 10 years. The argument about closure is really quite invalid because if the families have to cope with 10-25 years, closure is almost irrelevant.  The psychological turmoil for the loved ones of the victim -- many years of appeals whereby families forced to relive terrible memories and details.  And the impact of the media is even more traumatic as it feeds on every new development, long after the offense committed and the conviction.

Capital punishment has been used for centuries and yet violent and horrible crimes are committed daily.  Also, if a person knows that he has committed an offense that would qualify him for the death penalty, that person tends to feel that he has nothing more to lose.  That belief in turn results in perpetrators killing witnesses to the crime to keep them from testifying against them and also killing police officers who attempt to arrest them. What happens is the opposite of the deterrence. The argument that the death penalty is a deterrence against future violations by other offenders is invalid. 

In regards to the justification of “...appropriate punishment for the offender of such a serious crime", this is very difficult to rationalize.  In many ways, serving out a life sentence without the possibility of release would be in some ways a more severe and “just” sentence for many offenders than actually being executed.  

The fifth justification is more difficult to argue against:  societal vengeance.  As I have discussed in my previous blogs, throughout history, different culture groups have used capital punishment as a demonstration of their societal views and morals.  But I have shown that the use of capital punishment has changed as society has changed.  We in North America no longer use capital punishment as did the Aztec kings to demonstrate their divine right to rule nor as the French revolutionaries to uproot a decaying social order.  Maybe it is time to re-examine the concept of “societal vengeance” with regards to our evolved understandings of “justice” and “morality”.  

Work Cited:

Gray, James. "Facing the Facts on Death Penalty".California: Digital Commons at Loyola Law School, 2011. Pg 255-258. Web.