Grade 7 Writing Benchmark 2: Arguments For & Against Capital Punishment

Excerpt from What Americans Don't Understand About the Death Penalty by Andrew Cohen, October 2013

Support for capital punishment has hit an all-time low, according to a new Gallup poll. But the public still has a lot to learn about how unjustly the sentence is applied.

1    The folks at Gallup released the results of a new poll yesterday about the death penalty in America under the headline: "U.S. Death Penalty Support Lowest in 40 Years." Given the arbitrary way in which capital punishment is administered today in America, that's the good news. Evidently it is dawning on more and more people that the death penalty, as now applied by our judges and juries, is broken, in ways large and small, and thus unworthy of support.

2   The bad news, however, is that public attitudes about the death penalty today remain wildly disconnected from the reality of the death penalty today. This represents a failure of our courts, and of journalists and advocates, to adequately explain the grim truths about capital punishment. And it represents a failure by millions of Americans to level with themselves, and with each other, about what the death penalty is and is not.

3   Fifty-two percent of Americans believe the death penalty is applied fairly in the United States -- a smaller figure than the 60% who favor the death penalty. Forty percent believe the death penalty is applied unfairly. 

4   This means that more than half of those surveyed are—let me be delicate—still tragically misinformed about the nature of capital punishment in America in 2013. The truth is that race plays an enormous role in determining who is and who is not sentenced to death in America. If you are black you stand a far higher chance of getting the death penalty, especially if your victim is white. Theevidence and analysis of this fact are so pervasive that it should be beyond debate: 52 percent of Americans are dead wrong in their perception of the fairness of the application of capital punishment.

5   Some people simply haven't taken the time to study the matter and are content to take the easy path and say that the criminal justice system is fair. Some people probably think that it is fair that more blacks are sentenced to death when they kill whites than whites are when they kill blacks. And what about those addled folks—eight percent, according to Gallup—who believe that the death penalty is unfairly applied but who still support it? 

6   Like all polls, this one gives us little more than a snapshot of current attitudes about a topic that clearly is evolving as a matter of both law and politics. Six states have banned capital punishment since 2006 and lawmakers in several others are contemplating similar measures. And that's really where these poll numbers ought come into play—as a reminder of how far the conversation has come on capital punishment and how far it still has to go. The numbers may change here or there, the percentages may vary a little, but the truth is that the death penalty in America either needs to be overhauled so that it is fairly and justly applied or it needs to be scrapped altogether as a capricious practice unbecoming a civilized nation of laws.

5 Arguments For And Against The Death Penalty

FLAMEHORSE JUNE 1, 2013

The existence of the death penalty in any society raises one underlying question: have we established our justice systems out of a desire for rehabilitation, or out of a desire for retribution? The author has set out to examine both sides of the debate over the ethics and legality of capital punishment, especially in the US, and chooses neither side in any of the following entries. They are not presented in any meaningful order.

1  Against: It Teaches the Condemned Nothing

                                                                                                                                                           
What is the purpose of punishment?  We take our lead from one major source, our parents—and they no doubt took their lead from their own parents. When your young child emulates what he just saw in a Rambo movie, you give him a stern lecture about what is real and what is not, what is acceptable in real life and what is not.  When your child tries some crazy acrobatic move off a piece of furniture and hurts himself, you might spank him to be sure that he remembers never to do it again.

So when the child grows up, breaks into a home, and steals electronics, he gets caught and goes to prison.  His time in prison is meant to deprive him of the freedom to go where he wants anywhere in the world, and to do what he wants when he wants.  This is the punishment, and most people do learn from it.  In general, no one wants to go back.  But if that child grows up and murders someone for their wallet or just for fun, and they are in turn put to death, they are taught precisely nothing, because they are no longer alive to learn from it.  We cannot rehabilitate a person by killing him or her.

2  For: It is the Ultimate Warning

Nevertheless, if would-be criminals know undoubtedly that they will be put to death should they murder with premeditation, very many of them are much less inclined to commit murder.  Whether or not would-be criminals are wary of committing the worst crime is an important—and probably impossible—question to answer.  Murder still happens very frequently.  So some criminals disregard this warning for various reasons.  But the fact does remain that many criminals who ride the fence on committing murder ultimately decide to spare the victim’s life.

In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes.  If the criminal knows that the justice system will not stop at putting him to death, then the system appears more draconian to him.  Hence, he is less inclined to break and enter.  He may have no intention of killing anyone in the process of robbing them, but is much more apprehensive about the possibility if he knows he will be executed.  Thus, there is a better chance that he will not break and enter in the first place.

3 Against: It Is Hypocritical

It is strange that a nation would denounce the practice of murder by committing the very same act.  By doing so, we’re essentially championing the right to life by taking it from others.  True—as a whole, we are not murderers, and understandably refuse to be placed in the same category as someone like Ted Bundy.  But to many opponents of the death penalty, even Ted Bundy should have been given life without parole.  The fact that he murdered at least thirty people—for the mere reason that he enjoyed doing it—has no bearing on the hypocrisy, the flagrant dishonesty, of the declaration that such a person deserves to be killed because he had no right to kill.  

If the goal of any punishment, as stated above, is to teach us those things we should not do, then the justice system should more adequately teach the criminality of killing by refusing to partake in it.

4  For: It Is the Best Answer to Murder

The justice system basically attempts to mete out punishment that fits the crime.  Severe crimes result in imprisonment.  ”Petty larceny” is not treated with the severity that is meted to “grand theft auto,” and the latter, consequently, receives more time in prison.  So if severe—but non-lethal—violence toward another is found deserving of life without parole, then why should premeditated homicide be given the very same punishment?  This fact might induce a would-be criminal to go ahead and kill the victim he has already mugged and crippled.  Why would it matter, after all?  His sentence could not get any worse.

If murder is the willful deprivation of a victim’s right to life, then the justice system’s willful deprivation of the criminal’s right to the same is—even if overly severe—a punishment which fits the most severe crime that can be committed.  Without capital punishment, it could be argued that the justice system makes no provision in response to the crime of murder, and thus provides no justice for the victim.