Summary:
The death penalty is wrong by current moral standards. It also is a poor deterrant for criminals, it does not save taxpayers money, and it has been applied against people who were innocent of the crimes involved.
Currently, in the United States, many states are still using the death penalty as the ultimate punishment for specific crimes. I want to show you that not only is the death penalty wrong by current moral standards, but it is not a good determent for criminals nor does it save our tax payers any money.
Our federal laws give the states leeway in their interpretation of the law, and this means that some states use the death penalty and some do not. Those states that do not use it have voted and decided, as a group, that is was wrong. From a Kantianism view, the deliberate taking of life is immoral. I believe that our country's general moral standard is that killing for any reason other than in defense of our self or our country is immoral. We Americans are a diverse group, with many religious and moral cultures. However, we have been able to have a majority decision that deliberate (premeditated) killing is wrong, thus the death penalty is wrong. There is a wonderful saying "an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind." Its meaning can be construed to be that we have all committed some crime, but I think that it also means that when vengeance is taken literally, the common good suffers. We all lose a little of our spirit when someone is killed, in prison or out. We can not call ourselves an enlightened society while we are killing people deliberately.
For those who do not believe that the death penalty is a moral oxymoron, I can argue that it is more practical to punish criminals in other ways. The current legal system has its flaws. And one of them is the incredible number of ways a death penalty can be postponed. It is to the point of cruelty to keep someone on death row for years, with an uncertain outcome. This level of cruelty was made illegal many years ago, when a standard of care for prisoners of war was established. And the fiscal cost of these delays is incredible (put in an amount with a reference). The lawyers make money, the prison is required to keep the inmate on "death row", a more expensive imprisonment than high security imprisonment, and the taxpayer's pay. A life sentence, without parole, is less expensive than an executed death penalty judgment.
In addition, statistics show that the death penalty does not decrease the crime level. The criminal capable of such crimes is not capable of thinking ahead to the outcome. No, I am not saying that they are all insane, only that at the time of the crime, the punishment is not on their mind! The law has very specific guidelines for crimes that "qualify" a person for capitol punishment. One of these is premeditation, meaning that the crime was planned in advance and that the criminal knew what they were doing. The fear of a death penalty does not stop them. Additionally, ideally, we want our laws to be for the common good and for people to obey the law because they understand this, not because they fear punishment. Government by fear is not a sustainable system, nor is it morally acceptable.
Finally, no discussion of the death penalty would be complete without the inclusion of those who have been found guilty, but are actually innocent. As our technology has become more sophisticated, we have been able to look back and determine how many people were wrongly judged. The figures for death row are staggering, in some cases as high as 20%. Can we afford to make this many mistakes and call ourselves moral? This means that for every 5 people killed, one was not guilty. Some states have taken the moral high ground and stopped all executions until the cases can be reviewed and any new relevant technology applied before the death penalty is applied.
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