Capital Punishment
... setback of our current court system. Sorry we are not perfect. The racial and economic prejudice is not a suitable argument against the death penalty. It is a dispute against the courts and their unfair system of sentencing. For capital punishment to be impartial to every criminal, rich or poor of any nationality, it must be mandatory for all capital cases. Another argument opposed to capital punishment is that there is a possibility of error. However, the chance that there might be an error is separate from the concern of whether the death penalty can be justified or not. If an error does occur, and an innocent person is executed, then the problem lies in the court system, not in the death penalty. All that can be expected of human authorities is that they take every reasonable provision against the risk of error. If errors are made, this is the necessary consequence that must be paid within a society which is made up of human beings. Furthermore, most activities in our world, in which humans are involved, possess a chance of injury or death. Construction, sports, driving, and air travel all offer the risk of accidental fatality even though the maximum levels of precautions are taken. These activities continue to take place, and continue to occasionally take human lives, because we have all decided, as a society, that the advantages prevail over the accidental loss. We have also decided that the advantages of having dangerous murderers removed from our society outweigh the losses of the offender. Despite the oppositional argument, capital punishment is a deterrent. One argument states that the death penalty does not discourage crime. Dismissing capital punishment on that basis requires us to eradicate all prisons as well for the reason that they do not appear to be any more successful in the deterrence of crime. Others articulate that states which have the death penalty have elevated crime rates above those that do not. They argue that a more severe punishment only inspires more brutal crimes. Every state is diverse in size, population, and crime rate. States with high crime rates are compelled to have capital punishment to control crime, not the other way around. Abolitionists hold the opinion that criminals do not fear death since they do not take time to think about the consequences of their actions. If that were accurate, then I question how police officers manage to arrest criminals without killing them. When a police officer holds a criminal at gunpoint and instructs him to get on the ground, the criminal will comply completely in the vast majority of the cases. It is because they are fearful of the deadly power of the firearm. It is a misconception to believe that fear is a thought process that has to be worked out on a piece of paper. It is an instinct that involuntarily kicks in when faced with lethal force. Abolitionists claim that there are alternatives to the death penalty. They say that life in prison without parole serves just as well. This would be correct if you disregard all the murders committed by criminals inside the prison. They kill prison guards, other inmates, and even citizen while trying to escape. Dawud Mu’Min is and example. Mu’Min was serving a sentence for the 1973 murder of a cab driver when he escaped a road work gang and stabbed to death a retailer named Gadys Nopwasky in a 1988 robbery that netted $4.00. Fortunately, there is now no chance of Mu’Min committing murder again. He was executed in the state of Virginia on November 14, 1997. An additional flaw is that life imprisonment tends to depreciate with the passing of time. Take the Moore case in New York State for example. In 1962, James Moore raped and strangled 14 year old Pamela Moss. Her parents decided to spare Moore the death penalty on the stipulation that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Soon after, thanks to a modification in sentencing laws in 1982, James Moore is eligible for parole every two years! If Pamela’s parents knew that they couldn’t rely on the state, Moore would have been executed long ago. Instead they have a nightmare to deal with biannually. According to the US Department of Justice, the normal prison sentence served for murder is five years and eleven months. Putting murderers away for life just isn’t adequate. Another weapon used to fight capital punishment is the Holy Bible, the “source of all morality.” Some Christians claim that we have no right to play God. They pointing out the 6th Commandment in Exodus 20:13, which states “Thou shall not kill.” But if one translated directly from the original Hebrew version, it is: “Thou shall not murder.” And murder is defined in the dictionary as the unlawful killing of a person with malice and aforethought. Biblical views on capital punishment are clear. Capital punishment is the infliction of the death penalty by civil authority. It is an act carried out by civil government, not by private citizens. It is motivated by justice, not by malice or hatred. In Genesis 4:10 the murder of Abel cried out for restitution. The Bible encourages that criminal acts deserve to be punished. When justice has been violated, there is a principal that defines what has been lost by the victim, should be reinstated or compensated for. There is a moral obligation of the lawbreaker: a debt is incurred in which restitution must be made or a proportionate penalty must be paid. The penalty is punishment, not rehabilitation. Justice calls for the penalty and it is right. The question is, are there some crimes so serious that the only righteous penalty is death of the offender. The bible has always said, some acts are “worthy of death” according to Deuteronomy 21:22. The expression “innocent blood” in Deuteronomy 21:8 presumes that there is blood that should be shed. Up until our day, human civilizations have always agreed with the death penalty. By certain acts a person disqualifies himself from the right to continue living and this is reflected in the Old Testament of the Bible. Numerous offenses in the Law of Moses were punishable by death including; Murder, Kidnapping, and Rape. The carrying out of the death penalty was justly regulated and...