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Death Penalty - ProsCons - ProCon.orgHome More Issues About Us FAQs Teachers’ Corner Death Penalty Should the Death Penalty Be Legal? Last updated on: 2/13/2024 | Author: ProCon.org History of the Death Penalty Practiced for much, if not all, of human history, the death penalty (also called capital punishment) is the execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense,” according to Roger Hood, professor at the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Oxford. Amnesty International lists the United States as just one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty for ordinary crimes as of May 2023. Another nine countries reserve the death penalty for exceptional crimes such as crimes under military law or crimes committed in exceptional circumstances,” according to Amnesty International. Meanwhile, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty legally and 23 have abolished the punishment in practice. Read more history… ProCon Arguments Pro 1 The death penalty provides the justice and closure families and victims deserve. Many relatives of murder victims believe the death penalty is just and necessary for their lives to move forward. Jason Johnson, whose father was sentenced to death for killing his mother, states: [I will go to see him executed] not to see him die [but] just to see my family actually have some closure… He’s an evil human being. He can talk Christianity and all that. That is all my father is. That’s all he’s ever been, is a con man… If he found redemption, that doesn’t matter, that’s between him and God. His forgiveness is to come from the Lord and his redemption is to come from the Lord, not the government. The Bible also says, ‘An eye for an eye.’” [ 17 ] Phyllis Loya, mother of police officer Larry Lasater who was killed in the line of duty, states, I will live to see the execution of my son’s murderer. People [need] closure, and I think it means different things to different people. What it would mean for me is that my fight for justice for my son would be complete when his sentence, which was [handed down] by a Contra Costa County jury and by a Contra Costa County judge, would be carried out as it should be.” [ 18 ] While some argue that there is no closure” to be had in such tragedies and via the death penalty, victim families think differently. Often the families of victims have to endure for years detailed accounts in the press and social media of their loved one’s gory murder while the murderer sits out a life sentence or endlessly appeals their conviction. A just execution puts an end to that cycle. As Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor explains, The family of each murder victim suffers unspeakable pain when their loved one is murdered. Those wounds are torn open many times during the following decades, as the investigations, trials, appeals, and pardon and parole board hearings occur. Each stage brings torment and yet a desire for justice for the heinous treatment of their family member. The family feels that the suffering and loss of life of the victim and their own pain are forgotten when the murderer is portrayed in the media as a sympathetic character. The family knows that the execution of the murderer cannot bring their loved one back. They suspect it will not bring them ‘closure’ or ‘finality’ or ‘peace,’ but there is justice and perhaps an end to the ongoing wounding by ‘the murderer and then the system.’” [ 19 ] Read More Pro 2 The death penalty prevents additional crime. If not a deterrent to would-be murderers, at the very least, when carried out, the death penalty prevents convicted murderers from repeating their crimes. Perhaps the most straightforward argument for the death penalty is that it saves innocent lives by preventing convicted murderers from killing again. If the abolitionists had not succeeded in obtaining a temporary moratorium on death penalties from 1972 to 1976, [Kenneth Allen] McDuff would have been executed, and Colleen Reed and at least eight other young women would be alive today,” explains Paul Cassell, former U.S. District Judge. [ 15 ] Kenneth Allen McDuff was convicted and sentenced to death in 1966 for the murders of three teenagers and the rape of one. However, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty nationwide in 1972 ( Furman v. Georgia ), leading to a reduced sentence and McDuff being released on parole in 1989. An estimated three days later, he began a crime spree: torturing, raping, and murdering at least six women in Texas before being arrested again on May 4, 1992, and sentenced to death a second time. Had McDuff been executed as justice demanded for the first three murders, at least six murders would have been prevented. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Considering recidivism rates, how many more murders and associated crimes of kidnaping, rape, and torture, among others could have been deterred had the death penalty been imposed on any number of murderers? Read More Pro 3 The death penalty is the only moral and just punishment for the worst crimes. Talion law ( lex talionis in Latin), or retributive law, is perhaps best known as the Biblical imperative: Anyone who inflicts a permanent injury on his or her neighbor shall receive the same in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that one gives another shall be inflicted in return.” [ 8 ] [ 9 ] The word retribution” comes from the Latin re + tribuo , or I pay back.” In order for those who commit the worst crimes to pay their debts to society, the death penalty must be employed as punishment, or the debt has not been paid. [ 10 ]Retribution is an expression of society’s right to make a moral judgment by imposing a punishment on a wrongdoer befitting the crime he has committed,” says Charles Stimson of the Heritage Foundation. Therefore, the death penalty should be available for the worst of the worst,” regardless of the race or gender of the victim or perpetrator. [ 11 ] Thus, retributionists who support the death penalty typically do not wish to expand the list of offenses for which it may be imposed. Their support for the death penalty is only for crimes defined as particularly heinous, because only such criminals deserve to be put to death. Under lex talionis it is impermissible to execute those whose crimes do not warrant the ultimate sanction,” explains Jon’a F. Meyer, professor at Rutgers University. The uniform application of retributive punishment is central to the philosophy.” [ 12 ] As Robert Blecker, professor emeritus at New York Law School, further clarifies, retribution is not simply revenge . Revenge may be limitless and misdirected at the undeserving, as with collective punishment. Retribution, on the other hand, can help restore a moral balance. It demands that punishment must be limited and proportional. Retributivists like myself just as strongly oppose excessive punishment as we urge adequate punishment: as much, but no more than what’s deserved. Thus I endorse capital punishment only for the worst of the worst criminals.” [ 13 ] Sometimes, justice is dismissing a charge, granting a plea bargain, expunging a past conviction, seeking a prison sentence, or — in a very few cases, for the worst of the worst murderers — sometimes, justice is death…A drug cartel member who murders a rival cartel member faces life in prison without parole. What if he murders two, three, or 12 people? Or the victim is a child or multiple children? What if the murder was preceded by torture or rape? How about a serial killer? Or a terrorist who kills dozens, hundreds or thousands?” asks George Brauchler, District Attorney of the 18th Judicial District in Colorado. The nature of the crime, and the depth of its depravity, should matter. [ 14 ] Read More Con 1 Not only is the death penalty not a deterrent to crime, it is very expensive. Advocates for capital punishment long argued...