Is the Use of the Death Penalty Justice and Is It Fair Essay

It is bewitching to say that majuscule penalization is under attack, particularly in the atomic number 16 where it is intimately comm solitary(prenominal) practiced. Not hardly when cave in serious criticisms been embossed by scholars in deplorable jurist, criminology and related disciplines, to a greater extentover newspapers have publish scathing news reports suggesting that innocent mass have been judgment of convictiond to termination and plane executed, and anyeging racial secernment in outstanding penalisation practice. According to Robinson (2011), quartette basic facts establish the realities of Ameri shadower capital penalty. The first is that capital punishment is practiced in most but non all get together States jurisdictions.Specifically, there are 34 submits with the devastation penalization, and 16 without. The federal political sympathies also maintains capital punishment, as does the military, but the District of Columbia does non carry out executions. However, of these finis penalisation jurisdictions, only nine regularly carry out an execution, meaning they have averaged at to the lowest degree angiotensin converting enzyme execution a year since 1976 when capital punishment was reinstated thus only virtually one-quarter (26%) of oddment penalty states (nine of 34) and 18% of all states in the commonwealth (nine of 50) average one or much than executions per year.Further, only one state has carried out at least ten executions per year since 1976, Texas. In fact, only about 10% of counties with the death penalty imposed a death sentence between the years 2004 and 2009. Justice is typically defined as administering and maintaining what is just or right. Robinson (2011) says that there are three broad let outs discussed and debated by scholars of arbiter theory freedom, benefit, and virtue. Some referee theorists argue that what matters most for deciding what is right or just is freedom whether individ ual rights are see and protected.Another school of thought is the egalitarian libertarians. These scholars suggest that what matters most for legal expert is equality of opportunity in society and taking care of the least advantaged citizens. Other evaluator theorists focus on welfare, or general eudaimonia and happiness of people in society. They argue that what matters most for justice is the welfare of society, or its overall happiness. Finally, other justice theorists argue that what matters most for justice is virtue, or moral goodness and righteousness.The purpose of the death penalty is incapacitation, deterrence, and retribution. Incapacitation is understand as removing the ability of offenders to commit future abhorrences. Incarceration is the typical exploit whereas execution is the ultimate course of action. Deterrence refers to creating fear in would be offenders with punishment to prevent future crimes. Capital punishment can only be aimed at preventing crime b y would-be transferers, general deterrence, since it cannot acquire fear in murderers who have already been executed, specific deterrence.Retribution refers to righting or rebalancing the scales of justice through punishment in order to earn justice for crime victims. Executions are often depicted as retribution for the crime of murder, as well as a source of closure for murder victims families. Robinson (2011) claims that criminologists and capital punishment scholars overwhelmingly indicate that the death penalty fails to achieve these goals, mostly because of the rarity of death sentences and executions. Logically, if death sentences and executions were much common, capital punishment would be more(prenominal) likely to achieve these goals.Yet we also dwell that the more frequently the death penalty is used, the greater the costs associated with the policy, including not only additional financial costs but also a greater risk of convicting, sentencing to death, and executin g the innocent. This ultimately has great significance for the justice of capital punishment. avant-garde den Haag (1986) says that the death penalty is an effective form of deterrence because it is feared more than smell imprisonment. Many of the convicts under death sentence appeal their sentence and try to get it reduced to animateness imprisonment.forefront lair Haag argues that even though there is no factual certify that the death penalty deters would be criminals more than intent imprisonment, the fact that more people fear the death penalty makes it a better deterrent. Reiman (1985) agrees with Robinsons look out that the use of the death penalty is not successful as a deterrent. He gives four main reasons that refute Van Den Haags short letter. His first reason is that although people fear the death penalty more than life in prison, nobody wants to spend life in prison either.People do not have the mentality that they can commit a crime because they will only get se ntenced to life in prison. Although the soul will be alive, they will have all freedom taken from them, which after awhile, can be seen just as horrible, if not worse, than death. Reimans second vertex is that if a individual is contemplating committing a crime, they are already facing an enormous risk of existence killed in the process. Roughly 500 to 700 suspected felons are killed by police in the line of duty all year and many Americans get their own guns.When taking that into account, it does not seem very likely that the would be criminal will be able to commit the crime without at least universe injured by the police or the would be victim. His deuce-ace reason against Van Den Haags view is that using the death penalty is hypocritical. The law states that a person cannot take the life of another, but when they do, their punishment could be death. It is not possible to say murder is flagitious and then have it as a possible punishment. He argues that not having the dea th penalty better exemplifies that idea that murder is wrong.His last point is that it is illogical to practice the death penalty simply because it is feared more than life imprisonment. He says that people would fear death by torture more than lethal injection, so does that mean we should begin the practice of death by torture because more people are afraid of it? Unless it can be proven that the death penalty is a better deterrent than life in prison, Reiman (1985) argues that the death penalty should be abolished. Robinson (2011) says that as for the issue of innocence, there is little doubt that people are wrongly convicted of murder every year and that a handful are even sentenced to death.More than cxxx people have been freed from death row during the era of super cod process that began in 1976 when the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment. outlaw(a) convictions often occur referable to honest errors such as off-key eyewitness testimony and faulty forensic evide nce, but when they occur due to issues such as false confessions, lying informants, government misconduct, and ineffective self-abnegation counsel. There is also little doubt that innocent people have even been executed, although most of the k right offn cases are from prior to the era of super due process in capital sentencing.There remain at least eight widely known cases where men have been lately executed despite serious doubts about their actual guilt. On the issue of executing the innocent, Van Den Haag (1986), makes the argument that the advantages of using the death penalty as a punishment outweigh the unintended losses. He states, Miscarriages of justice are offset by the moral benefits and the usefulness of doing justice (139). His argument is that mistakes have and do occur in innocent people being sentenced to death, but the benefits of using it are more important. It would be more of a detriment to society to stop the use of the death enalty than it is when an innocent person is executed.In regards to race, Americas death penalty has always been plagued by serious racial biases. Little evidence remains of the historic discrimination by race of defendant, although state-specific anecdotal evidence suggests blacks are still at times discriminated against, especially when accused of killing whites and when juries are overwhelmingly white. Robinson (2011) says that most experts now point to a race of victim effect, whereby killers of whites are far more likely to be sentenced to death and executed than killers of other races and.For example, a all-inclusive study of race and the death penalty in North Carolina showed that killers of whites were more than three times more likely to receive death sentences than killers of blacks. In the state, 80% of those people executed since 1976 killed white people only about 40% of North Carolina homicide victims are white. Further, a study of capital punishment practice in the state from 1999 to 2006 found that blacks who killed whites were 14 times more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who killed blacks.Also, there were six executions of blacks who killed whites during the time period, in time zero executions of whites who killed blacks. Van Den Haags (2011) stance on the diffusion of the death penalty being discriminatory is that punishments are imposed on persons, not on racial or economic groups (138). The death penalty is not specifically issued to certain races. It depends on the crime that the person committed. Van Den Haag also says, Justice requires that as many of the guilty as possible be punished, regardless of whether others have avoided punishment.To let these others escape the merited punishment does not do justice to them, or to society. But it is not unjust to those who could not escape it (139). Van Den Haag does not view the fact that black people or other minorities receive the death penalty more than whites as being unjust. However, what is unjust is the white people who were not sentenced to death when they should have been. Given these important empirical realities of the death penalty, the next issue to address is which of them are relevant for the justice of capital punishment practice.As noted earlier, it depends on which theory of justice is being referred to. Libertarians ask whether capital punishment respects liberty or freedom. The most important research for egalitarians is whether capital punishment practice is equal or applied in an equal fashion. For utilitarians, the most important question is whether capital punishment increases overall utility or happiness in society. Finally, for virtue-based theorists, the question is whether capital punishment respects and promotes our values, our moral goodness, and whether it is the right thing to do.The questions preceding(prenominal) do not have universal answers. Everybody will have his or her own opinions on whether the death penalty respects a persons freedom or whether it is the right thing to do. Reiman, Robinson and Van Den Haag all made successful and convincing arguments so it is hard to mildew one view as more convincing than the other. It comes down to a personal choice and what a person chooses to believe as to whether the death penalty is fair and a proper form of justice.