The Death Penalty

Paper Summary:

While the debate over capital punishment continues to rage in the United States, questions of why the death penalty is viewed as ethical by some, while others would view it as unethical become increasingly significant. In addition, there are new controversies concerning the ethical nature of the death penalty in view of new technology such as DNA evidence which has cleared many death row prisoners. This study uses a case study approach to investigate the role of capital punishment in the American legal system, according to the conceptual framework developed by Neil Vidmar. The purpose of this study is three-fold: 1) to determine the current level of use of capital punishment in the United States, 2) to identify the historic impact of capital punishment on crime rates and 3) to identify the respective percentages of the population being sentenced to death and the crimes for which they were sentenced. The paper includes a literature review and graphs.

From the Paper:

"A central principle of any just and mature society is that every person has an equal right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Within that framework, an argument for capital punishment can be formulated along the following lines: some acts are so vile and so destructive to the community that they invalidate the right of the perpetrator to membership in that community, and even to continued life. A community founded on moral principles has certain requirements. Certainly the right to belong to a community is not unconditional and the privilege of living and pursuing the good life in any society is not absolute, and the death penalty is an example of how it can be canceled out completely by criminal behavior that threatens the community. According to the advocates of capital punishment, the essential basis on which any human community is built requires that each citizen honor the rightful claims of others ("Your rights end where my nose begins," in other words). For many people in America today, capital punishment continues to be viewed as a viable alternative for many types of crimes, particularly heinous crimes involved women and children."

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