Piva 1 Keegan Piva Greg Spendlove PHIL 1120-003 27 November 2013 Death Penalty Todays world can be a very

complicated and confusing place. When it comes to the death penalty it is even more complicated and confusing. The most common reason why someone would receive the death penalty is because they murdered someone in a heinous act. The death penalty is used in countries all over the world. In the United States it is used in thirty two states and can also be used by the Government and military (States). The use of the death penalty is something that has been discussed for many years and seems to be going away in current times. I believe that the death penalty should continue to be used in the United States but there needs to be some changes in the system. I will discuss how the only correct consequence to a heinous crime such as murder is the death penalty and how if the death penalty was abolished murderers would get the advantage. Also I will discuss some points that will require some system changes which are the cost and executing the innocent. The United States and even the whole world are always discussing if the death penalty is really the correct answer. The reason that sentencing the death penalty to a murder is the right thing to do is because they took away the right to life for another human being. In Igor Primoratzs, a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, article A Life for a Life he says, If I violate the rights of others, I thereby lose the same rights. If I am a murderer, I have no right to life (161). This statement shows that if I am going to wrongfully take something away from someone I now have no right to keep that thing. No person should

Piva 2 have a right taken away if they did nothing to deserve it to be taken, and if they do, the person who took that away should sacrifice that same right. The problem with this argument is that a lot of people believe that life is something that should never be taken even if it is a murderers life. Life is something that is so precious and even if the person did a wrongful act they should still have the right to live and experience life because they cannot be brought back. A life is something that should not be taken away based on a decision of a judge or a jury. The problem with that is if a person takes a way someone elses right to live their life then why should they even get that right anymore. A person that invades another persons personal rights is sa ying that he does not care about personal rights and therefore does not care about his own personal rights. That is why if someone wrongfully takes a persons life then their life should be taken and that is usually from the death penalty. Another reason that we should keep the death penalty is because it is the only punishment that can be given to someone that is proportionate to the crime that they committed. That crime is usually murder but could also be other horrible acts that deserve the death penalty. With the crime of murder and killing another human being the only consequence that is equivalent to that action is for the criminal to be killed. In Primoratzs article he says that if the death penalty was taken away these criminals who have taken someones life will be receiving an unequal punishment (165). While choosing what is proportionate to a certain crime is difficult it seems obvious that death is the only consequence that is equal to murder or taking someone elses life. Stephen Nathanson, philosophy professor at University of Boston, brings up an argument that the proportionality principle does not state what the punishment must be but says that if the highest crime is committed then the highest punishment should be given (76). This principle means that for a smaller crime the punishment could be possibly be short jail time while the most severe

Piva 3 crime should get the worst punishment which could be a long jail time. The problem that I have with this and other people in this debate have is that no matter what if someone kills another person the only thing that could be closely proportional to that is being killed. If the murderer kills someone they take away that persons ability to go on living and to have feelings so that person should receive the same. If the death penalty was taken away then the murderer would get to go on having feelings and living which he took away from someone else. This would mean that murderers are getting a leniency on punishment because they are not receiving a proportionate punishment. If keeping the criminal alive in the case of a murder was how the system worked, then it would be treating them better than someone who is punished for other crimes. The death penalty is the only punishment that is proportionate to the crime of killing. Now there are a few arguments that I believe in that should help to change how the system is run. The first is how much the cost of being on death row costs because of the appeals processes. The appeals are the most expensive part of the process and the American tax dollar is what usually pays for the juries and judges along with defense costs. All of these costs add up and could be used for other programs that help prevent criminal actions in a community and that is ultimately the goal of the justice system to provide a safe community (Dieter 83). This is one argument that Richard Dieter, Executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, uses in his article Secondary Smoke Surrounds the Capital Punishment Debate to state that the death penalty is on its way out and should not be used anymore. I think that while this argument does pose a possible threat to the death penalty being abolished, it is not arguing that the death penalty is the wrong punishment for the crimes. That is why I believe that the death penalty should be kept in place but there needs to be a reconfiguration of the system. There needs to be a way that this process can be cleaned up and possibly expedited in order to lower the costs and therefore

Piva 4 making the process more effective. If this process does become more efficient then the money that is currently being lost to these cases can be used in other crime prevention programs like Dieter was talking about. The second argument that goes hand in hand with the cost of the death penalty program is the possibility of incriminating the innocent. Part of the reason that the cost of the death penalty is so high is because if there is a mistake in the rulings it could mean that an innocent person is going to be executed. The cost is high because it takes a long process to make damn sure that the person being convicted of the crime is the person who actually did it. The cost and the executions of the innocent are used by a great deal of people to argue completely against the death penalty and to try and get it abolished. This is something that should not be used in evidence to abolish the death penalty but to change the system of the death penalty. The objectors of the death penalty use this because it is a negative result from the death penalty process and they really do not believe in killing someone but they need more evidence to fight the death penalty. These two arguments of cost and conviction of the innocent should not be used by death penalty objectors because it is not saying the death penalty is wrong it is saying the system is wrong. The system is what needs to be fixed and when that happens the death penalty protestors will have less evidence to use. The death penalty is something that is highly debated all around the world and will continue to be as long as it is in use. Some of the reasons that we need to keep the death penalty are because it is the only real punishment for someone who has caused another person to lose that right of life and perish. Another reason that we need to keep it is because if the death penalty was abolished then the murderers and killers in the world will get the advantage of receiving a punishment that is not proportionate to the crime that was committed. There are some

Piva 5 faults with the death penalty such as cost and convicting the innocent but that is something that says the system is screwed up and not the penalty. Once the system is reconfigured then the death penalty will have no problems and will be the correct punishment for someone that took away anothers life.

Piva 6 Works Cited Dieter, Richard. Secondary Smoke Surrounds the Capital Punishment Debate, Criminal Justice Ethics. Vol 13, No. 2. Winter/Spring 1994. Nathanson, Stephen. An Eye for an Eye? Eye for an Eye: The Immorality of Punishing by Death. 2nd ed. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. Primoratz, Igor. "A Life for a Life." Justifying Legal Punishment. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities International, 1989. "States With and Without the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.