Azzam 1

Chadi Azzam
Mark Langer
BUS 302

Capital punishment
In the ancient history there were no government or policies yet the people manage to
maintain order by setting group of rules and regulation that organize the relationship between
them, for example there were a rule between tribes that determine the ownership of each person
and prevent others from entering it, rules that forbid others to kill or steal and of course there
were punishments to stop anyone who break these rules. So some of these rules has evolved
forming our law today. However the biggest source of our law is from the code of Hammurabi
1754 BC which was written by Hammurabi the sixth Babylonian king.
The definition of law: group of principles and regulation that is enforced by authorities
or government and people are obliged to follow those principles or they will be punished
according to their violation.
Even though all laws came from the same source yet each country has its own law and its
own way to apply it, for example drinking and driving is considered a misdemeanor in many
western country which is punished by few months in person or paying a fine while in many
eastern countries like KSA its considered a serious crime which is punished severely. However
the difference is not only between east and west because in USA for example each state has
special rule and special way to apply those rules.
To clarify this difference I will speak about capital punishment, when it is used, the
argument on it and its effect on society.

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Capital punishment is defined as a practice in which prisoners are executed in accordance
with judicial practice when they commit capital crime is the crimes that is very serious and
cant be forgiven like killing, raping and bank robbing etc.
So the argument here is capital punishment ethical and acceptable or is its a crime
against humanity?
To be fair and equal I well discuss both views and I well support each one with claims
and evidence.
The opponent of death penalties claims that when government execute a person for his
crime the government itself is participating in the same act that its trying to prevent! Not only
that but according National geographic which interview the officer that is in charge of recording
the death of prisoners, he says that after the execution he write the name of the criminal and
beside his name he write legal murder!! That is mean that even though the government is killing
people according the law but its still consider a murder.
Also people insist that killing prisoners a hideous crime and should be stopped, besides
that killing wont solve the problem. And if government really want to end the issue it should
create programs and hire experts to help the prisoners and understand them by listening to them
and try to know what make them criminal, because perhaps they commit crimes because of
family disturbance and domestic violence or simply because they are psychopath who need
special treatment and Psychotherapy. Ok until now all of these claims are reasonable but not
strong enough.
However the strongest claim against capital punishment is that eventually guiltless people
will get killed because of errors and lapses in the justice system or by misleading information

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from witness, unfortunately that happened in USA where more than 130 people were executed
only to found innocent after their death!!
According to the new study of Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan at least 4% of
all people who receive the death penalty are innocent, this study has covered years from 1973
until 2004 were 7482 people sentenced to death. 107 people from them were waiting the
execution, sadly more than 13 percent were executed and 4% commit suicide because their
despair or they died because of their mental condition.
Now the opponent of capital punishment have strong argument and convincing claims,
yet we cannot ignore the other side and we cant neglect the tear and the sadness of the victims
parents who want revenge.
People who are with capital punishment claim that when someone do something wrong
he deserved to be punished to prevent him from repeating the same thing in the future, however
if the wrong was very serious like killing or raping the punish should be very rigorous to prevent
other from repeating the same thing and make them think twice before doing anything.
Now I well talk about cases were many criminal who has been released only to kill again!
Many murderers freed from life sentences have committed a series of raping and killing
which happened in these tragedy stories.
In 2010 five murders freed to kill again only after a week of their release. One of these
criminals is Andrew Dawson who called himself 'Angel of Mercy', he was given a life sentence
in 1982 after murdering of a 91-year-old Henry Walsh in his flat at Ormskirk, stabbing him a
dozen times with bread knife. However after they release him in 2010, he stabbed defenseless
John Matthews and Paul Hancock to death in separate attacks. The silly thing and what is really
unfair that even thought this hideous crime Andrew Dawson only punished of whole life prison

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Another shocking case is Douglas Gary Vinter who kills his former work mate Carl
Edon, 22 by stabbing him to death, after that they sentenced him to prison for 9 years but when
they released him in 2008 he kidnaped and torture his ex-wife to dead in his mother home!
If we consider all of these cases and hundreds more we can see the reasonable thing about
capital punishment and that by taking the lives of criminals we are saving hundreds of innocent
Lives. Moreover families of victims claims that life should be for life that is mean the person
who took their beloved life doesnt deserve his life and that he should be punished by death not
10 or 15 years in prison.
However this is not only the opinion of the victims families because also the families of
criminals claims that their son should not have been released in the first place.
Another supportive claims for this argument is that when we are paying taxes our many
goes to the government which in turn use the many to build fancy and big prison to keep maniacs
and murders in, where they enjoy three males in a day and many other activities, all of that
wasting for what? To make these killers enjoy after making thousands of people suffering and
heartbroken!
One last thing that support this argument is if practice capital punishment for all serious
cases we will guaranty that no one will dare to commit and murder or rape in the future because
those people will imagine them self in the execution chair before pulling the trigger of carrying
the knife.
After taking the claims from both views we can say that capital punishment can indeed
save lives, however justice system should be fair and free, plus that the judge should be wise and
patient and he should study the case over and over to avoid errors because any mistake in his
decision could mean the death of innocents.

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As we can see law is very important in any society because it brings order and discipline
to societies and without it the chaos and corrupt will come.
A small example of that is when sandy hurricane hit USA which result in power cuts and
signal loss as well as full absence of police men and order, all of that give the criminal the chance
to do whatever they want with total freedom.
So in the end we all should respect the legal system because its exist for our own safety
and if law applied well and equally we will live in peaceful and safe society were the law is
above everybody and no one can escape from it.

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Works cited
Gilley, Cliff. "How Did Law Came into Being?" Quota, 6 July 2011. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.
Head, Tom. "Is the Death Penalty Murder?" About.com, 18 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Dec.
2014.
Lovato, Elizabeth. "How Many Innocent People Are Sentenced To Death?" Forbes.com,
7 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.
ROBINSON, MARTIN. "Murderers Who Were Freed to Kill AGAIN." Daily Mail, 17
June 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.
McMahon, Mary. "What Is Capital Punishment?" Wisegeek.com, 28 Dec. 2013. Web. 18
Dec. 2014.
Minchin, Emily. Arguments against Capital Punishment. BBC, 25 Sept. 2010. Web. 18
Dec. 2014.
SLACK, JAMES. "Crimes of the 65 Killers Released under Labor to Strike Again."
Dailymail, 5 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.

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