Skip to main content

Why are some people against the death penalty? - Part 2

Welcome to the Part 2 of "Why are some people against the death penalty?"

Today, I am going to explain the details of these opinions. 

1. There is racial and economic discrimination in application of the death penalty.
2. Application of the death penalty tends to be arbitrary and capricious. Many cases are biased.
3. The death penalty involves medical doctors, who are supposed to preserve life. But they have to be involved in the act of killing.
4.There are many religious reasons for some people to oppose the death penalty.



1. There is racial and economin discrimination in application of the death penalty.
→ Many convicted criminals are biased. All five of the prisoners executed since 1977—one shot, one gassed and three electrocuted—were white. This looks like a morbid kind of affirmative action plan, making up for past discrimination against blacks. But the five were not representative of the death-row population, except in being male. About 99 percent of the death-row inmates are men.

Black persons in Florida who commit murder, "those who kill whites are nearly 40 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. (Crime & Delinquency, 1980)"


2. Application of the death penalty tends to be arbiterary and capricious.
→  For example, for similar crimes, some people are sentenced while others were not. Furthermore, there are many cases that innocent people got executed due to the arbiterary judge or inaduquate research for complicated cases. Once a person's life is taken away, there is not way to compensate it. So why support the system?


3. The death penalty involves medical doctors who are supposed to preserve life. But they have to be involved in the act of killing. 
→ The death penalty involves medical doctors, for example, when the country uses lethal injections for execution. Doctors who are supposed to save lives have to be involved in killing.

4. There are many religious reasons for some people to oppose the death penalty.
→ One of the men who answered to the question which was asked by the writer of thie article, said "that Christ would oppose the killing of a human being as punishment for a crime." This view is supported by the New Testament story about the woman who faced execution by stoning (John 8:7, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone").  Furthermore, Japan and USA are the only countries that hold democracy. If freedom of belief is guaranteed, why do these countries still have such a system that opposes their ideas? Why such rights are not guaranteed?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Death Penalty in ancient times

Capital punishment actually has a longer history than people imagine. Historical records show that people in the most ancient times even utilized methods of punishing criminals or wrongdoers.   “A life for a life” has been one of the most basic concepts for dealing with crime since the start of recorded history"(crime museum, 2021). Today, I am going to introduce some of the early forms of capital punishment and examples. Early forms of death penalty was made to punish the criminal slowly, so the person can feel the pain until they breath their last. Types of tourtures were different depending on what kind of crime they committed. For examples, law breakers were " put to death by stoning, crucifixion, being burned at the stake, and even slowly being crushed by elephants"(crime museum, 2021). Some other methods in the ancient times were, bites by snakes, devouring by animals, tearing apart by animals and trampling by horses. Later, the soceities started to realize that th...

Death Penalty - 1st blog, 30 questions

  Here I listed up various questions to make you understand the topic and its issue better! 1. Have you ever deeply studied this topic in the past? 2. Do you agree/disagree to death penalty? 3.  (2) Why? 4. What are some opinions of those who support this system? 5. What are some opinions of those who are against this system? 6. Does your country have the system? 7. Is your country democratic? 8. What kind of method does your country use for the punishment? 9. Do you know the very beginning of capital punishment in the history? 10. What kind of methods did they use to execute in the ancient times? 11. Do you think such a punishment is humane or inhumane?  12. (11)Why? 13. What do you think is the opinion of the government who supports the punishment? 14. What do you think is the opinion of the government who does not support the punishment? 15. Do you think the death sentenced criminal gets to know the execution date? 16. Do the sentenced criminals get any special treatme...

Death Penalty from 3 perspectives

  P erspective 1. murder victim's family who is against death penalty HI, I am the mother of Julie Heath. The last time anyone saw our daughter, Julie Heath alive was Oct. 3, 1993. She was 18-year-old and set out to visit her boyfriend in Hot Springs, Arkansas. A week later, a hunter discovered Heath’s body, less than eight miles from where her broken-down car was found. She wore a black shirt, socks and underwear, but they were inside-out. Her black jeans were partially unzipped. Her throat was slashed. Police later arrested Eric Randall Nance for Heath’s murder. Investigators said he picked her up near her vehicle, before DNA evidence proved he raped and killed her. In 1994, he was handed the death penalty.  But even when executions take place, the pain of surviving family like us doesn’t disappear with the perpetrator’s pulse. Death penalty advocates and politicians, including Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, argue that when the state executes a person who has com...