ARGUMENTS AGAINST AND IN FAVOR OF DEATH PENALTY
I..MORALITY
Common Moral Issues
Arguments against capital punishment, BBC Online. Undated. (17 February 2017)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/against_1.shtml
Value of human life
Everyone thinks human life is valuable. Those
against capital punishment believe that human life
is so valuable that even the worst murderers
should not be deprived of the value of their lives.
The value of the offender's life cannot be
destroyed by the offender's bad conduct - even if
they have killed someone.
Right to live
Everyone has an inalienable human right to life,
even those who commit murder; sentencing a
person to death and executing them violates that
right.
This is very similar to the 'value of life' argument,
but approached from the perspective of human
rights.
Execution of the innocent
The most common and most cogent argument
against capital punishment is that sooner or later,
Life should be preserved unless there is a very
good reason not to, but those who are in favour of
capital punishment have to justify their position.
A person can, by their actions, forfeit human
rights, and that murderers forfeit their right to life.
Example - a person forfeits their right to life if they
start a murderous attack and the only way the
victim can save their own life is by killing the
attacker.
The medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas
Aquinas made this point very clearly:
Therefore if any man is dangerous to the
community and is subverting it by some sin, the
treatment to be commended is his execution in
order to preserve the common good... Therefore
to kill a man who retains his natural worthiness is
intrinsically evil, although it may be justifiable to
kill a sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as
Aristotle points out, an evil man is worse than a
beast and more harmful.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae
Aquinas is saying that certain contexts change a
bad act (killing) into a good act (killing to repair the
violation of justice done by the person killed, and
killing a person who has forfeited their natural
worthiness by killing).
innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes
or flaws in the justice system.

Witnesses, (where they are part of the process),

prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes.
When this is coupled with flaws in the system it is
inevitable that innocent people will be convicted
of crimes. Where capital punishment is used such
mistakes cannot be put right.

Retribution is wrong Retribution is used in a unique way in the case of

Retribution is morally flawed and problematic in the death penalty. Crimes other than murder do
concept and practice. not receive a punishment that mimics the crime -
for example rapists are not punished by sexual
We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. assault, and people guilty of assault are not
U.S. Catholic Conference
ceremonially beaten up.
To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it
is not justice.
Attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu -------
------
Vengeance In any case, is vengeance necessarily a bad thing?

Retribution is immoral because it is just a sanitised
form of vengeance. Scenes of howling mobs
attacking prison vans containing those accused of
murder on their way to and from court, or
chanting aggressively outside prisons when an
offender is being executed, suggest that vengeance
remains a major ingredient in the public popularity
of capital punishment.
But just retribution, designed to re-establish
justice, can easily be distinguished from vengeance
and vindictiveness.
------
Camus and Dostoevsky argued that the retribution
in the case of the death penalty was not fair,
because the anticipatory suffering of the criminal
before execution would probably outweigh the
anticipatory suffering of the victim of their crime.
The Victorian legal philosopher James Fitzjames
Stephens thought vengeance was an acceptable
justification for punishment. Punishment, he
thought, should be inflicted:
for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred-call it
revenge, resentment, or what you will-which the
contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites
in healthily constituted minds.
Sir James Fitzjames Stephens, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
------
Life imprisonment without possibility of parole
causes much more suffering to the offender than a
painless death after a short period of
imprisonment.

Death penalty delivers a 'double punishment'; that

of the execution and the preceding wait, and this is
a mismatch to the crime.

Failure to deter
The death penalty doesn't seem to deter people It's actually impossible to test the deterrent effect
from committing serious violent crimes. The thing
that deters is the likelihood of being caught and
punished.
The general consensus among social scientists is
that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is at
best unproven.
of a punishment in a rigorous way, as to do so
would require knowing how many murders would
have been committed in a particular state if the
law had been different during the same time
period.

The key to real and true deterrence is to increase

the likelihood of detection, arrest and conviction.
The death penalty is a harsh punishment, but it is
not harsh on crime.
Amnesty International

Deterrence is a morally flawed concept

Even if capital punishment did act as a deterrent, is

it acceptable for someone to pay for the predicted
future crimes of others?

Brutalising society
Brutalising the state Executions private or not teach the public lessons
about justice, retribution, and personal
Capital punishment may brutalise society in a
responsibility for one's own actions.
different and even more fundamental way, one
that has implications for the state's relationship
with all citizens.

...the state's power deliberately to destroy

innocuous (though guilty) life is a manifestation of
the hidden wish that the state be allowed to do
anything it pleases with life.
George Kateb, The Inner Ocean 1992
------
Capital punishment 'lowers the tone' of society
Just because two actions result in the same end
does not make them morally equivalent. If it were
Death penalty is an inappropriate for a modern
so, legal incarceration would be equated with
civilised society to respond to even the most
kidnapping, lovemaking with rape, self-defense
dreadful crimes.
with battery, etc.
"The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?". Casey Carmical.
The murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is Undated. (19 February 2017).
repeated in cold blood, remorselessly
Beccaria, C. de, Trait des Dlits et des Peines, 1764

Free will
The idea that we must be punished for any act of A person must be punished for any act of
wrongdoing, whatever its nature, relies upon a wrongdoing, whatever its nature, because he has
belief in human free will and a person's ability to free will and the ability to be responsible for his
be responsible for their own actions. own actions.

If one does not believe in free will, the question of

whether it is moral to carry out any kind of
punishment (and conversely reward) arises.

Arthur Koestler and Clarence Darrow argued that

human beings never act freely and thus should not
be punished for even the most horrific crimes.

Expense
In the USA capital punishment costs a great deal.
In New York and New Jersey, the high costs of
capital punishment were one factor in those states'
decisions to abandon the death penalty. New York
spent about $170 million over 9 years and had no
executions. New Jersey spent $253 million over a
25-year period and also had no executions. Source:
Death Penalty Information Center
(Countries with a less costly and lengthy appeals
procedure, capital punishment seems like a much
cheaper option than long-term imprisonment.)
Counter-arguments
It is a fallacy that capital punishment costs
more than life without parole

Justice cannot be thought of in financial

terms

Cruel, inhumane, degrading

All ways of executing people cause so much

suffering to the condemned person that they
amount to torture and are wrong.

Lethal injection

This method has serious moral flaws and should

be abandoned because it requires medical
personnel being directly involved in killing (rather
than just checking that the execution has
terminated life). This is a fundamental
contravention of medical ethics.
II. CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
AGAINST
The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the
Abolition of the Death Penalty
The Supreme Court in Echegaray vs Secretary of
Justice declared that:
The Second Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty was
adopted by the General Assembly on December
15, 1989. The Philippines neither signed nor
ratified said document. Evidently, petitioner's
assertion of our obligation under the Second
Optional Protocol is misplaced.
The above-quoted argument of the Supreme
Court is no longer valid because the Philippines
already signed the Second Optional Protocol.
The Second Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(Protocol), aiming at the abolition of the death
penalty is the only international treaty of
worldwide scope to prohibit executions and to
provide for total abolition of the death penalty.
This text, annexed to the United Nations
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) in 1989, requires the States that ratify it
to renounce the use of the death penalty
definitively. It is open for signature by any State
party to the ICCPR
***
IN FAVOR
International law is merely equal to
congressional enactments, nothing more and
nothing less.
Like any law, international law as a source of
rights and cause of action could be restricted or
restrained, particularly if required by the States
police, eminent domain, or taxation powers. The
application of a treatys provisions within our
jurisdiction, again as a source of a cause of action,
could be amended by a mere subsequent Republic
Act if Congress, in its discretion, decides to do so.
Thus, declarations by officials that the
Philippines cant do a certain measure because its
hands are tied by international law are false.
Within our borders, the Philippines generally can
do what it wants even if such goes against
international law: the Congress can enact laws, the
Executive branch can issue measures
implementing the law, and the Judiciary can rule
and uphold such law even if that law conflicts with
international law. This is because within our
jurisdiction the one dominant and primary
standard is the Constitution. As long as that law is
constitutional, then - even if it is violative of
international law - such law is valid as far as the
Philippines (internally) is concerned.
International Law and Philippine law. Jemy Gatdula. Undated.
 Both the ICCPR and the Optional Protocols are (17 February 2017)
considered treaties under international law, and http://jemygatdula.blogspot.com/2009/03/international-law-
thus parties to such agreements are bound to and-philippine-law.html
comply with them in good faith.
Atty. Jemy Gatdula is a lawyer specializing in International
Economic Law and Constitutional Law. He is a lecturer at the
However, it provides for one exception: University of Asia and the Pacific and is Executive Director of
Countries who expressed reservations only during Philippine Counsel for Foreign Relations.
the time of ratification or accession may resort to
the death penalty in times of war for those
convicted of a most serious crime of a military
nature committed during wartime.

The Philippines cannot claim the exception

because it did not make reservations when it
ratified the Second Optional Protocol. [I]n no case
could death penalty be seen as acceptable under
this treaty.

Statements of Prof. Harry Roque from:

Return of Death Penalty in PH Volates International law,
Paolo Taruc, CNN Philippines. 2 August 2016. (18 February
2017).
https://adpan.org/2016/08/05/philippines-return-of-death-
penalty-in-ph-violates-international-law/

The following are some of the Constitutional Issues passed upon by the Supreme Court in
Echegaray vs Secretary of Justice, G.R. No. 132601, January 19, 1999

LETHAL INJECTION, CRUEL, DEGRADING OR INHUMAN PUNISHMENT UNDER SECTION 19, ARTICLE III OF
THE 1987 CONSTITUTION.

Death by lethal injection constitutes cruel,
degrading and inhuman punishment considering
that (1) R.A. No. 8177 fails to provide for the drugs
to be used in carrying out lethal injection, the
dosage for each drug to be administered, and the
procedure in administering said drug/s into the
accused; (2) R.A. No. 8177 and its implementing
rules are uncertain as to the date of the execution,
time of notification, the court which will fix the
date of execution, which uncertainties cause the
greatest pain and suffering for the convict; and (3)
the possibility of "botched executions" or mistakes
in administering the drugs renders lethal injection
inherently cruel.
It is well-settled in jurisprudence that the death
penalty per se is not a cruel, degrading or inhuman
punishment. In the oft-cited case of Harden v.
Director of Prisons, this Court held that
"[p]unishments are cruel when they involve
torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of
death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word
as used in the constitution.
Any infliction of pain in lethal injection is
merely incidental in carrying out the execution of
death penalty and does not fall within the
constitutional proscription against cruel, degrading
 and inhuman punishment. "In a limited sense,
anything is cruel which is calculated to give pain or
distress, and since punishment imports pain or
suffering to the convict, it may be said that all
punishments are cruel. But of course the
Constitution does not mean that crime, for this
reason, is to go unpunished." The cruelty against
which the Constitution protects a convicted man is
cruelty inherent in the method of punishment, not
the necessary suffering involved in any method
employed to extinguish life humanely.

Based on the doctrine of implied powers of

Any law reviving the capital penalty must be
State, Congress has the authority to prescribe the
strictly construed against the State and liberally in
means to carry into effect the rights expressly
favor of the accused, because such a statute
given and the duties expressly enjoined by the
denigrates the Constitution, impinges on a basic
Constitution. The end being required, it is deemed
right and tends to deny equal justice to the
a just and necessary implication that the means to
underprivileged.
accomplish it is given also.

REIMPOSITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY LAW VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL TREATY OBLIGATIONS

(Article 6 of ICCPR)
Reimposition of the death penalty law violates
Indisputably, Article 6 of the Covenant enshrines
our international obligations, in particular,
the individual's right to life. Nevertheless, Article 6
the International Covenant on Civil And Political
(2) of the Covenant explicitly recognizes that
Rights, which was adopted by the General
capital punishment is an allowable limitation on
Assembly of the United Nations on December 16,
the right to life, subject to the limitation that it be
1996, signed and ratified by the Philippines on
imposed for the "most serious crimes".
December 19, 1966 and October 23, 1986,
[41]
respectively.
On July 27, 1982, the Human Rights Committee
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil issued General Comment No. 6 interpreting Article
and Political Rights provides: 6 of the Covenant stating that "(while) it follows
from Article 6 (2) to (6) that State parties are not
"1. Every human being has the inherent right to obliged to abolish the death penalty totally, they
life. This right shall be protected by law. No one are obliged to limit its use and, in particular, to
shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life. abolish it for other than the 'most serious
crimes.' Accordingly, they ought to consider
2. In countries which have not abolished the death reviewing their criminal laws in this light and, in
penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only any event, are obliged to restrict the application of
for the most serious crimes in accordance with the the death penalty to the most serious crimes.'
law in force at the time of the commission of the
crime and not contrary to the provisions of the
present Covenant and to the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out
pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a
competent court." (emphasis supplied)

3. When deprivation of life constitutes the crime of

genocide, it is understood that nothing in this
article shall authorize any State Party to the
present Covenant to derogate in any way from any
obligation assumed under the provisions of the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide.

4. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right

to seek pardon or commutation of the
sentence. Amnesty, pardon or commutation of the
sentence of death may be granted in all-cases.

5. Sentence of death shall not be imposed for

crimes committed by persons below eighteen years
of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant
women.

6. Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay

or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment
by any State. Party to the present Covenant."

DISSENTING OPINION (AGAINST)

At the core of the issue of death penalty is the inherent and inalienable right to life of every human being. The
recognition of this inherent right to life is one of the self-evident principles that inspired the adoption of five (5)
major international covenants collectively called the International Bill of Human Rights.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration decrees that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the
person." The Philippines is a proud signatory to this document.

Congress, in enacting RA 7659, failed to discharge its constitutional burden of proving the existence of
"compelling reasons" to prescribe death for "heinous" crimes. In batting for the unconstitutionality of said statute, I
summarized my reason as follows:
"1. The 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty from our statute books. It did not merely suspend or
prohibit its imposition. With the abolition of the death penalty in 1987 Constitution, any means to carry it out is
without any basis and, therefore, is illegal.

"2. The Charter effectively granted a new right; the constitutional right against the death penalty, which is
really a species of the right to life.

"3. Any law reviving the capital penalty must be strictly construed against the State and liberally in favor of the
accused, because such a statute denigrates the Constitution, impinges on a basic right and tends to deny equal
justice to the underprivileged.

"(4) Every word or phrase in the Constitution is sacred and should never be ignored, cavalierly treated or
brushed aside.

"(5) Congressional power to prescribe death is severely limited by two concurrent requirements:

"(a) First, Congress must provide a set of attendant circumstances which the prosecution must prove beyond
reasonable doubt, apart from the elements of the crime and itself. Congress must explain why and how these
circumstances define or characterize the crime as 'heinous.'

"(b) Second, Congress has also the duty of laying out clear and specific reasons which arose after the effectivity
of the Constitution compelling the enactment of the law. It bears repeating that these requirements are
inseparable. They must both be present in view of the specific constitutional mandate -- 'for compelling
reasons involving heinous crimes.' The compelling reason must flow from the heinous nature of the offense.

"(6) In every law reviving the capital penalty, the heinousness and compelling reasons must be set out
for each and every crime, and not just for all crimes generally and collectively."

III.. DEATH PENALTY AS DETERRENT

"If the deterrent case is to be accepted, ... we at least ought to be sure that it deters. If we are to hang
men and women by the necks until they are dead, we ought to do it on more than a hunch, a
superstition, a vague impression"
(United Kingdom parliament debate on the death penalty in 1983)

AGAINST
In 1988, a major report was submitted to
the United Nations by Roger Hood, Director of
the Center for Criminological Research at Oxford
University in the United Kingdom. This study
was prepared and published pursuant to
Economic and Social Council Resolutions
1986/10, section X and 1989/64-
The study concluded that "xxx (the)
research has failed to provide scientific proof
that executions have a greater deterrent effect
than life imprisonment."
Such conclusion only confirmed the two
earlier reports on the same subject matter.
Other studies show that convicted persons
did not remember thinking they might be
sentenced to death before committing the
IN FAVOR
Death penalty is actually 100% effective as a
deterrent to crime: the murderer will never commit
another crime once he has been executed. While
there is no proof that any innocents have been
executed in this century, there is an abundance of
evidence that prisoners who either escaped or were
released early murdered innocent victims again.
Professor Paul Cassell points out that:
Out of a sample of 164 paroled Georgia
murderers, eight committed subsequent murders
within seven years of release. A study of twenty
Oregon murderers released on parole in 1979 found
that one (i.e., five percent) had committed a
subsequent homicide within five years of release.
Another study found that of 11,404 persons originally
crime despite their knowledge of the death convicted of "willful homicide" and released during
penalty. They found that it is incorrect to 1965 and 1974, 34 were returned to prison for
assume that people who commit such serious commission of a subsequent criminal homicide during
crimes such as murder do so after rationally the first year alone.
calculating the consequences.
"The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?" Casey Carmical.
Empirical evidence further shows that Undated. 19 February 2017.
murders are often committed in moments of http://www.hoshuha.com/articles/deathpenalty.html
passion, when extreme emotion overcomes
reason or under the influence of alcohol or
drugs or in moments of panic. It was further
established that people who plan serious crimes
in a calculated manner to decide to proceed
despite the risk in the belief that they will not
be caught. In none of these cases did fear of
the death penalty deter the commission of
crimes. (Echegaray vs Secretary of Justice, G.R. No.
132601. January 19, 1999.)

Crime rates have fallen even without the death

penalty.

Many people justify the return of the death

penalty because of its purported ability to quell
the rising tide of criminality plaguing the country.
The idea is that executing felons for committing
heinous crimes will deter future criminals, thus
lowering crime rates.

But Figure 1 shows that from 1978 to 2008

there had been a general decline in the incidence of
index crimes. These are crimes that occur with
sufficient regularity and have socioeconomic
significance, including some heinous ones like
murder and rape.
Figure 1. Source: PSA, PNP. Note: Data cover 1978 to 2008. According
to the PNP, 'index crimes' are those considered to have socioeconomic
significance and 'occur with sufficient regularity to be meaningful'.
These include the following crimes against persons (e.g., murder,
homicide, physical injury, rape) and crimes against property (e.g.,
robbery, theft, carnapping). Also note that the PNP made

Crime data are usually laden with many caveats, most notably underreporting. But despite these
limitations, Figure 1 suggests at least 3 things.

First, the supposed rising tide of criminality is more of a myth than a fact: index crimes have, in fact,
been falling steadily since the early 1990s.
 Second, even in the years without the death penalty, the index crime rate had plummeted. Hence, the
death penalty is not necessary to see a fall in crime rates.

Third, even after a record number of executions in 1999 (when Leo Echegaray and 6 others were put
to death by lethal injection), no pronounced drop in index crimes was observed. The incidence of index
crimes even rose by 8.8% from 1999 to 2002.
(Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-prone. JC Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla. Published 9:00 AM,
February 11, 2017. February 11, 2017)
Studies abroad could also not find strong
evidence the death penalty deters crime.

Many other countries also fail to see compelling

evidence the death penalty deters crime.

In the US, for example, the death penalty alone

could not explain the great decline in homicide
rates observed in the 1990s.

Figure 2 shows that the homicide rates in Texas,

California, and New York had fallen at roughly the same
pace throughout the 1990s. This is despite the fact that Figure 2. Source: Nagin & Pepper [2012] Deterrence and the
these 3 states used the death penalty very differently: death penalty. Washington, DC: The National Academies
Press. Note: Data cover 1974 to 2009.
Whereas Texas executed 447 people over that period,
California executed just 13 people, and New York executed no one.

Indeed, the US National Research Council concluded in 2012 that, research to dateis not
informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases or has no effect on homicide rates.
In Asia, a separate study reached the same conclusion when it compared the homicide rates in Singapore
(a country of many executions) and Hong Kong (few executions). More recent research also shows that,
instead of imposing harsher punishments, a higher certainty of being caught may be more effective in
deterring crime.

(Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-prone. JC Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla. Published 9:00 AM,
February 11, 2017. February 11, 2017)

The (US) National Research Council( Deterrence and the Death Penalty) stated that studies claiming
that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on murder rates are fundamentally flawed and should
not be used when making policy decisions (2012).
DEATH PENALTY
INFORMATION
CENTER, Facts
about the Death
Penalty, 1015 18th St.
NW, Suite 704 Washington,
DC 20036
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
dpic@deathpenaltyinfo.org
@DPInfoCtr
facebook.com/DeathPenaltyIn
fo

IV. JUDICIAL SYSTEM

AGAINST
Previous death sentences were error-prone.

Too many Filipinos were wrongly sentenced to death before. This may be the single most damning
argument against the reimposition of the death penalty.

In the case of People of the Philippines vs. Mateo (2004), the Supreme Court admitted that a vast
majority of trial courts had wrongfully imposed the death penalty during the time it was available as a
sentencing option from 1993 to 2004 (only 25.36% of the cases reviewed were affirmed!).

Figure 4 shows that of the 907 death convictions that went to the Supreme Court for review, as many
as 72% were erroneously decided upon. These cases were returned to lower courts for further
proceedings, reduced to life imprisonment, or even reversed to acquittal. By detecting these errors, a
total of 651 out of 907 lives were saved from lethal injection.

Unless this alarmingly high rate of judicial errors is fixed, bringing back the death penalty will only
put more innocent people on death row.

Figure 4. Source: People v. Mateo, G.R. No.

147678-87, July 7, 2004. Note: Data were
collected by the Judicial Records Office of the
Supreme Court as of June 8, 2004.

(Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-

prone. JC Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla. Published 9:00
AM, February 11, 2017. February 11, 2017)

Within the eleven-year period since the re-imposition of the death penalty law in 1993 until June
2004, the trial courts have imposed capital punishment in approximately 1,493, out of which 907 cases
have been passed upon in review by the Court.
In the Supreme Court, where these staggering numbers find their way on automatic review, the
penalty has been affirmed in only 230 cases comprising but 25.36% of the total number. Significantly,
in more than half or 64.61% of the cases, the judgment has been modified through an order of remand
for further proceedings, by the application of the Indeterminate Sentence Law or by a reduction of the
sentence. Indeed, the reduction by the Court of the death penalty to reclusion perpetua has been made
in no less than 483 cases or 53.25% of the total number.
The Court has also rendered a judgment of acquittal in sixty-five (65) cases. In sum, the cases where
the judgment of death has either been modified or vacated consist of an astounding 71.77% of the total
of death penalty cases directly elevated before the Court on automatic review that translates to a total
of six hundred fifty-one (651) out of nine hundred seven (907) appellants saved from lethal injection.
(People vs Mateo. G.R. NO. 147678-87. 2004 July 7.)

Previous death sentences fell disproportionately on the poor.

One main reason behind this disparity is that rich inmates have much more resources to aggressively
defend themselves in court compared to poor inmates.

The death penalty, as applied in the Philippines before, was not only unnecessary in reducing crime
but also largely anti-poor: poor inmates were more likely to be sentenced to death than rich inmates.
 Back in 2004 the Free Legal
Assistance Group (FLAG) did a survey of
890 death row inmates. Among other
things, FLAG found that 79% of death
row inmates did not reach college and
63% were previously employed in blue-
collar work in sectors like agriculture,
transport, and construction.

Most tellingly, two-thirds of death

row inmates had a monthly wage on or
below the minimum wage (see Figure 3).
Meanwhile, less than 1% of death row
inmates earned a monthly wage of more than
Figure 3. Source: FLAG (2004) 'Socio-economic profile of capital offenders in
P50,000. the Philippines'. Note: Income brackets are in nominal terms

(Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-prone. JC

One main reason behind this disparity is that Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla. Published 9:00 AM, February
rich inmates have much more resources to 11, 2017. February 11, 2017)
aggressively defend themselves in court (e.g.,
hiring a battery of lawyers) compared to poor
inmates. Unless this imbalance is addressed, the
death penalty will only continue to be a vehicle for selective justice.

Incompetent Counsels
Usually financially unable to pay for counsel, the court appoints counsel de officio for them. More
often, poor persons may not receive fair trails due to incompetent, inexperienced or ineffective counsel.
Thus, while the law is not discriminatory, the practical effect of the death penalty is discrimination
against the poor. (CHR Resolution on the Re-examination of the Death Penalty. 6 March 1997.)
Death Row inmates are served by a severely under-funded Public Attorney's Office (PAO), often
with disastrous results. Condemned men say they are railroaded into prison with limited or no
representation. FLAG cites cases in which public attorneys advise clients to plead guilty to obtain a
lighter sentence, unaware that the charges carry a mandatory death sentence. PAO acknowledges that
its 877 attorneys receive no special training on capital cases. It also notes that besides handling death-
sentence cases, public defenders are involved in more than 350,000 civil and criminal cases each year, as
well as millions of consultations, filings and mediation matters. (Waiting to Go. Ron Gluckman, Asiaweek
Magazine, July 23, 1999.) http://www.gluckman.com/Death'Penalty.htm

V. COST

AGAINST
Death penalty results to even more clogged dockets. The automatic review of the Supreme Court
significantly increases its already heavy workload, thus, contributing to the slow and costly
administration of justice.
 There is no empirical study done on the cost of litigation involving death penalty cases in the
Philippines. Inference may be made, however, that the automatic review of the Supreme Court in cases
where death penalty was imposed by the lower courts necessarily involved more cost to the government
and to the accused.

However, studies done in the US as to the real cost of death penalty are enlightening.
The Financial Costs of the Death Penalty

Death penalty cases are much more expensive than other criminal cases and cost more than
imprisonment for life with no possibility of parole. In California, capital trials are six times more costly
than other murder trials.(1) A study in Kansas indicated that a capital trial costs $116,700 more than an
ordinary murder trial.(2) Complex pre-trial motions, lengthy jury selections, and expenses for expert
witnesses are all likely to add to the costs in death penalty cases. The irreversibility of the death
sentence requires courts to follow heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial. The
separate sentencing phase of the trial can take even longer than the guilt or innocence phase of the trial.
And defendants are much more likely to insist on a trial when they are facing a possible death sentence.
After conviction, there are constitutionally mandated appeals which involve both prosecution and
defense costs.

Most of these costs occur in every case for which capital punishment is sought, regardless of the
outcome. Thus, the true cost of the death penalty includes all the added expenses of the "unsuccessful"
trials in which the death penalty is sought but not achieved. Moreover, if a defendant is convicted but
not given the death sentence, the state will still incur the costs of life imprisonment, in addition to the
increased trial expenses.

What Politicians Don't Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty. Richard C. Dieter. Undated.
http://www.fnsa.org/v1n1/dieter1.html

A new study in California revealed that the cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4
billion since 1978. Study considered pretrial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas
corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on death row.
(Alarcon & Mitchell, 2011).

Defense costs for death penalty trials in Kansas averaged about $400,000 per case, compared to
$100,000 per case when the death penalty was not sought. (Kansas Judicial Council, 2014).

Facts about the Death Penalty. DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER. 1015 18th St. NW, Suite 704 Washington,
DC 20036.
IN FAVOR
Justice cannot be thought of in financial terms

VI. CLOSURE

Research by University of Minnesotta sociology-anthropology professor Scott Vollum and colleagues

found ambivalence in co-victims (family members) reactions to capital punishment. Their study showed
that only 2.5 percent achieved true closure, and 20.1 percent said that the execution did not help
them heal. Co-victims in the study also expressed feelings of emptiness when the death penalty did not
bring back the victim.

The long judicial process between conviction and execution, which can span many years in some cases,
also prolongs grief and pain for co-victims. Uncertainty prevails in the face of appeals, hearings, and
trials, while increased publicity inherent in death-penalty cases exacerbates co-victims suffering.
Through media exposure, they repeatedly relive traumatic events.

Pain and anger, especially, are common in the wake of tragic loss and can be accompanied by an
overwhelming desire for revenge. Some co-victims in the Vollum study voiced that the death penalty was
not harsh enough, while others communicated a wish to personally inflict harm on the condemned. In
the majority of cases though, executions were not sufficient to satisfy these desires.

More often than not, families of murder victims do not experience the relief they expected to feel at
the execution, states Lula Redmond, a Florida therapist who works with surviving family
members. Taking a life doesnt fill that void, but its generally not until after the execution that families
realize this.

A death sentence can polarize the two families, obstructing healing for both. However, in a number of
cases, co-victims actually expressed sympathy for family members of the condemned, often empathizing
with the experience of loss.

When life sentences were given, rather than capital punishment, a 2012 Marquette University Law
School study showed improved physical and psychological health for co-victims, as well as greater
satisfaction with the justice system. The authors hypothesize that survivors may prefer the finality of a
life sentence and the obscurity into which the defendant will quickly fall, to the continued uncertainty
and publicity of the death penalty.

Would co-victims move through the natural healing process more rapidly if they were not dependent
on an execution to bring long-awaited peace? Perhaps the execution as an imagined endpoint for closure
only leads to more grief in the meantime.

The realities of capital punishment may be poorly suited for healthy grieving and healing.

The Trauma and Mental Health Report. Robert T. Muller &Caitlin McNair.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-about-trauma/201610/death-penalty-may-not-bring-peace-
victims-families

Last, F. M. (Year, Month Date Published). Article title. Retrieved from URL.

Muller, Robert T. Ph.D. Death Penalty May Not Bring Peace to Victims' Families. Psychology Today. 19
October 2016.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

1. Amnesty International (AI)|argued that the reimposition of the death penalty could affect the
country's position when it asks foreign countries to commute sentences of Filipinos who are
given the death penalty abroad.
 2. Weaker than the argument of deterrence is the argument of retribution to justify the death
penalty.
The argument propelled by unthinking emotion. While the
Certain people deserve to be killed
desire for vengeance can be understood, its exercise deserves
as repayment for the evil done; and
an impassioned consideration for retribution makes
that there are crimes so offensive that
impossible demands on our justice system. Biases inherent in
killing the offender is the only just
all legal systems and unavoidable errors of human judgment
response. (Echegaray vs Secetary of
preclude a system which can mete out death in a fair and fail
Justice)
proof way.

In the US, Thorsten Sellin "examined statistics on

prosecutions, convictions and executions for murder and
concluded that 'retributive capital justice is tainted by bias
and influence of factors beyond the control of courts of
justice, such as the poverty of the defendant, which prevents
him from engaging competent counsels skilled in the art of
criminal defense.'"
By ruling out mitigating circumstances and refusing to
consider the limitations of any attempt to define crimes,
mandatory death sentences render judicial fairness even
more difficult to achieve. The inevitable result will be an
arbitrary threshold for deciding who lives and who
dies. (Echegaray vs Secetary of Justice)
3. Decline in the number of U.S. executions.
U.S. EXECUTIONS DROP 29%; FALL TO 25-
YEAR LOW Executions continued their historic
decline in 2016, with 20 executions carried out by
just five states. It was the fewest number of
executions in the U.S. since 1991 and the fewest
number of states carrying them out since 1983

CONCLUSION
Right To Life Not Subject To Popular Vote

It is to be sadly noted that when there is a public-clamor (or clamor of people in power) to stop the
rising tide of criminality, the death penalty is always suggested as a quick fix solution. The issue of
whether the State has the right to kill should not, however, be resolved on the basis of popularity poll
(subject to the mere whim of the administration). Right and righteousness are not based on what is the
fashion of the day. We cannot give a blind eye to the enlightened argument that the way to deter crime
is not to increase the severity of punishment but to increase the likelihood of detection, arrest and
conviction. We cannot be indifferent to the internationally accepted view that rehabilitation and
reformation of criminals ought to be our main penal goal. Let us hearken to the wisdom of Article 10 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which provides that the "penitentiary system shall
comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social
rehabilitation."
It is not too much to ask that we rejoin the mainstream of civilized nations.

(Dissenting Opinion: Echegaray vs Secetary of Justice)

The death penalty is a nave way of dealing with criminality

The death penalty can be assailed on many grounds, whether moral, philosophical, or legal. But just
by focusing on the available data, it is apparent that the death penalty, as used in the past, was largely
unnecessary and ineffective in reducing crime.

Even assuming for a moment that it was a deterrent, the death penalty tended to discriminate against
the poor and was subject to alarmingly high error rates.

It is no wonder that so many countries around the world today have abolished the death penalty
rather than retained it. As of 2015, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

Crime is a more complex and nuanced issue than many of our politicians will care to admit.
Reinstating the death penalty and equating death with justice is a patently nave and simplistic way
of going about it.

(Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-prone. JC Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla. Published
9:00 AM, February 11, 2017. February 11, 2017.)

JC Punongbayan is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. Kevin Mandrilla is an MA
student at the UP Asian Center