Ma. Luz Bella R.

Loriega September 10, 2018

Nicole Sionosa
XII – St. Pope Gregory I
Position Paper
“We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crime,
but for what it does to all of us: It offers tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life.” –
Joseph Fiorneza. As said in the quote above, it only offers us a tragic illusion that we can defend
life by taking life and we all know that we don’t have any right to take one’s life. The death penalty
violates the human rights and taking someone’s human dignity.
According to the theory of Immanuel Kant naming Deontological Ethics, it is concerned
with what people do, not with the consequences of their actions. Example is showing justice to the
relatives of the victim by executing a man. This shows that it is for the good of the relatives and
those who sympathize with the victim. But the way of doing a good intention is wrong. This is
when a person is not doing something good if they are doing an immoral actions on the process.
Labeling Theory also takes place in this scenario. If you are poor and would fight against with
someone powerful, there would be zero chance for the poor to win on that fight since many people
label poor people as criminals, as the one that’s deviance among us. There are a lot of reasons for
us to disagree with Death Penalty and one of it is that Death Penalty punishes the poor. How?
Because as you will observe the poor people who are being arrested are only given PAO Lawyers
and some of them don’t really defend them properly which may cause some innocent people to be
convicted as guilty even though they are not. That is another reason for us to oppose death penalty;
it condemns the innocent to die. There are some researches in other country that states that a lot of
innocent people have been executed for not being defended properly. Another thing is that, death
penalty is irreversible and irreparable because you cannot take back the lives of the ones you have
taken. According to notodeathpenalty.org, the death penalty fails to recognize that guilty people
have the potential to change, denying them the opportunity to ever re-join society. In spite of the
horrific conditions behind prison bars that they are forced to endure, countless prisoners have also
transformed their lives. It is because they are given second chances and they deserve it.
Death Penalty is not the way to solve things right because as long as there’s life there is
hope. We have to accept that the death penalty doesn't stop the community from doing crimes, but
all of us could have a chance to change to a better person. The government could provide
rehabilitation instead of execution. Let’s not defend life by taking life, let’s defend life by uniting
all of us not battle with each other. Make peace for the world.