Lomuntad, Ma. Carissa E.

BSE-2D
ETHICS
October 15, 2019

Death Penalty

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” as the saying goes in Hammurabi’s Code. This
quotation has been the basis of political debate over the past years – the death penalty. Death
penalty is also known as the capital punishment where the person is put to death by the state for a
crime. The issue of death penalty has been a controversial and debatable issue for centuries. Ever
since the beginning of civilization, sentencing people to capital punishment has been considered
as fair punishment by government bodies of any period in time. As time goes on, capital
punishment has become more human going from beheadings, electric chairs, to now lethal
injection, no matter how the execution may be processed the point is that they still take place in
today’s civilization, let us site countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan as an
example. Foremost, the issue with death penalty is that some people think it is an inhuman and
immoral act, even unconstitutional. The death penalty has been supported by all the members of
supreme court in Texas. Meaning, it is indeed, constitutional. While the argument can be narrowed
down to a matter of morals, a more pragmatic approach shows defendable points that are backed
up by evidence.

Those who support the death penalty advocate that it deters crime, it provides closure (a
sense of justice?), and is a just punishment for those who choose to take a human life. Those that
are against the issue argue that execution is a betrayal of basic human rights, an ineffective crime
deterrent, an economically wasteful option, an outdated method, that it is discriminatory and is
used disproportionately against the poor, minorities, and members of racial, ethnic, and religious
communities. Because death penalty is an ultimate decision, numerous court trials required to
follow through with the sentence builds up significant costs as well. From a purely pragmatic
viewpoint, the elimination of the death penalty would be beneficial due to the economic ease it
would bring. The death penalty is inefficient means of punishment in both process and
methodology. Due process by which criminals are tried is a lengthy and elaborate process.
Convicts can make repeated court appeals to delay or dismiss their sentence. The people desire a
more brief and efficient method of trials, but “to give the public a truly and swift and efficient
system, significant effort to keep the process error free would have to be abandoned” (Zimring).
The difficulty of this process and the inefficient use of time make the death penalty too drawn out
to be a practical option. In the same way, the death penalty is said to deter crime, but “many
criminologists who favored capital punishment have admitted that they have been unable to
produce convincing studies that track the relationship between death penalty and the crime rate”
(Zimring). A less final act of punishment would allow more room for change of plan and less need
for strictly regimented processing in addition to having more positive results. As a supporter of
death penalty, I strongly believe that this form of capital punishment is not only proper for severe
(worst of the worst) cases of crimes, it is necessary. But take note that that the point is not to give
death penalty freely to every criminal who murders a person, but only to those very extreme (and
beyond the word “worst”) cases where the person who committed a crime is a serial killer who
takes pleasure from killing another human being. This process of execution should only be
conducted after a thorough investigation and it is certain of who the criminal is, to avoid executing
an innocent person. However, there are several reasons that make this punishment necessary.
(reasons are to be laid out in the final paper).

As a person with conservative morals, the death penalty does not seem cruel or unusual to
me in any way. Killing a person might not be for us to decide no matter how revolting the crimes
they committed may be, some people just deserve to be punished as heavy as the weight of the
crimes they committed. This form of capital punishment may seem immoral or inhumane to some
people but this is not the point. The highlight of this capital punishment is to serve justice and
comfort to those affected by these criminals. The point is to have a strong sense of justice in the
country to stop potential criminals and serial killers from their dark endeavors.