The death penalty is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing, sentenced by the state in

the name of justice. It is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It doesn’t prevent
crime and it is a formalized variety of revenge and not justice.

The state can decide to deliberately take a person’s life. Also the death penalty is carried
out in the name of the nation’s entire population, and therefore it involves everyone and
everyone shares the responsibility for it. So the question is whether the state should keep
the right to do so and whether citizens want to participate and support it.

Nowadays only 66 countries around the world have not abolished the death penalty, but
among them are some politically most influential states. For example the USA and China,
but also several countries in the middle-east connected with oil production and terrorism.
All this countries have different moral, political and social values. Therefore the reasons
for sentencing someone to death are different. That means that in Iran people are legally,
stoned to death for infidelity or in Libya people got death penalty for being against the
political system. In the USA the death penalty was never sentenced to criminals who
were rich and could afford good and expensive lawyers. In country after country, it is
used against the poor or against racial, ethnic and other minorities.

Through history thousands have been put to death under one government only to be
recognized as innocent victims when another government comes to power. The penalty is
a symbol of terror and, a confession of weakness. In countries where the death penalty is
not abolished no one is actually safe.

There is no perfect legal system in the world, and all criminal justice systems are
vulnerable to discrimination and error. Many people died innocent because they had not a
fair trial. But as they were dead the mistakes could not be undone, it was too late for
them. If the death penalty is abolished than innocent people in prisons could fight to
prove their innocence and eventually get out, but when not such possibility is out of
question.

Even criminals whose guilt has undoubtedly been proved are not equal in the level of
punishment they receive. In the USA, some convicted murders got the death penalty, but
others have not, even if the type of murder was worse. It all depended on how rich they
were or how good their lawyer was or how unprepared was the prosecution. All this can
not be called justice.

Thinking of the families of victims of some horrible crime one mustn’t forget that the
criminal has a family also. This family is innocent too, but they are being unjustly
punished. By punishing the criminal’s family there is no justice for the victim’s family
only actual revenge. Suffering of one is not lessened by the suffering of another. The
criminal is caught, put to prison, he is harmless and the society is safe; if his crime is so
horrible or there is a danger that he will repeat the crime, he should be sentenced to life
imprisonment. Putting to death a defenseless and restrained prisoner is immoral,
undoubtedly he should be punished but not with death.
The death penalty is the denial of human rights. It violates the right to life as it is
proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration also says:
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment", being sentenced to death means to be tortured and treated cruelly. Firstly
there is the question of the effect of waiting to be executed or the psychological suffering
caused by foreknowledge of death. In some cases it happens relatively quickly, but
mostly it takes years of inhumane waiting to be killed. The unusual cruelty of the waiting
period is absurdly modified in Japan, they decided to practice the death penalty as a
“sudden death” – the prisoner knows he is sentenced to death, but he doesn’t know when,
they just come one day and take him away. Could one imagine how must one feel waiting
‘that day’ every single day
Torture comes into mind when discussing the means of killing the prisoner. What is
morally more accepting: hanging, shooting, electrocution, gas chamber, lethal injection or
stoning to death? Can any ethical discussion be called ethical while debating of killing
any human being? The physical pain caused by the killing a human being cannot be
measured. The ones who felt it can not tell.

In Kuwait, Sri Lankan national Sanjaya Rowan Kumara was executed in November 2006.
Initially declared dead immediately after the hanging, he was taken to the morgue where
the medical staff noticed he was still moving, further examinations found a weak
heartbeat. He was eventually pronounced dead five hours after the execution had begun.
Angel Diaz was executed by lethal injection in December 2007. After the first injection
was administered, Diaz continued to move, and was squinting and grimacing as he tried
to say something. A second dose was then administered and further 34 minutes passed
before death was declared.
Stoning itself is calculated to cause maximum suffering: the size of the stones is selected
so to cause a slow and painful death.

The state must not equalize itself and its citizens with the criminals. Neither the state nor
the people living there should punish any crime even murder by another murdering.
Nelson Mandela said ''We would be deluding ourselves if we were to believe that the execution
of...a comparatively few people each year...will provide the solution to the unacceptably high
rate of crime... Even if the death sentence is brought back, crime itself will remain as it is The
greatest deterrent to crime is the likelihood that offenders will be apprehended, convicted and
punished

The death penalty only offers risk of unchangeable error; it is morally damaging to the
public in social and psychological terms. It has not been shown to have any deterrent
effect. It denies the possibility of rehabilitation and reconciliation. It promotes simplistic
responses to complex human problems. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim’s
family, and suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It is a symptom of a
culture of violence, not a solution to it. It is an insult to human dignity. It should be
abolished.