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    Death Penalty - Eseu

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    1. The document discusses arguments for and against the death penalty, including that it is a cruel and irreversible punishment, and that innocent people may be wrongly executed. 2. It notes the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment and that it disproportionately targets poorer defendants who cannot afford strong legal representation. 3. The psychological impacts on jurors, family members, and executioners are also discussed, as they often live with long-term regret and trauma from their involvement in death penalty cases.

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    Death Penalty - Eseu

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    Ileana Cozachevici
    63 views3 pages
    1. The document discusses arguments for and against the death penalty, including that it is a cruel and irreversible punishment, and that innocent people may be wrongly executed. 2. It notes the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment and that it disproportionately targets poorer defendants who cannot afford strong legal representation. 3. The psychological impacts on jurors, family members, and executioners are also discussed, as they often live with long-term regret and trauma from their involvement in death penalty cases.

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    Death Penalty- Eseu

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    Death Penalty- Eseu

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    1. The document discusses arguments for and against the death penalty, including that it is a cruel and irreversible punishment, and that innocent people may be wrongly executed. 2. It notes the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment and that it disproportionately targets poorer defendants who cannot afford strong legal representation. 3. The psychological impacts on jurors, family members, and executioners are also discussed, as they often live with long-term regret and trauma from their involvement in death penalty cases.

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    63 views3 pages

    Death Penalty - Eseu

    Uploaded by

    Ileana Cozachevici
    1. The document discusses arguments for and against the death penalty, including that it is a cruel and irreversible punishment, and that innocent people may be wrongly executed. 2. It notes the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment and that it disproportionately targets poorer defendants who cannot afford strong legal representation. 3. The psychological impacts on jurors, family members, and executioners are also discussed, as they often live with long-term regret and trauma from their involvement in death penalty cases.

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    of 3

    III ER (Șveduneac Mihaela Elena, Cozma Simira Anișoara, Cozachevici

    Alexandra și Duduman Adina)

    Death Penalty, an inadequate punishement

    Death penalty is a capital punishment given by a court of law for very


    serious crimes, like murder. Death penalty was reinstated in United States of
    America in 1976. At that time the Supreme Court left open the possibility of
    imposing the death penalty for offenses other than murder, such as armed robbery.
    Out of the 50 States, only 29 use Death Penalty and since 1976, 1506 people were
    executed. The main method of execution is the lethal injection, but there were other
    methods, like electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad used as well. In
    this essay we will prove that death penalty is a costly, cruel and inhumane
    punishment, with long lasting psychological effects, which should be abolished.
    Human life is sacred and it is morally wrong to take another life. This fact
    doesn’t change in the case of those who commit murder. Their life is sacred too and
    just as we cannot teach that stealing is wrong by stealing, just as well we cannot
    teach that killing is wrong by killing. A Poll in 2010 done by Lake Research
    Partners proves that the majority of voters (61%) would choose a punishment other
    than the death penalty for murder. And it is rightly so, because using death penalty
    it robs the offender the right to change and one of the roles of prisons is to help
    restore the people. Another thing to take into consideration is that death penalty is
    irreversible. Therefore it can be used on the wrong person and an innocent person
    can be put to death unjustly. According to Death Penalty Information Center, 166
    people were exonerated and freed from death row, such as on the basis of DNA
    evidence. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 1506
    individuals have been executed in the U.S. It is difficult to know for sure how many
    innocent people have been executed, but it appears at least 15 have. Therefore, at
    least 15 people were wrongly accused and unjustly deprived of their right to live.
    Also, taking the life of a murderer is a disproportionate punishment, especially in
    light of the fact that the U.S. executes only a small percentage of those convicted of
    murder, and these defendants are typically not the worst offenders, but merely the
    ones with the fewest resources to defend themselves. (Șveduneac Mihaela Elena)
    Something else to take into consideration is the financial issue when it comes
    to death penalty. Death penalty is far more expensive than a system utilizing life-
    without-parole sentences as an alternative punishment. Many death penalty cases
    involve a long, drawn out, complex, and expensive judicial process. Therefore,
    some of the reasons for the high cost of the death penalty are the longer trials and
    appeals required when a person’s life is on the line the need for more lawyers and
    experts on both sides of the case, and the relative rarity of executions. As a
    conservative estimate, it costs $137 million per year for death penalty vs. life
    sentence without parole - about 12 times more. And the gap is increasing over time
    as the amount of time between sentencing and execution increases. 
    Also, it was proved that death penalty targets the poor. According to Death
    Penalty Information Center, of the 22,000 murders that occur each year in the U.S.,
    about 1% results in death sentences. This 1% depends largely on the effectiveness
    of the attorney, which often depends on how much money the accused has. Even
    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “People who are well
    represented at trial do not get the death penalty.” Ginsburg also criticized the
    "meager" amount of money spent to defend poor people. OJ Simpson's lawyer—
    who received $5 million for defending him—said, "In the U.S., you're better off, if
    you're in the system, being guilty and rich than being innocent and poor.”
    Therefore, there are no billionaires or millionaires on death row. (Cozma Simira
    Anișoara)

    Another thing to take into consideration is the psychological impact on the jurors,
    governors, executioners, and the victim’s family and convicts family. Death penalty
    does not represent only the consequence of the murderer, the one who committed
    the crime, but also it involves and collateral damage. Jurors, who must decide
    whether a defendant should live or die, have to live with their decisions for the rest
    of their lives, they are unrecognized victims of the death penalty.  Like many of the
    capital jurors, who stated that they often “regretted” the life and death decisions
    they made as jurors, some Supreme Court justices have also looked back with
    regret. Also, some family members of murder victims feel that a death
    sentence will provide closure. But death penalty court proceedings can drag out for
    years, which prolongs their pain. By contrast, a life sentence is swift and certain,
    allowing families to move on.
    For example, The Capital Jury Project interviewed 1,198 jurors from 353 capital
    trials in 14 states and found that 81% of female jurors and 18% of male jurors
    regretted their decisions, and 63% of female jurors and 38% of male jurors
    sought counseling after the trial. As the former superintendent of the Oregon State
    Penitentiary said, "After each execution, I had staff members who decided they did
    not want to be asked to serve in that capacity again. Others quietly sought
    employment elsewhere. A few told me they were having trouble sleeping, and I
    worried they would develop post-traumatic stress disorder if they had to go through
    it another time." (Cozachevici Alexandra)

    Some scholars argue that a sufficient justification for legal executions is


    retribution. According to the retributive doctrine, all the individuals that commit
    certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically serious crimes, morally deserve to
    suffer a proportionate punishment1. Ernest van den Haag states that “Retribution is
    to restore an objective order rather than to satisfy a subjective craving for
    revenge."2 This statement emphasizes the retributivists’ opinion that a retributive
    punishment is not uncontrolled vengeance, but rather it is punishment prescribed
    and administered in accordance with law, which is to say a legal punishment. In
    other words, death penalty is necessary in order to support real justice. However,
    there is no actual utilitarian value of this kind of punishment giving the fact that
    there is no evidence that death penalty is deterrent to murder. So what is the
    effectiveness of an execution if it is applied only for the sake of punishing? The
    retributive argument in favor of death penalty invalidates the basis for human rights
    which are inalienable, so they apply to each of us. By taking the life of a murderer,
    he/she is deprived of the right to rehabilitate. (Duduman Adina)

    Bibliography
    https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ (Accessed on 09-12-2019)
    Edited by Radelet, Michael L., Facing the Death Penalty, Temple University Press,
    Philadelphia, 1989
    Meltsner, Michael, Cruel and unusual: the Supreme Court and capital punishment, Quid
    Pro Books, New Orleans, 2011
    Stern, Vivien, Creating Criminals, Zed Books Ltd, New York, 2013
    Prime, Megatron, Death Penalty, Smashwords, 2017

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