Death Penalty: A Claim of Policy to Address its Challenges - Essay Sample

Introduction

A claim of policy is a statement that describes the existence of a condition and suggesting a change with an alternative course of action to address the problems created as a result of the current policy or situation. A claim of policy builds of a fact and value assertions. First, a recent issue as a result of the present policy and requiring a solution is established. Then, a value claim is used to ague the importance of addressing the challenge. Capital punishment or the death penalty entails executing a person due to specific murder crimes after a fair legal trial has been undertaken. The essay is a claim of policy to argue that capital punishment should be abolished in the United States (U.S.). It violates the rights to live and value for human life, is unconstitutional, unfairly applied, and does not reduce or deter crime.

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Claim of Policy

My Opinion

Capital punishment should be abolished in the U.S. as it cruel form of punishment whereby the victim lacks equal protection by the law. The due process of the case of murder fails to be achieved, and the sentence becomes unusual compared to the punishment provided for crimes such as rape. When a person commits the crime of rape, such an individual is not raped to fulfil such a wrong sentence. It is equally not appropriate to kill a person because of committing a murder crime. If the law allows for killing a murderer, it would be fine for a rapist to be raped. An argument that arises is such a situation of executing a murderer is the case of vengeance. The death penalty creates problems that are beyond the societal control. Capital punishment does not deter crime in the U.S. By practicing to kill murder criminals; then vengeance will become the order of the day. While quoting the Bible, which is the essential guide for moral and right actions for every human being, the Lord says, "Repay no one evil for evil, … Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay" (Romans 12:17-19).

Given what people know regarding the death penalty application in the U.S., it should be abolished to avoid innocent people's execution. It is common to understand that once an innocent person is executed due to inappropriate determination of the case, such a wrong cannot be undone by the courts. I think there are better methods of punishing a murder crime that is executing through capital punishment. For example, a sentence such as an imprisonment for life without parole would be better than giving murder criminals a death penalty. Such a punishment provides the person with a chance to live their life without giving the state a chance to kill. I believe that governments should not have the right to kill human beings. When viewing the execution of capital punishment in the U.S., criminals are killed with premeditation in the name of protecting its people and following the law. However, such killings are made in a discriminatory and arbitrary manner.

I think the death penalty is also intolerable when looking at the way it is undertaken. For instance, using a method of executing capital punishment such as lethal injection is an uncivilized approach of killing that violates the fundamental values of human rights. It is also inconsistent with the civil liberties that the democratic system in America provides people. Electrocuting a body or suffocating a criminal using gases and lethal injections give the state the right to take life. It is morally wrong how the nation rationalizes the death of a murderer as deserved. Lethal injection makes the dying person still while alive, not feeling anything. I do not think that such a method of killing justifies the state's right to take life. I believe that the only owner of life is God, and He remains with the authority of taking the soul of a person. Every other person killing people in the name of the law or protecting the people violates God's commandment that "you should not kill."

Warrant/Reasons

Based on my opinions for abolishing capital punishment in the U.S., various reasons make the death penalty a type of discipline that any state should not desire. Therefore, the U.S. should leave capital punishment and adopt better approaches to punishing people charged for the crimes of murder. Capital punishment violates the constitutional rights of equal protection for every American citizen. The constitution banned cruel punishment and allowed every person to undergo an undue process of law. American Civil Liberties Union (1) stated that the death penalty fails to guarantee a person the due process of law. It is usually imposed arbitrarily and always not revocable. That puts the person in a situation of depriving the chance of benefiting from the new evidence or laws that could warrant a reversal of the conviction forever. When due process is given to a murder case, a death sentence can be put aside for the charged person.

The U.S. death penalty continues to be considered unfairly imposed and undermining the American community's moral authority as well as decreasing the credibility and legitimacy of courts (Bright 152). Capital punishment is random and discriminatory, violating the constitutional guarantee of equal protection for all American citizens (Tawakoli 20). Its disproportionate imposition favors the whites and oppresses the people of color, the poor, and uneducated. Barry (1572) argued that it is crucial to set a new policy that tames applying the death penalty in a discriminatory, excessive, and arbitrary manner. The law needs to be revised to help victims of the death penalty obtain a more dignified death that does not violate their constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

The realities of capital punishment in the past and present set the pace for America to abandon it. Stevenson (1) denoted that the death penalty directly descents the darkest time of American history characterized by racial oppression, legal lynching, and slavery. Racial discrimination is a prominent attribute of the death penalty practiced in the U.S. Bright (153) stated that capital punishment is not imposed to avenge every murder crime committed in America. The intention is mostly bringing closure to the victim's family even though it is perpetrated to less than one per cent of the murder cases.

Support and Evidence for the Claim

Evidence shows that over 20,000 murderers in the U.S., only 300 persons are convicted to death, and 55 executed every year (Bright 153). Furthermore, 86% of the executions carried out by the end of the year 2002 in the U.S. were from the South while Texas and Virginia undertook only 45% of the death penalty. The United Nations (41) noted that capital punishment is retained for the victim's family to avenge for the murder of their loved ones. In that case, if the death penalty is abandoned, then the victim's family will not have a closure. However, it is difficult to prove that the death penalty on the murderer serves the victims and their families to achieve closure.

In the U.S., innocent people have been convicted of capital punishment due to mistaken eyewitness identifications and partisan expert testimonies that render their ideas supported by science (Bright 153). Police and prosecutors fail to get their charges, turn over evidence of innocence, or dismiss evidence based on testimonies that the accused individual accepted to have committed the murder crime. Because of their race, the guilt is charged with a death sentence instead of life imprisonment without parole because they happen to be prosecuted and not due to committing the worst crimes. The courts, judges, and lawyers are incompetent in deciding capital punishment due to relying on incomplete evidence (Bright 153). The police can go to the extent of torturing the convicted persons to a level of confessing to crimes they never committed. Such actions prove that capital punishment is not fairly administered and leads to the execution of innocent defendants. This creates a terrible situation for society, with people being sentenced to death without Parole. Statistics show there were more than 170 individuals who were condemned to death in the U.S. since 1973 (Death Penalty Information Center 2). However, these people have been acquitted and freed after new evidence was provided to establish their innocence as well as casting out a doubt that they should not be convicted.

Capital punishment violates the human rights of citizens and undermines the standing as well as the moral authority of the American nation. In the year 2001, the U.S. was among the four countries that had 90% of death executions within the world. Others nations included China, Saudi Arabia and Iran (Bright 155). When looking at the adoption and abolishment decisions of capital punishment by various states, the rate of abandonment is higher when compared to that of adopting a death sentence. Research shows that since 1985, more than 40 states have abolished capital punishment while only four countries have adopted the death sentence (Bright 156). The U.S. is among the world leaders in the execution of capital punishment even to children. That is incompatible with the need for protecting human rights. On the subject of human rights, Fredrick Douglas stated that life is the most precious, primary and comprehensive for all human rights and should be protected (Buccola 228). It does not matter what is accompanying life and that an individual or the government should not destroy it.

The death penalty has been proven to be ineffective in deterring crime in the U.S. Executions that have been carried out over the years have not contributed to reducing criminal activities in America. According to the National Research Council of the National Academies, studies that support the deterrence effect of death penalty ion crime are flawed and such evidence should be utilized when making policy decisions (Nagin and Pepper 2). The South has had the highest rates of murder in the U.S. since 1976, despite undertaking 85% of the countries executions (Bright 154). A punishment that is considered adequate must be consistently and promptly utilized. The death penalty fails to fit within this requirement of a sufficient punishment as it cannot be administered always and swiftly. The percentage of first-degree killers sentenced to capital punishment is small, and the proportion executed is even smaller. Only 3% of the convicted murderers charged with criminal homicide are sentenced to death (American Civil Liberties Union 1). The number of death sentences has been reducing over the years, and that does not exemplify the worst of the worst. When comparing capital punishment with permanent imprisonment, the latter would be considered the worst of the worst and capable of deterring crime.

Conclusion

In conclusion, capital punishment should be abandoned in the U.S. is a claim of the policy when looking at the problems that it brings to society. I think capital punishment is a violation of human rights for the person convicted. Every individual has a right to live, and no one has a right to kill. The death penalty gives the government excess power to exercise rights to kill people. Killing is morally wrong and against God’s requirement for people not to avenge for themselves. The reasons against capital punishment prove that it should be abolished and an alternative approach used to achieve the qualities of an efficient punishment. Evidence shows that the death penalty as a form of punishing first-degree murderers in America has created problems of implementation, effectiveness to deter crime, unfair application and violating the constitutional rights of equal protection for every citizen.