Is the death penalty a necessary measure of punishment or is it too drastic and inhumane?
Photo By: Whitten Bumbalough, Photographer

By: Michelle An, Copy Editor

In 2014, a poll asked the general public for their opinions toward keeping the death penalty revealed that 56% of citizens were in favor of keeping it, a value that has been decreasing since 2010. Society itself is slowly shifting away from this aspect of the legal system in favor for more benevolent means of punishment and reform, but crimes themselves have remained at an all-time high for the past decade, indicating a discrepancy. In a society such as this one, the abolishment of the death penalty harbors much more danger than good.

A recent issue passed by The Bureau of Justice has listed what is considered to be a capital crime in each of the 50 states. In every state that the death penalty is legal, first-degree murder with some degree of leniency given to aggravating circumstances is considered worthy of capital punishment. In simpler terms, people aren’t punished without reason. The death penalty should not be looked at as an individual entity but rather as a result that best serves to maintain the justice and well-being of America with all extenuating circumstances considered.

Sophomore Julian Ibagon says, “I think the death penalty is continued because at the core of its ideology, the death penalty has a valid point. It embraces the perspective that a person owes ‘an eye for an eye.’ When one looks at the crime that incites the death penalty in many cases it is justified. The murder of another person or another grisly crime may, very justifiably, call for the death penalty.”

In administering the death sentence upon a convict, the executioner is also protected against the moral weight of the death penalty by having multiple participants take place; this is specific to the firing squad method. Five marksmen are given guns to carry out the sentence, but one of the guns contains a blank.  In this situation, no one in the firing squad will know whose guns contained real ammunition and whose gun was the blank.

Along with that, to assuage complaints of executions being botched, other methods of execution have also been improved significantly as an effort to make them as painless and efficient as possible. For example, hanging requires a precise drop distance, and a lethal injection now involves the insertion of two IV drips, one of which is a backup in case the first one fails. And in any case, offenders who have met certain conditions can choose their execution method for what they perceive to be the most harmless.

Opponents of the death penalty believe that it is counterintuitive because it denies humans of their basic rights of freedom from cruel or unusual punishment. Currently, the most popular form of legal punishment in the U.S. is a lethal injection. However, this method always runs the risk of an unsuccessful execution, which may prolong the suffering.

The assumption that any punishment involving death is cruel or unusual is, in itself, a fallacy. Although this may not be the case in every opposition, many aggressions that base themselves off of the 8th Amendment are usually involved with cases in which a mistake occurs in the delivery of the punishment, and the convict must suffer longer as a result. The failure of an execution is a rarity with only 3% of all the executions from 1980 to 2010 botched.

It is unlikely, no matter how advanced technology becomes, that natural human errors will ever cease to exist, such as the malfunctioning of an IV drip in administering it. These cases are always a minority and they are a result of unintentional mistakes. Does this mean the mistake should be condoned? No, but it should be noted that the actual execution methods themselves have been chosen as a means to ensure the least possible harm to the convict.

In the 2008 Baze v. Rees Supreme Court case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts ruled that “simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of ‘objectively intolerable risk of harm’ that qualifies as cruel and unusual.”

Junior Andy Cai says, “The punishment is justified for people who commit crimes much more cruel and unusual than the punishment itself. In this respect, the death penalty is not unconstitutional.”

Another popular argument against the continuity of the death penalty rests on a common misconception that all punishments must serve as some form of lesson. Advocates of this view hold the platform that convicts have no chance to redeem themselves or atone for their wrongs.

There are two problems with this assertion. The first is the assumption that convicts on death row are not given a second chance. All convicts on death row are given the right to an appeal provided that they can find evidence against their ruling. The second is that redemption is an obligation that should be granted to everyone, regardless of the crime. However, that begs the question, should an irreversible crime be resolved by a reversible punishment? Article 6 of the ICCPR states that “sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law.” In this way, the punishment is justified by the crimes that insinuate the need for it.

While death may be labeled as a generally negative punishment to inflict upon others, the abolishment of such a system will do little to properly assert the justice of a nation. If people truly wish for the complete riddance of the death penalty, then they should first find a way to completely abolish crimes that equate to the need for this system.