Capital Punishment
Name
Institution
Capital punishment is defined as the punishment of execution; the government administers to someone convicted of a capital crime. This form of punishment is mostly defined as the death penalty, which can be traced back to be the beginning of recorded history. It has been practiced in a vast range of diverse types of cultures and societies. The countries practicing capital punishment include China, Texas, Alabama, India, and South Arabia.
Depending on the time and state, the reasons for justifying murder vary. Some countries believed that if someone murders another person, they have given up their human rights. Hence, the court of law is given the authority to take away the person’s right to stay alive. They believe that punishment should fit the crime committed by a person. In a case where the person killed someone, he or she should be killed too. Therefore, giving these killers a death sentence is believed to stop both them and others from committing the same crime all over again.
The commonly used method of capital punishment exists in a variety of ways. They include lethal injection, which involves injecting one or more drugs into the person (NCL, 2020). Others are electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, and firing squad. Harsh punishments are not effective in discouraging someone from committing criminal behavior. They affect a person’s thoughts and emotions, which negatively influence their behavior. It makes them more vulnerable to the practice of further negative experiences and interactions with other people. There is the existence of certain kinds of people who tend to support capital punishment. These people think that evil exists in the world. They display the character of being judgmental. These individuals age fifty to one hundred and twenty years are mostly women. In that, the belief that if someone did something horrible, then the person is evil and needs to get rid of them.
In this modern world, many countries are trying to abolish capital punishment. The countries believe that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It violates the right to life, which is the most fundamental human right. These criminals still have a right to live, and they should instead be given another different type of punishment. For instance, life imprisonment. Using lethal injection for execution is not always smooth and painless; it sometimes brings a lot of pain during an individual’s death. Capital punishment can put innocent lives at risk. This is due to cases where the law made mistakes, and innocent individuals got killed. In China, capital punishment is a legal penalty since they believe it is a retribute for both justice and deterrence. On the other side, the United States is abolishing capital punishment since there is no proof that murders stop other people from committing crimes.
Additionally, Carlos DeLuna was arrested in the United States in 1983 to murder a young woman known as Wanda Lopez. This woman had been stabbed once through her left breast with an eight in the lock-blade knife. It cut an artery making her bleed to death. From the moment of his arrest until the day of death using a lethal injection, which was made six years later, DeLuna consistently protested he was innocent. He even told the judge that he had not committed the murder and he knew someone who had. During that moment, he named the culprit as Carlos Hernandez, who was a notoriously violent criminal. These two Carlos was not the only namesake but also had the same height and weight. They look so alike, and they were sometimes mistaken as twins. In 1983, during the trial of Carlos DeLuna, he explained to the jury that on the day of the murder, he had run into Hernandez, who he had known for the past five years. They both lived in southern Texas in a town known as Corpus Christ. He had stopped off the bar, and he saw Hernandez going over to the gas station in Shamrock to buy something, and he did not return. DeLuna got worried and went over to see what was going on, and in that, he saw Hernandez inside the Shamrock wrestling with a woman behind the counter. DeLuna became afraid and began to run away since he got scared and never wanted to get into trouble. When he had the police siren screeching at the gas station, he panicked and hid under a pick-up truck where he was arrested forty minutes after the killing. The jury concluded that Carlos DeLuna was making images, and he was later executed. Therefore, this case displays how capital punishment exposes innocent people’s lives and the need to be abolished.
In my opinion, capital punishment should not be used as a form of punishment for criminals in the world. This is because the death penalty is a premeditated and cold-blooded form of killing human beings. It violates the right to life. It’s the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. I can never see any justification for having a fellow human being tortured or undergoing any form of cruel treatment. Capital punishment can execute someone possible innocent. Analyzing the records of individuals who have been executed in the United States, there are several cases in which strong evidence suggests innocence. The latest among them is Carlton Michael Gary, who was killed in 2018 by Georgia’s state. In this case, a police statement was withheld from the defense, indicating that the witness who identified Gary in court was asleep. She had no ability to describe the attacker, and the DNA evidence left in the scene execute Gary. There was improper handling of the evidence, and lack of presentation of other items, and a lack of federal review despite all these issues. Thus, even one innocent person being put to death by the state represents too many.
Capital punishment is wrong since it is displayed as an unacceptable link between the law and violence. It punishes violent crimes, and in that, it uses the punishments that violently restrict human freedom. My reasons are influenced by the moral factors where there is a belief that killing an innocent person is a bad thing. This mistake has been often displayed by the various countries which practice capital punishment. I do not believe in circumstances where capital punishment should be accepted. This is because we are all humans, and our lives generally matter since we all make mistakes. In my opinion, the places which have abolished capital punishment should not reinstate it. This will help in protecting fundamental human rights and reducing the risk of killing innocent human beings. In the future, I think more countries will abolish capital punishment. This is because more people in the world are becoming more learned about the importance of protecting other human lives. Moreover, there is a daily discovery of the effective forms of punishment for any criminals.
Reference
NCSL. (2020). Sates and Capital Punishment. Retrieved from https://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/death-penalty.aspx