Pro-Death Penalty Argumentation

The death penalty should be considered an essential legal measure since it deters potential criminals. During a presidential debate in 2000, George W. Bush defended the death penalty as ethically and legally acceptable. It guarantees that lawbreakers are punished in a way that contributes to the overall decrease in crime rates.

According to Immanuel Kant, a deontologist, governments should adopt laws that penalize individuals who take the lives of others (Chapple et al.). When someone is slain, the killer gets pleasure, while the victim's loved ones bear the burden of grief.

The victim was, therefore, only a means to an end, and the unlawful conduct was not motivated by compassion. It is allowed to execute the culprit to preserve social order. Consequently, it might serve as a role model for individuals who commit crimes or admire criminals.

According to its supporters, the death sentence reduces crime because of its deterrent effect. Individuals choose whether to obey or break the law based on their benefits and penalties. Criminal conduct will grow if criminal punishments are exceedingly light. However, if the penalties for a crime are particularly severe, many individuals will avoid committing the act in the first place. The goal is to ensure that criminals are punished in a way that forces them to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of appearing in court.

The death penalty is problematic because of its capacity to deter crime, but it should not be applied evenly. Opponents contend that torture should only be used for the most severe offenses, and even then, it should be done humanely. The culprit should be punished, but not for vengeance or because the victims were not treated with the same humanity as the perpetrator.

Kant and I both believe that the state has the power to punish criminals. Those who commit crimes in one form or country often flee to another, maybe to avoid capture. A criminal must be extradited to the United States or the place of the crime before justice may be delivered. The culprits will be killed to save future victims' lives and prevent them from committing more violent crimes against the public.

One of our most treasured things is the gift of life. Americans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The state must preserve its citizens' rights. The founding fathers considered the death penalty legal because society has to prevent further harm to its members and ensure that those injured get justice. In contrast to vengeance, which consists of inflicting damage or suffering on the offender in a cruel, evil way to force the scales to balance, justice balances the rankings constructively by paying the victim and punishing the perpetrator accordingly.

In the past, the United States used firing squads, gas chambers, and guillotines to carry out executions. These procedures are no longer employed because of the harshness of the killings. As the value of human life has grown over time, more merciful methods of criminal execution have emerged (Sethuraju et al.). Even though our former ways of enforcing the death sentence were painful and cruel, we have now chosen lethal injection as the most prevalent method of retaliation. Multiple doses of a medication, such as pentobarbital or a single lethal dosage, may be used to deliver a fatal injection. Because the deadly injection is quick and painless, it is not seen as harsh or uncommon.

Patients are given these medications intravenously. The process of succumbing to a lethal injection consists of three parts. First, an anesthetic is used to put the detainee to sleep. The prisoner is then given medicine that paralyzes their muscles and prevents them from breathing. After the third step, a third shot is fired to halt the inmates' hearts. While most nations provide many doses of medicine in succession, others prefer a single deadly injection. Regardless of the number of doses used, the execution is done in a compassionate and morally acceptable way, with no pain or torture of the prisoner.

The tactics used to administer the death penalty were exhaustively explored in the Supreme Court case, Baze v. Rees. The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment served as justification for banning the practice of lethal injection. The Supreme Court eventually decided to favor lethal injection as a means of execution. Because the victim is not exposed to needless agony, the fatal injection is not similar to torture. As a result, inmates' Eighth Amendment rights were not infringed.

The death penalty is employed to maintain social order because it prevents unnecessary deaths, deters criminal behavior, and offers justice. The goal of belonging to a society is to cohabit harmoniously. If an individual's right to life and happiness is violated, the government must correct the situation by pursuing justice. The goal of the law is to defend and enhance liberty, not to limit or destroy it. — Sir John Locke.

Works Cited

1. Sethuraju, Raj, Jason Sole, and Brian E. Oliver. "Understanding death penalty support and opposition among criminal justice and law enforcement students." SAGE Open 6.1 (2016): 2158244015624952. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015624952
2. Chapple, Alison, et al. "What people close to death said about euthanasia and assisted suicide: a qualitative study." Journal of Medical Ethics 32.12 (2006): 706-710. https://doi.org/10.1136%2Fjme.2006.015883

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