Why Capital Punishment is Cruel and Regressive

Capital Punishment is the legally authorized killing someone for committing a heinous crime. This form of punishment is very flawed and should be outlawed for the following reasons: The Death Penalty Models the Behavior it Seeks to Prevent, The death penalty is incompatible with human rights and human dignity/ There is no humane way to kill, The risk of executing innocent people exists in any justice system, and there has been numerous amounts of cases to make Capital Punishment unconstitutional and some were to repeal the decision of the case for it.

The Death Penalty is used to “stop” people from killing but in reality it teaches that it okay to kill as long at the State is the one doing the killing, it is somewhat paradoxical. The Death Penalty answers violence with counter-violence. “We don’t like people who kill other people, so to show everyone how much we don’t like people who kill people, we are going to kill people who kill other people. It seems like capital punishment pretty much goes against everything it claims to be for.” which makes it a paradox The evidence indicates that the death penalty does not reduce murder rates. It shows that states with the death penalty have homicide rates that are 48-101% higher than states without the death penalty. One reason why the death penalty might not deter criminals is that most murders are committed in a fit of rage, after an intense argument, when people rarely consider the consequences of their actions.

Also most of the people committing mass shootings want to death penalty if they do not kill themselves prior to being caught so instead of giving them what they the states should opt to now just giving life without the chance of parole for heinous crimes. The death penalty is incompatible with human rights and human dignity/ There is no humane way to kill. When someone is going to executed by the state there is steps that the state must take in order to properly kill them. First inmate is sat in a chair where a harmless solution of saline is immediately started next the warden of the prison signals to a guard to reveal the inmate to witnesses in an “audience” room. Then the inmate ios injected with an anesthetic when puts him/her to sleep. Next the inmate is given a series of drugs that stops the inmate from breathing and paralyses the entire muscle system. Finally the inmate is injected with potassium chloride which stops the heart. So the cause of death is anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest when the inmate is unconscious. The article “Lethal Injection: Is lethal injection a constitutional method of execution?” states since the inmates are given anesthesia many prison officials may not be qualified to administer the mixture of chemicals not being properly trained for example to find prisoners’ veins in order to properly insert IV lines. IV drugs which is what most of the executioners use to administer the drugs which kills the inmate.

Also since the aren’t medically trained they do not keep track of the dosage they use causing the inmates to be poorly anesthetized which could cause many complications in the killing process. This is no way to treat a human. Most people care more about the life of a dog than the life of a human. The Death Penalty violates the eighth amendment which states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” the three unalienable rights- Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness- therefore makes capital punishment Unconstitutional and should be outlawed for good. The article “Should Capital Punishment Be Allowed in the United States?” touches on my claim that it violates a basic human right which is the right to live. The Death Penalty is very backwards because teaches people that the government don’t like people who kill, so if you kill “we” will kill you to show the people watching that if you kill this could be you. The article does a good job at giving both sides of the story I just choose to acknowledge one side of it. The risk of executing innocent people exists in any justice system. Many innocent people have lost their life because of a flaw in the justice system in America. There is no way to know the exact number of how many innocent people have been killed by lethal injection but it is estimated that 4% of the people on death row are innocent I know what you are thinking “what about the 96% that are guilty?” we aren’t focused on them rn but we are focused on the 4% that are innocent. Let’s think about it for a moment these people are loved by someone and no one wants to see their family member get killed for something that they didn’t do….. Would you? There was a young African American teenager named George Stinney Jr. he was WRONGFULLY convicted at the age of fourteen for the murder of two white girls in 1944 in South Carolina. He was executed in June of 1944 and was later found innocent just imagine if capital punishment were outlawed this young man would still be alive right now.

This article “Convicted, Executed, Not Guilty” is about a man named Larry Griffin. Griffin was on death row for the murder of Quintin Moss. The author of this article believes that if Mr. Griffin were being tired today he would have be acquitted because the evidence is overwhelming that he did not kill Mr. Moss. The author also believes that judges and juries are no less prone to mistakes than anyone else including but not limited to politicians, doctors, engineers etc. He states that there was no physical evidence against Mr. Griffin but he was still convicted and executed by lethal injection on June 21, 1995. One of the most talked about cases to make Capital Punishment unconstitutional is Furman v. Georgia a group of men were sentenced to death and they petitioned that the Death Penalty violates their eighth and fourteenth amendments. The ruling made by the Supreme Court was that it is indeed unconstitutional and it did violate the eighth and fourteenth amendments. The landmark case that repealed the decision of Furman v. Georgia that made capital punishment unconstitutional is Gregg v. Georgia which the petitioner was sentenced to death by a jury for armed robbery murder of two men in Georgia. On appeal the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed except as to the imposition of a death sentence on robbery charges. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, a writ or order by which a higher court reviews a decision of a lower court. The reason I chose to write this paper was because capital punishment does absolutely nothing but hurt this country. Instead of being progressive it is very regressive and it is unlawful because it goes against what this country stands for being that it is a cruel and unusual form of punishment it goes against the constitution of this country.   

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