Death Penalty: Constitutional, Cost Effective, And Retribution

Death Penalty: Constitutional, Cost Effective, and Retribution

The public view of the death penalty as being the appropriate punishment for a capital crime has shifted back and forth multiple times in the last century. The ruling by the Supreme Court in 1972 found the existing death penalty statutes and not the death penalty itself-unconstitutional (Sheherezade C. Malik & D. Paul Holdsworth 2015). Many states performed a legislative reform and did reinstate the death penalty as a legal and constitutional method of punishment for capital crimes. However, there are still many people that argue the constitutional aspects of the death penalty, the cost of proceedings and the retribution versus revenge for the victims are reasons to dissolve the

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of revenge is the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands, while the definition of punishment is the infliction or the imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. The death penalty is a sentence handed down by strangers that were not wronged by the crime committed, so it, by definition, cannot be revenge. Robert Blecker, JD, Professor of Law at New York Law School, said, "We should only execute those who most deserve it. And not randomly. Refine our death penalty statutes and review the sentences of everyone on death row. Release into general population those who don't really deserve to die. The rest we should execute — worst first." (ProCon 2016) Although the death penalty can look like revenge when viewed from the victim's family point of view, the victim's family is not the one sentencing the defendant. The death penalty is not an everyday sentence, nor should it become one. It needs to be saved for the extraordinary circumstances where normal sentencing just does not fit the crime

The level of horror that is involved with these crimes shows that there needs to be more than a threat of death to prevent the suspects from perpetrating these crimes. The prevention needs to be more involved than just an obscure punishment. Nevertheless, there have been many studies to measure if it is a deterrence, however, they are inconclusive according to The National Academy of Sciences. “The studies have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions” (National Journal 2012). The National Academy of Science has released a statement in conjunction with these findings that the policymakers should ignore research claims that state the death penalty does deter