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Ethical Issues With Capital Punishment

1319 Words6 Pages

Capital punishment is the ultimate penalty one can pay for their crimes and is a lightning rod for debate. A slight majority of the population of the United States supports the use of capital punishment as a deterrence method, while others argue that the punishment is cruel and unusual. No matter what your opinion is, there is a substantial amount of research that has been conducted both in support of and against capital punishment. This paper will examine the deterrence effect of capital punishment as well as some ethical issues that are associated with the use of capital punishment.
Keywords: Irrevocability, Capital Punishment, Execution, Deterrence
Capital Punishment in the United States of America
Whether or not capital punishment is …show more content…

As of January 2014 there were 3,070 inmates in 35 states awaiting execution (CNN Library, 2014). The discrepancy between the number of states where capital punishment is legal and the number of states that have inmates awaiting death is due to the fact that several states have abolished capital punishment. Connecticut, Maryland and New Mexico have abolished the death penalty (CNN Library, 2014). It is important to note though that those inmates in states where the death penalty has been abolished did not have their sentences commuted to the new law. They remain on death row awaiting execution from their original sentence. Worldwide there is only one other industrialized democracy that utilizes the death penalty as a punishment, that country is …show more content…

321). As stated earlier in this paper, there is evidence to suggest that 1 out every 100 individuals sentenced to death is innocent (Banks, 2013). Some argue that with statistics like that that, even one instance of an irrevocable punishment is morally repugnant enough to prohibit the punishment (Yost, 2011). Once this punishment is carried out, there can be no reversal if the person executed was innocent.
The death penalty has been distributed in a discriminatory manner because African American or poorer defendants are more likely to be executed than equally guilty others, especially when the victim is white (Banks, 2013). While African Americans make up only approximately 10 to 12 percent of the population, they are the overwhelming majority on death row. This has proven to be the case throughout the entire criminal justice

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