Capital Punishment: An Unconstitutional Form of Justice

Capital punishment, also known as death penalty is punishment by means of death. Since the early 1800s,, the death penalty was used for punishing. Death penalty has also been imposed for serious crimes such as treason, murder, rape, and kidnapping. It has also been widely used during the Medieval Period for crimes against the state and the church.

Many people oppose the death of penalty, mainly because for them it is cruel. On the other hand, others support for their belief that it prevents a person from committing a crime because it threatens one's life. However, criminologists have never really found any relationship between crime rate and the death penalty. 

The imposition and carrying out of the death penalty leads to endless appeals as it also requires additional procedures. Frankly, these appeals and procedures clog our court system. Justice may become limited and out of reach, and if that happens the court has then failed his duty - to not only assist a case, but also to seek justice.

It is unjust because it violates the Bill of Rights. In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that "Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." This punishment obviously transgresses the right of a man to live. No man has the right to take away the life of another man by any means or method. We are all covered by this law and no one is considered above nor below it. You are not above the law to take away a life nor below it to be deprived of life. We condemn them but aren't we doing the same? We are punishing a murderer with murder, doesn't it make us a murderer, too?

The court requires jury members. Some of the jury members are reluctant to convict if it means that they are putting someone to death. Therefore, the outcome may be unjust because the conscience cannot bear to take an individual's privilege to live. So from here, one might ask: Where's the justice? The verdict of a jury then becomes a matter of conscience and right -- 50% righteous, 50% conscientious.

As the capital punishment moves forward, the possibility that more innocent people might be put to death is strengthened. A normal citizen is aware that not all convictions are right. Advances in DNA technology in the recent years have exposed astonishing fallacies in the Illinois criminal justice system. Wrongful convictions, mistaken eyewitness identifications, and wrong suspects are profound errors in the midst of the process have deeply shaken people, including supreme supporters of the punishment. In fact, there were reportedly 13 people who have been released from the death row because the evidence proved that they have been wrongfully convicted. Aside from innocent citizens, mentally-ill patients are also at risk. It is highly unconstitutional for the state to sentence an individual to death who is actually mentally unstable.

At present, many people still believe that life in prison is a worse punishment. We all hate murderers, but take a moment to ponder on this question: if you were a criminal, would you rather be sentenced to death or be imprisoned for the rest of your life? Capital punishment kills immediately, while lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Life in prison without parole is more harsh than death It also means lifetime humiliation and certainly people cannot stand this.

Most of all, the capital punishment does not help in the way that it doesn't bring the victim back to life. The only path to justice then is forgiveness and eventually, the scars will heal. They call it punishment, but the state is actually using murder to punish someone who committed murder, and that doesn't make any sense at all. It is barbaric for any country to murder their citizens, despite the crimes they may do. We condemn them for what they did but we do the same. A mistake can not be corrected by another mistake. Let us eliminate the revengeful idea of "an eye for an eye" in our system if we want to move forward. For if not, we may be stuck in the endless cycle of violence.

So tell me, why do we kill people who kill in order to show killing people is wrong?