death penalty

1) Deterrent of capital crimes The theory of justice which demands for "Tooth for a Tooth and an Eye for an Eye" is the strongest argument of the capital punishment. When a criminal does an act to fulfill his selfish motives resulting into personal gains then the equilibrium of justice in society is disturbed. To maintain this equilibrium the criminal should be punished with the same intensity of punishment no matter, even if it is capital punishment. If the criminal can dare to snatch away liberty, peace, lives from any individual then the justice says that he should also be deprived of all these facilities leading to a comfortable life it the society. In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes. If the criminal knows that the justice system will not stop at putting him to death, then the system appears more draconian to him. Hence, he is less inclined to break and enter. He may have no intention of killing anyone in the process of robbing them, but is much more apprehensive about the possibility if he knows he will be executed. Thus, there is a better chance that he will not break and enter in the first place. If you read about Bundy"s life in prison, waiting nine years for his execution, you will see that the man exhausted every single legal point he and his lawyers could think of, all in an attempt to spare him execution. He "defended" himself in prison interviews by blaming pornography for causing his uncontrollable teenage libido, and for causing him to think of women as objects and not humans. He attempted to have his death sentence commuted to life without parole by explaining that it was all pornography"s fault, and that had it never existed, he would have been a good person. When that didn"t work, he pretended to come clean and tell police where the bodies of unfound victims were, so that their families could have closure. He never once admitted that he was a bad person, and just before his execution, he claimed that he hadn"t done anything wrong. It was obvious that he feared being put to death. He did his best to avert it. This means that he did not fear life in prison"at least not as much as he feared capital punishment. He had many opportunities to kill himself in his cell, but he did not. He might have done it a month before his execution, when all hope for clemency was gone"but he was afraid of death. How many would-be murderers have turned away at the last second purely out of fear of the executioner"s needle? The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense. 2) Closure There are many victims of a single murder. The criminal gets caught, tried, and convicted, and it is understood that the punishment will be severe. But the person he has killed no longer has a part to play in this. Unfortunately, the murderer has deprived his family and friends of a loved one. Their grief begins with the murder. It may not end with the murderer"s execution, but the execution does engender a feeling of relief at no longer having to think about the ordeal"a feeling which often fails to arise while the murderer still lives on.A system in place for the purpose of granting justice cannot do so for the surviving victims, unless the murderer himself is put to death. 3) Less expensive Capital Punishment is the cheaper way to remove the ill from the society. If the criminal is given life imprisonment, all his expenditure is improvised by the government. Instead of spending money on criminals this money can be used for the development of the society and welfare of the people. Lots of people die of hunger; instead of feeding such people government spend money to feed the criminals, which in turn raises number of cases of crime in the society. JFA [Justice for All] estimates that life without parole LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million-$3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases. There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive... than death penalty cases. 4) Save lives Perhaps the biggest reason to keep the death penalty is to prevent the crime from happening again. The parole system nowadays is a joke. Does it make sense to anyone outside the legal system to have multiple "life" sentences ? Even if a criminal is sentenced to life without possibility of parole, he still has a chance to kill while in prison, or even worse, escape and go on a crime/murder spree. I heard on the news, February 2000, where a 62 year-old grandmother, Betty Beets, was pleading for her life because she was on death row and was going to be executed. At first, I felt very sorry for her, but after doing research on her, I learned she had five husbands. She had already killed the fourth one, and served a prison sentence for murder, and she got out of prison early. She murdered the fifth husband-she shot him, and buried him in her back yard. Betty Beets was imprisoned a second time, and now was pleading for her life? It has been proven these killers do it again and again. The rate of recidivism is high for people who commit murder and crimes. I feel murderers should be executed the first time because chances are they will come out of prison and kill another innocent person again. We need stricter laws and swift death penalty. A criminal is like a rotten apple among the good ones, he is like a virus to the society, which can even infect others of the same disease. Like a doctor excise any body part to save life of a patient likewise, a criminal is cut out permanently from the society for the well being of the society. Human beings live in civilized society and do not allow anyone to perform any inhuman act which causes harm or any type of discomfort to any individual. Capital Punishment is the best way to remove such diseased people from the society. Before they could spread their immoral believes to other people in order to justify their act they should be removed from the society from the "root level". 5) Less possibility of error One of the biggest arguments against the death penalty is the possibility of error. Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. And even if DNA testing and other such scientific methods didn't exist, the trial and appeals process is so thorough it's next to impossible to convict an innocent person. Remember, a jury of 12 members must unanimously decide there's not even a reasonable doubt the person is guilty. The number of innocent people that might somehow be convicted is no greater than the number of innocent victims of the murderers who are set free. No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976... The inevitability of a mistake should not serve as grounds to eliminate the death penalty any more than the risk of having a fatal wreck should make automobiles illegal. Capital Punishment proves to be the best method to eliminate negative elements from the society forever thus, leading to a more humane society. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... http://www.clarkprosecutor.org... http://www.prodeathpenalty.com...