Capital Punishment in the United States is Flawed and Should End

I will present the following arguments to start with in favor of my position. Capital punishment is replying to one death sentence with another. Murder indeed constitutes the death penalty. It deprives an individual of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It should therefore not be answered in the same way. Thus we are doing that by killing them in return also. Essentially by using capital punishment we accept universality, yet this is flawed. Kant said "act not unless you would have it be a universal law. " So by killing someone, it is argued, they said everyone should act this way. Setting aside the irrational basis of that, responding the same way is no way to show disapproval. "We kill people who killed to show them killing is wrong? " According to the idea of universality they have shown how they want society to be. We disagree, or this would not be a crime. So how does this not set a bad example? Doing this we say "You're right, society should be this way. " The reciprocity of this says to do that is ok. An eye for an eye, or simple reciprocity, is a large part of the reason for capital punishment. Someone killed, and so it is argued they should be killed in turn. Yet the very fact we do not rape rapists or kidnap kidnappers should say something. This biblical idea has never deterred. We are not supposed to be the same. Thus death for death has sunk into the same level. It is argued that insanity or incompetency defenses will prevent killing of insane and or mentally incompetent defendants. The amount of not guilty by reason of insanity pleas is less than 10% of all criminal defenses, and for good reason. It nearly always fails, because of legal standards that do not follow medical diagnoses. Furthermore, lay jurors decide insanity, whereas competency is based solely on understanding the charges and the ability to assist your defense. Many clinically insane people or mentally challenged people meet that standard. It does not mean they were sane or competent while committing murder. There have been many cases of clearly insane or mentally incompetent people being put to death. For instance, a man was put to death in 1995 who attempted to save part of his last meal "for latur (sic). " Though we require that prisoners understand what is happening, clearly he did not, yet was passed by. Similarly, then-candidate Bill Clinton rushed back to Arkansas in 1992 so he could sign away the life of a mentally retarded prisoner, so he could look tough on crime in the campaign. This unfortunate prisoners claimed he was going to heaven and would take care of God's pet animals. Capital punishment is useless. You can insure a prisoner has no more victims by placing them in confinement, under severe restrictions-if necessary, for life. Anger, hate and revenge have much to do with capital punishment. I do not trust the state to decide who lives or dies in this way, nor should anyone. Furthermore, countries without capital punishment do not have more crimes of this nature, in fact much less. The idea of death being their due is a devaluation of life. The idea that our system prevents innocent people from being put to death or that DNA precludes this is simply laughable. For instance, many death cases are based on circumstantial evidence. All types of evidence have been flawed, including DNA. While nothing is perfect, at least in other cases a defendant is not dead and so could potentially be exonerated. There have been many cases of innocent people being put to death, bringing into question far more. The "long appeals process" does not prevent this, especially in the states which have the highest execution rates. The Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas, for instance, has essentially ruled the standard for adequate counsel down to "has law degree, is human, alive, was not asleep the entire trial, presented at least something for their client. " Eyewitness testimony, possibly the most common evidence, is shown to be flawed scientifically. However this is often key, if not the only direct evidence of a crime. Only a small percentage of crimes involve DNA evidence, even capital offenses don't for many cases. The kind of evidence used to convict in even capital cases is often simply outrageous, and dismissed as unrealistic in fiction. We have misconduct from parties involved, bad eyewitnesses, coerced confessions, jailhouse snitches or guilty accomplices fingering the defendant, junk science, trial by media, flawed DNA, tainted juries, etc, etc. As ever, this can occur in any case, but death is different by its nature. You can wind up dead by-the state's action. This is my greatest argument. Whatever one thinks about capital punishment, few will be flippant as Pat Buchanan was and say the risk is acceptable. If they do, that's an equally appalling disregard for innocent lives as that of murderers. . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://www.aclu.org...