1793: Louis XVI is prepared for the guillotineTenarguments against the capital punishmentBy Cacildo Marques - Sao Paulo' 1*Mistake. In Brazil, Emperor Don Peter II decided no more to signdeath sentence after the judicial mistake of the BaptistaCoqueiro case, which worked like the last straw. Many sentences wereturning out to be then mistaken, but that case had an unusualrepercussion, which led to the Petrine moratorium. It came next thefirst constitution of the republican era, which legalized thedecision of the monarch. In the USA, the Human Rights Watch valuesthat half of the carried out death sentences contains judicialmistakes.' 2*Schizophrenia. Social messed up, who are the main candidates for acorridor of the capital punishment, commit crimes in many casesbecause of being victims of "schizophrenia". When this isclearly identified, the sentence uses to be commuted on behalf ofpsychiatric nosocomial treatment, but the proportion of the sentencedones effectively led to the death because of carrying mental problemsis not small at all.' 3*Bias. The procedural bias feed by social, provincial andepidermal prejudices is the principal motive for the use of twopounds and two measures. It is not a novelty for any child thepreference by the more weighed punishment against black, poor andoutsider. If there is little possibility of fair judgement, theprinciple of leading the doubt to benefit the guilty needs to lead tothe abolition of extreme penalties.' 4*Civilization. One of the criteria so that a country of Europe joinsthe European Union is the abolition of the death penalty. Also theSouth America extinguished this type of penalty of his codes. The USAabolished completely the penalty in 1974, but most of the memberStates retook the device, in apparently renewed bases, which cannotbe interpreted like correction, but only like insistence in theinstitutions of the past, or resistance in adopting a new step of the"civilization".' 5*Inutility. Recognizably, the penalty does not attend to the principalobjective of the institution of the judicial punishment, which is thedissuasion. Unless a society of very reduced population is beingreferred to, with low capacity of demographic replacement, applyingthe death penalty on criminals does not inhibit, does not reduce theappearance of new delinquents. It does not serve to educate, serving,with bigger chance, to the opposite purpose. So, the case has been of"teleological inutility".' 6*Confusion. The "statistical confusion" is responsible ofdeceiving many persons in the defense of the death penalty. Inquiriesdo not separate preference for death penalty of preference for mobjustice. The least informed persons, prefer this second method, whichwould not be approved in any current jurisprudential system. If itwas possible to release the persons of the information asymmetry,only those persons who were finding for this other reasons, differentof that what the mistaken mass imagines, what is to clean the city ofthe criminals' presence, via mob justice, would defend the deathpenalty. The limit situation, which the codes have to admit in all ofthe countries, is that of the death in self-defense of the life. Thewhole rest is a romantic wish.' 7* Weakness. Resolving problems eliminating the similar individual is"delinquent weakness", of the criminal's worst type. He didnot do historical, legal or psychological studies to adopt this wayof acting. The resource