Why is the Death Penalty an Ethical Issue

Title:
Name of Student:
Institution:
Introduction
If there has been any controversial topic with regards to the justice system is the idea of the death sentence. To some, this sends cold chills down their spine as they ponder the ethical rationality of the death penalty. There are those who support it with the justification that some crimes are only but well punished by killing the criminals. Death penalty as a criminal offence w may be used interchangeably with the term ‘death sentence.’ It is a punishment that has been in practice from the Roman Empire times and was even passed against criminals in the early stages of development of the Chinese people. However, despite many rejections and condemnation of this form of punishment from the Christian community and other bodies, some countries have kept on practicing this kind of punishment on capital offenders. In fact, offenders were punished more harshly in the early times as compared to these days. In view of all these, this paper discusses the ethical concerns of this form of punishment.
One of the notable persons in history to be a victim of death sentence was Socrates. He was made to drink poison for commission of inter alia, corruption offences. In recent years, the best example of a man sentenced to death and indeed killed by hanging was the one Saddam Hussein the former president of Iraq. As such, this kind of punishment has been faced by criticism from many who question the integrity of the whole idea. There have been so many ethical concerns about executions. Starting from Bentham, who said that it was not a good idea from the onset, many have also kept on questioning the legality and morality of executing offenders as a form of punishment.
When explaining his Principle of Goodness, Ron House suggests that the universe is never perfect and that there would always be an excuse for every rule (House, R., 2007). He goes ahead to point out that problems such as death penalty cannot be solved by one solution. Morally, it is wrong to kill someone in the name of punishing a crime especially when the truth is that no one can precisely prove that the alleged offender is 100% guilty. This can be related to instances that led to the crucifixion on the Biblical Jesus Christ.
Inasmuch as there could be a justified execution, there are many gaps in the justice system that could lead to unjust executions (Llyod, S., 1998). Regardless of the fact that there are those in support and those that disprove the idea of death sentence, there are many questions that are yet to be answered concerning execution of offenders. Among the questions is, if the penalty is equivalent to committed offences, or if death sentence act...