Capital Punishment as Unjust in a Country’s Justice System

Analysis of Capital Punishment as Unjust in a Country’s Justice System Your Name Subject and Section Date Capital Punishment is a Crime Is death the ultimate form of justice? Can death stop other criminal behaviors from happening? Is killing the right way to correct wrong doings? If you say yes, many civilizations throughout human history thought so too Different societies heavily relied on death penalty to punish capital crimes as dictated by the laws of the land and deterring other criminals to commit heinous offenses in the future (Davis, 2011). However, what about those who are wrongfully convicted with a crime that they did not commit? Does murdering one innocent man an acceptable risk that death penalty is willing to make? Does enforcing death penalty can ensure the creation of a safe future? According to the principles of moral thought that is formulated by Sir William Blackstone, "It is better to let 10 guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer" (as cited in Keijser, de Lange, & van Wilsem, 2014). The statement reiterates the fact that the law, the due process and the decisions made by the judge or jury can possibly result to errors and mistakes during the conviction process. In which case, there are about two mistakes that the court can make: The first mistake is acquitting the guilty person, and the second, and more detrimental mistake, is convicting the innocent. Throughout the course of history, recorded accounts of wrongful conviction case were observed. The problem, however, is that some of the wrongfully convicted people are involved in capital cases where they are subjected to death penalty (Radelet, & Bedau, 1998). Although aims of the criminal law is to enforce justice and safeguard the safety of the people, death does not qualify as a proper punishment in the justice system since it can lead to the execution of innocents, unfair conviction of the poor or disadvantaged, and does not prevent any future murders from happening. Before the late twentieth century, about the total majority of all countries enforces the capital punishment as a sentence to criminals that are involved in murders, treasons, war crimes and terrorism. Up until recently, different countries entirely abolished death penalty in their justice system since its existence creates tensions within and between governments, among human rights groups, and entirely innocent people are charged with capital punishment. (Neumayer, 2007). In the USA, evidence show that multiple repeating errors had been made in sentencing people with death penalty. Radelet and Bedau (1998), published several instances of more than four hundred cases of wrongful convictions where people are sentenced with capital punishment. Added by Radelet and Bedau (1998), about sixty-eight death row inmates were almost murdered by the state from 1972-1996. One person, however, named Jesse Tafero was executed by electric chair on May 1990 due to conviction of murder. According to the report, the electric chair malfunctioned and melted his head before he died. Two years later it was found out that the witness against Jesse was the real killer and lead the U.S. Court of Appeals to conclude that the conviction of Jesse was based on perjury and suppression of evidence by...