· Porter escaped death only because he was lucky enough to obtain a last-minute stay for an assessment of his mental competence, giving the students time to discover the evidence that cleared him.

· Government has the moral right to punish the wrongdoers by killing them.

· It’s immoral to punish a juvenile or to execute the mentally impaired.

· Capital punishment is applied unequally on the basis of race, social status error and so on.

· The system of capital punishment is defective.

· We should get rid of jails because some people are wrongly imprisoned.

· Some people were freed not as the result of the legal system to manage to uncover the truth.

· The human institutions of justice remain remarkably fallible.

Why the death penalty is a necessary and proper means of punishment by Paul G.Cassell

By Paul G. Cassell

The death penalty has long been available as a punishment for the most aggravated murders in the United States. Since the birth of our nation, it has been an accepted fixture in our country's criminal codes. Capital sentences are expressly recognized in the Constitution of the United States, which provides for the taking of "life, liberty, or property" with due process of law. The president, the Congress of the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the overwhelming majority of the American people support capital punishment. The federal government and about 40 states provide for capital sentences, as do the laws of many other countries. This widespread support for the death penalty rests on the important societal goals served by executing the most terrible murderers. Nothing in the arguments by those opposing the penalty gives a reason for retreating from these principles.

Reasons for the Penalty

Criminal justice systems impose punishments for at least three important reasons: just punishment, deterrence, and incapacitation. Capital punishment furthers each of these goals more effectively than do long terms of imprisonment.

Just Punishment

Perhaps the most important goal of a criminal justice system is to impose just punishment. A punishment is just if it recognizes the seriousness of the crime. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is a generally accepted and sound precept. In structuring criminal sentences, society must determine what punishment fits the premeditated taking of innocent human life. To be proportionate to the offense of cold-blooded murder, the penalty for such an offense must acknowledge the inviolability of human life. Murder differs from other crimes not merely in degree; murder differs in kind.

Only by allowing for the possibility of a capital sentence can society fully recognize the seriousness of homicide. Indeed, to restrict the punishment of the most aggravated murders to imprisonment conveys a deplorable message. Many other crimes, such as serious drug trafficking and sexual offenses, are currently punished with lengthy sentences, and in some cases, life prison terms. Without a death penalty, the criminal law's penalties will essentially "top out" and will not differentiate murder from other offenses. Only if the sentencing structure allows for a substantially greater penalty for murder will the range of penalties fully reflect the seriousness of ending the life of an innocent human being.

Those who would abolish the death penalty sometimes caricature this argument and portray capital sentences as nothing more than revenge. But this view misunderstands the way in which criminal sentences operate. Revenge means that private individuals have taken the law in their own hands and exacted their own penalty. Capital sentences are not imposed by private individuals, but rather by the state through a criminal justice process established by the people's elected representatives. In most of this country, there is a strong consensus that for some of the most heinous murders, the only proportionate sentence is a capital sentence. A system that imposes such sentences, after carefully following constitutionally prescribed procedures, is not exacting revenge but imposing just punishment.

Deterrence

The death penalty is also justified because of its deterrent effect, which saves the lives of innocent persons by discouraging potential murderers. Logic supports the conclusion that capital punishment is the most effective deterrent for premeditated murders. A capital sentence is certainly a more feared penalty than a prison term. The lengths to which convicted murderers go to avoid imposition of this sentence clearly demonstrates this fact, as do interviews with prison inmates. To be sure, the death penalty does not deter all murders. But because a capital sentence is more severe than other penalties, it is reasonable to assume that its existence will lead at least some potential murderers to decide against risking execution. As the Supreme Court has observed, "There are carefully contemplated murders, such as the murder for hire, where the possible penalty of death may well enter into the cold calculus that precedes the decision to act."

This logical inference is fully supported by anecdotal evidence. For example, in states that impose the death penalty, some robbers have reported that they did not use a gun while committing the robbery because of the possibility of a death sentence if a shooting occurred. On the other hand, in states without death penalties, kidnapping victims have reported their abductors coolly calculating to kill them because it would make no difference in the prison time they would serve if caught.

Statistical studies also support the conclusion that the death penalty deters. Perhaps the best study of the issue was conducted by Professor Stephen K. Layson, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Layson compared the number of executions in the United States with the number of homicides from 1933 to 1977. Based on a sophisticated statistical analysis controlling for other variables, he found that on average, each execution deterred approximately 18 murders. His finding is buttressed by a growing body of criminal justice data showing that enhanced punishment has a deterrent effect in a wide variety of settings. Indeed, the premise that enhanced penalties will avert crimes is fundamental to our criminal justice system and is routinely accepted in less emotionally charged contexts.

Opponents of the death penalty respond to such studies by pointing out that some states with the death penalty have a higher homicide rate than states that do not impose capital punishment. Such arguments reveal little, because states with the most serious crime problems are probably the ones that have chosen to implement capital punishment. Opponents also cite some studies suggesting that the death penalty does not produce lower homicide rates. But death penalties are reserved for aggravated murders committed in an especially cruel and atrocious manner. The deterrent effect of death penalties on these crimes may not be revealed in aggregate homicide statistics, which consist mostly of less aggravated murders.

The conflicting studies indicate that the deterrent power of the death penalty can never be proven with absolute certainty. But given the inherent logic behind the deterrent power of capital punishment, to fail to impose such penalties is a risky gamble with innocent human lives. Quite simply, if capital punishment deters, innocent persons will die if society fails to impose capital sentences. Because of the substantial reasons for predicting that the death penalty will deter some murders, respect for human life demands that society carry out the penalty.

Incapacitation

Capital punishment also serves to effectively prevent murderers from killing again. This incapacitation effect is particularly important because of the continuing risk posed by those who have already taken a human life. For example, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, of 52,000 state prison inmates serving time for murder in 1984, an estimated 810 had previously been convicted of murder. Had some of these murderers been given the death penalty for their first murders, innocent people would have been spared. The next most serious penalty, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, leaves prison guards and other prisoners at risk. Indeed, without the death penalty, a murderer serving a life term has, in effect, a license to kill. Such lifers can literally get away with murder, because no incremental punishment can be imposed on them. A prisoner serving a life term may also escape from prison or obtain parole or executive clemency. Only a capital sentence can permanently end the threat to others posed by the most serious murderers.