Death Right

Capital Punishment - the lawful infliction of death as a punishment; the death penalty

In the United States the subject of capital punishment is a highly contentious issue with many moral, political, and constitutional arguments.  Even within America’s highly polarized political climate there are divisions within political parties which create more fiery arguments about the death penalty.  Though it is widely accepted that the liberal, or Democratic, point of view opposes capital punishment and the conservative, or Republican, view is a proponent of the death penalty.  Let’s look at some facts about what capital punishment is and how it is enforced.

Capital Punishment, or the death penalty, is the highest form of punishment currently possible and is reserved for those individuals who commit the most heinous of crimes, i.e. murder, treason, and espionage.  In some countries it is also used as a punishment for corrupt government officials, rape and other similar violent sexual crime, and major financial crimes.  The death penalty is now banned in most countries in the world, including all of the European Union, but the four most populous countries, India, China, Indonesia and the United States of America still enforce it.  Out of the 50 States in the United States of America, 36 of them enforce the death penalty and 14 have abolished the use of it.

Opponents of capital punishment argue three main points.  The first is that the death penalty does not deter violent crime nor bring closure.  Opponents argue that a criminal does not consider the consequences of their actions before committing a crime.  The opponents’ second argument is that capital punishment costs a larger sum of money than the alternative sentence which is life without parole.  In the state of Indiana, a recent statewide analysis concluded that a capital punishment trial cost the state an average of $450,000 while a Life-Without-Parole trial cost an average of $50,000.  The third argument is that it is morally and ethically wrong to take another humans life, regardless of the act or acts in which that person perpetrated.  There is also an ongoing argument that according to the 8^th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, that forbids cruel and unusual punishment, which, by definition, the death penalty is unconstitutional and therefore should be abolished.  William J. Brennan, Jr., JD, former US Supreme Court Justice, in a July 2, 1976 Gregg v. Georgia, dissenting opinion, stated the following:  "Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment; therefore the principle inherent in the Clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment." 

 

Supporters of the death penalty argue that it has many benefits.  The supporter’s first and most important argument is that capital punishment saves lives.  The basis for this argument is that if a criminally violent individual is deceased they cannot harm anyone else.  Kent Scheidegger, JD, Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, in a National Online Youth Summit of the American Bar Association website section (accessed Aug. 7, 2008) and titled "Spring 2001: Does Capital Punishment Have a Future?,": offered the following:  "The death penalty serves three functions. First, for some crimes any lesser punishment is inadequate as a matter of basic justice... Second, an executed death sentence absolutely guarantees the killer will never kill again. A life sentence does not. There are many cases of people killed by murderers who were paroled, escaped, killed within prison, or who arranged murders from within the prison... Third, I believe that an effective, enforced death penalty deters some murders." A second argument is that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to potential criminals.  Supporters argue that if a person is thinking about committing a capital crime, and know the consequence could be their death, they may not commit that violent act.  Proponents of capital punishment also support this argument with statistics showing that countries that still use capital punishment have lower crime rates than countries without.  Lastly, supporters of the death penalty argue that the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail for life far exceeds the short term costs of having a capital punishment trial.  The average cost to the United States per prisoner a year in a maximum security prison in 2011 is $30,439.71 with an inflation rate averaged at 3%.  That means that if a 25 year old male convicted and sentenced to life-without-parole lived 40 years in prison starting today, because the average capital crime is committed by a male in their twenties with an average life expectancy in the United States of 75 years old for a male reduced due to prison life to 65, it would cost the United States a minimum of $3,971,820 which far exceeds the cost of a $500,000 capital punishment trial with 20 years in prison before execution which would add up to around $1.6 million dollars.

I am of the opinion that we should have the death penalty.  Death literally is the ultimate and final punishment and should be on the books.  People say an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.  I say that the second a person decides to take the life of another human being for any reason, except in the defense of another life, the person forfeited their right to live in society and on this planet.  We cannot encourage, defend, justify, or reward heinous acts of evil.  It is unsafe and immoral in and of itself.  Now, do I believe that our current justice system in the United States is effective and can intelligently, fairly, and consistently prosecute those individuals charged with capital crimes and ensure that the person convicted is 100% guilty every time?  No, definitely not. One in seven people sentenced to death in the last 50 years have had their sentences commuted either through lack of evidence or innocence. But it would be a terrible idea to take the death penalty off the books due to the inherent fallibility of man.  Would you rather have unfair taxes than no taxes?  Poor schools or no schools?  An inefficient police force or no police force?  I doubt you would.  The United States truly does need to refine is law system but as far as letting murderers and rapists live in relative comfort.  No, just plain no.

Change, Adapt, Overcome

I am going to convince you, my reader, by the end of this post that we, as a country and world, should act to save the environment regardless of whether or not you choose to believe in global warming. Our very planet and lives are at stake and there is no sane and reasonable person who would argue that the human race gamble its very existence for something as trivial as political ideology and material wealth. Furthermore, I can also prove that if the United States of America, and preferably every other nation on our planet, acts in an immediate, significant, and long term process of being environmentally savvy , energy efficient, and using renewable resources that we can not only help the planet, but combat our economic problems as well. So please, all I ask while you read this post is that you use the common sense that I know you have and see if my logic and reason behind this post is sound.

In the United States of America, and world, there is an extremely politically charged atmosphere around the topic of global warming, or as some have come to call it now, climate change. America has one side, the Democrats, arguing that global warming is happening right now and our nation has to do something to change it now. On the other side of the debate in the United States, the Republican party argues that the planet goes through hot and cold people cyclically as the Earth wobbles on it’s axis as it orbit’s the sun. This is a debate that absolutely should not happen. As of right now, over 95% of the world’s scientific community agrees that the human race has already and is directly affecting the environment and global climate.

Right now the main argument against broad sweeping reform and change in environmental law and statutes is money. Those who do not believe in global warming, notably Republicans, contend that it would be an enormously expensive and unrealistic “It's a huge tax increase," argued Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a prominent coal-producing state. He maintained that the proposed system of allowing widespread trading of carbon emissions allowances would produce "the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal." The other arguments are that the Earth gradually goes through cycles as it orbit’s the Sun and this is just a warm cycle.

Say you do not believe these scientists mathematics or trust them. Think of it this way. There are only two options for the existence of global warming. Global warming is either true or false. Now if Global warming is true and we either choose not to act or not act by default through indecision we, as a species, are literally risking the fate of mankind and the world as we know it. Are you willing to gamble and bet your life and the lives of your children? Even if you do not believe in global warming and even if you are correct, why would you ever gamble on something you cannot afford to lose? All the world loses is money if there is no global warming and if there is global warming we literally lose the world as we know it. Besides, if all you are worried about is money, just think, really think, of the vast amounts of money to be made through infrastructure projects and renewable resources. Right now they have not met much success but with the proper funding and research we all could have a job and live in a clean world.

Let us look at some pure and simple facts now that I have your mind going. Since the Industrial Revolution in American in the late 19^th century the average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Plus the rate of warming is increasing exponentially. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies sponsored by the EPA and the UN. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850. Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the

worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

Now if I have not convinced you yet let me really break this down for you. This is
how global warming works. Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it. These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming. Some experts point out natural cycles in Earth’s orbit can alter the planet’s exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less.

For those of you that understand that global warming is a very possible threat regardless if my science has swayed your opinion. Please do something about it. This is too big an issue to gamble.  Contact your congressman, go green if you can afford to, recycle, and use public transportation. Too often in this world do people feel that one person cannot make a difference. One person always makes a difference and all it will take is one of YOU to simply try.