DEATH PENALTY: A CASE STUDY

INTRODUCTION

The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Amnesty
opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of who is accused, the nature
or circumstances of the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution.

The plummeting human rights situation in the Philippines got even worse this week as the
government began considering bills to reinstate the death penalty. The move by the House
Committee on Justice came a week after President Rodrigo Duterte used his State of the Nation
Address to call for capital punishment by lethal injection for drug offenders.

For years, the Philippines put people to death, particularly in cases of so-called heinous
crimes. But President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, under pressure from the Catholic Church,
abolished the death penalty in 2006. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all
circumstances because it is inherently cruel and irreversible.

In 2007, the Philippines ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires countries to abolish the death penalty.
Countries that are parties to the covenant and the protocol cannot reinstate the death penalty
without violating their obligations under international human rights law. Doing so would also
likely result in more than just statements of concern from foreign trade partners such as the
European Union.

Purpose of the study

The adoption of a draft law to revive the death penalty is an inhumane, unlawful and
ineffective response and a set the country on a dangerous path in flagrant violation of its
international legal obligations.

The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. When police chiefs were asked to
rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they mentioned curbing
drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control. They ranked
the death penalty as least effective. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a
method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront
the true causes of crime.

A society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a
violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social
problems – the worst possible example to set for the citizenry, and especially children.
Governments worldwide have often attempted to justify their lethal fury by extolling the
purported benefits that such killing would bring to the rest of society. The benefits of capital
punishment are illusory, but the bloodshed and the resulting destruction of community decency
are real.

Furthermore, it is a sin to kill. One of the biggest sins a person or a society can commit is to
take the life of a person. Since Christianity is the largest religion in the world, and since majority
of the places where the death penalty has been abolished have populations that are predominantly
Christian, let’s take a look at the issue of killing from the point of view of a Christian. Anybody
familiar with the Bible is aware of one of the Ten Commandments which goes like this: “Thou
shall not kill”. This means that so far as you are a Christian who believes in the Bible, killing is
something you can never endorse. And since capital punishment is all about killing someone for
a crime they have committed, many Christians don’t support it because of the belief that it is a
sin and God frowns upon it.

The death penalty is inhumane. Many consider the death penalty as nothing short of a
barbaric and an inhumane act. These people argue that no matter how severe the crime a person
committed was, it is inhumane to punish the person by killing him or her. They argue that the
death penalty is too barbaric to be practiced by a civilized society. Think of it this way: society
condemns a person for murder and goes on to punish the person by killing him. What makes
society any different from the murderer?

Most of the methods used in carrying out the executions are crude and inhumane because
the offender has to go through a lot of pain and suffering before eventually dying. Some of these
crude methods include shootings, hanging, and stoning.
 Innocent people can end up being killed. The saddest thing about capital punishment is the
fact that there are certain unfortunate instances where people end up being executed for crimes
they didn’t commit. There have been several cases of people who got framed for heinous crimes
such as murder and drug trafficking and ended up being condemned to death. Sadly, for some of
these innocent people, the truth takes a long time to come out, and by the time the evidence that
proves they are innocent comes out they would have been already executed. This is why many
opponents of the death penalty fight night and day to get this type of punishment abolished.

Another reason why capital punishment should be discouraged is because of the fact that
sometimes certain crimes are committed on impulse. Let’s take the case of a person who murders
someone on impulse and instantly regrets his action. Maybe he committed the murder in a state
of anger or some other strong emotion. While it is totally true that the person has committed
murder and deserves to be punished seriously for his crime, it is sometimes too harsh to give
such a person the death sentence considering the fact that the murder wasn’t planned.
Unfortunately, in many places where the death penalty is practiced, a capital offence (whether it
was committed on impulse or not) warrants a death sentence.

The death penalty clearly violates one of the fundamental and natural rights of every human
being which is the right to live. Every human has the fundamental right to live and not be
deliberately killed by an individual or the state. This is the reason why many human rights
advocates strongly kick against the death penalty saying that the state tramples upon the
important natural right of a person to live.

Certain crimes don’t deserve the death penalty. Justice is only served when a person’s
punishment is equivalent to the severity of his or her crime. However, in certain countries –
especially Islamic countries, certain minor crimes or crimes which are not very heinous to
warrant a death penalty easily see the offenders being sentenced to death. A good example of
such ‘crimes’ is apostasy (abandoning of one’s religion). In many Islamic countries across the
world, the crime of apostasy can easily see one being sentenced to death.

Some criminals regret their heinous crimes and repent while in prison. They later go on to
become model prisoners and advise others against a life of crime. They use their lives as an
example to show people that crime doesn’t pay. Unfortunately, the death penalty prevents these
people from reforming and becoming useful people in society in future.
Conclusion

Generally, the calls to abolish death penalty are biased and, therefore, should not be
considered, especially if they are dependent on the sanctity of life. It is true that human life is a
God given gift and he is the only one with the authority to cause death. However, under whose
authority do murderers take life? According to Leviticus, “Anyone who injures their neighbor is
to be injured in the same manner: Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The
one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury” (qtd. in The Blue Letter Bible).
These are the same texts that form the basis of Christianity and are open to different
interpretation but it is also important to remember that even God gave kings and individuals the
strength to kill their aggressors.

The right to life is inalienable as critics of death penalty argue (Bedau 65). However, by
legalizing capital punishment, every person will know that the consequence of engaging in crime
is death. This means that if a person of right mind goes ahead, for example, to commit murder,
he will have forfeited his right to life since he has the option to decide on whether to commit the
crime and suffer death or to refrain and save his life. Every now and then, drivers are warned not
to over speed or to text while driving as this has the potential to cause accidents thereby resulting
in fatal injuries and deaths. If a driver decides not to heed to the warning, he puts his life on the
line with full knowledge of the consequences. Similarly, death penalty serves as a warning and a
consequence of committing crime, and, therefore, the death is definitely in the hands of the
offender.

References

https://samples.studyfy.com/essay-samples/death-penalty-should-not-be-abolished

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https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/08/05/death-penalty-danger-philippines
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