The Orbis

The case against the death penalty can generally be placed into one of two categories. The first of these is to argue that it is morally wrong for the state to kill people; the second would take the position that it is wrong as it leads to innocent people being killed. Personally, I find both of these critiques convincing, but it is the latter of the two that I think is the harder to refute.

That the state should not engage in killing is a powerful moral argument to me, but it is fraught with ambiguities. For one thing, we accept that states have a right to kill when they go to war. Further, there are certain extreme cases -- Hitler would be the most prominent -- where death seems merited.

However, the number of genocidal fascist dictators in the American justice system is fairly insignificant, and capital punishment is not meant to punish extreme transgressions like this, but rather to provide a deterrent against committing murder. Here is the first weakness in the case for the death penalty -- it doesn't do very well as a deterrent. If it does, why does the United States have a higher homicide rate than any EU country, none of which have the death penalty?

Even if you were to argue that regardless of its deterrent effect, the principle of "an eye for an eye" is reason enough for it, how do you justify the loss of innocent life that inevitably results when the death penalty exists? President Bush famously declared that he was confident that every one of the record number of people whose death warrants he signed in Texas was guilty of murder. However, a mass of work has been done in that state highlighting cases of wrongful execution.

Even if someone were guilty of murder, killing them does no more good than consigning them to a life in prison. For starters, "revenge" is a poor justification for any judicial sentence. Equally, the idea that it is more "cost-effective" to execute people is as offensive as it is flawed -- not only do many death row cases cause a huge drain on resources with all the appeals arising from them, but the burden on the prison system is caused by the huge number incarcerated for non-violent offenses, not the miniscule number of murderers.

And all of these problems are before we even consider the moral problems arising from executing those who are mentally retarded or under 18 when they commit a crime. The death penalty seems such a straightforward form of justice -- you kill someone, you get executed. But it is not straightforward. It is logically flawed, arbitrary, morally questionable and ineffective. It should be abolished.

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