Essay 3 Draft 11/21

Brett Guillaume

Janel Spencer

WRT 101S

21 November 2019

The Moral Issue of The Death Penalty

“The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense, and thus subject even to butchery to satiate human gluttony” (Fein 1). After everything boils down, the death penalty is a moral issue we have today as a society. The death penalty, also known as “capital punishment,” is the process by which convicted crimals are excuted by a governing authority. Many states within the United States have chosen to ban and outlaw capital punishment. In fact, many countries have completely abolished the death penalty for an abunidence of fair reasons and concerns. Since 1800, the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has grown. To me, as an individual in society, this concerns me. The supreme court has made multiple rulings on capital punishement, on if it violates the Eighth Amendment or not, as of reasontly, the Supreme Court has ruled that capital punishment is constitutional. When it’s all set and done, society has a hole has many concerns about the death penalty, fairly so, but the death penalty also has it benifits, if done with humane killing, such as ensureing that those who commit first-degree murder recieve punishment appropirate to their actions. Also, it drastically reduces the chances that a convicted killer will have the opportunity to kill again. To resolve this issue, I suggest lethal injection as the only form of capital punishment, as it is the most humane. I also suggest that capital punishment is only to be used in extreme sircumstances, no being put to death for petty crime.

Most of the discussion surrounding the death penalty is for moral reasons, more so religious beliefs instead of personal beliefs. John Dear, a Juesuit Priest from the Society of Jesus, who reported on an article called, “Abolish the Death Penalty Now!”, wrote, “we, like Jesus, should feel free to side with the condemned, forgive those who hurt us, who injure or kill those we love, and in this way put an end to wheel of violence that keeps going around” (1). Dear is conceading that the death penalty isnt moral, because Jesus would want us to forgive and not wish death on other individuals. However, based on the constitution of the United States of America, the death penalty has been proven to be ethical in regards to the Eigth Amendment which states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” In other words, Judges do have the right to inflict the death penalty if they believe it is the only way. Individuals must look beyond the moral issue of the death penalty, just like I have, and think of the Constitution. The Constitution is what makes our country the greatest country in the world, and without having the option of the death penalty, it would only take away freedom. Justice Scalia, of the US Supreme Court, wrote in an article titled, “God’s Justice and Ours,” wrote, “In my view the choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own” (1). 

Works Cited

Bowman, Jeffrey, and Tracey M. DiLascio. “Counterpoint: The Death Penalty Is Necessary.”

Points of View: Death Penalty, June 2019, p. 3. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=26612346&site=pov-live.

Issitt, Micah L., and Heather Newton. “Death Penalty: Overview.” Points of View: Death Penalty, June 2019, p. 1. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=22841133&site=pov-live.

Jackson, Bruce, and Diane Christian. “How They Argue Now for the Death Penalty.” CounterPunch, vol. 19, no. 7, Apr. 2012, p. 1. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=75173159&site=pov-live.

Pearce, Matt. “Counterpoint: Defending the Death Penalty.” Points of View: Death Penalty, June 

2019, p. 6. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=12437718&site=pov-live.