How many murderers get the death penalty

There's much concern in the USA that the legal system doesn't always provide poor accused people with good lawyers. Out of all offenders who are sentenced to death, three quarters of those who are allocated a legal aid lawyer can expect execution, a figure that drops to a quarter if the defendant could afford to pay for a lawyer.

Regardless of the moral status of capital punishment, some argue that all ways of executing people cause so much suffering to the condemned person that they amount to torture and are wrong. Many methods of execution are quite obviously likely to cause enormous suffering, such as execution by lethal gas, electrocution or strangulation.

Other methods have been abandoned because they were thought to be barbaric, or because they forced the executioner to be too 'hands-on'.

These include firing squads and beheading. Many countries that use capital punishment have now adopted lethal injection, because it's thought to be less cruel for the offender and less brutalising for the executioner. Those against capital punishment believe this method has serious moral flaws and should be abandoned. The first flaw is that it requires medical personnel being directly involved in killing rather than just checking that the execution has terminated life.

This is a fundamental contravention of medical ethics. The second flaw is that research in April showed that lethal injection is not nearly as 'humane' as had been thought. Post mortem findings indicated that levels of anaesthetic found in offenders were consistent with wakefulness and the ability to experience pain.

This is really more of a political argument than an ethical one. It's based on the political principle that a state should fulfil its obligations in the least invasive, harmful and restrictive way possible. Most people will not want to argue with clauses 1 and 2, so this structure does have the benefit of focussing attention on the real point of contention - the usefulness of non-capital punishments in the case of murder.

One way of settling the issue is to see whether states that don't use capital punishment have been able to find other punishments that enable the state to punish murderers in such a ways as to preserve an orderly and contented society. If such states exist then capital punishment is unnecessary and should be abolished as overly harmful.

The idea that we must be punished for any act of wrongdoing, whatever its nature, relies upon a belief in human free will and a person's ability to be responsible for their own actions. If one does not believe in free will, the question of whether it is moral to carry out any kind of punishment and conversely reward arises. Arthur Koestler and Clarence Darrow argued that human beings never act freely and thus should not be punished for even the most horrific crimes.

The latter went on to argue for the abolition of punishment altogether, an idea which most people would find problematic. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

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Ethics guide. Arguments against capital punishment. On this page Value of human life Right to live Execution of the innocent Retribution is wrong Failure to deter Brutalising society Expense People not responsible for their acts Applied unfairly Cruel, inhumane, degrading Unnecessary Free will Page options Print this page. Value of human life Everyone thinks human life is valuable. Right to live Everyone has an inalienable human right to life, even those who commit murder; sentencing a person to death and executing them violates that right.

The medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas made this point very clearly: Therefore if any man is dangerous to the community and is subverting it by some sin, the treatment to be commended is his execution in order to preserve the common good Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae. Execution of the innocent The most common and most cogent argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system.

As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated Amnesty International. Retribution is wrong Many people believe that retribution is morally flawed and problematic in concept and practice.

We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. Catholic Conference. To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice. Attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Failure to deter The death penalty doesn't seem to deter people from committing serious violent crimes. It concluded The death penalty is a harsh punishment, but it is not harsh on crime.

Amnesty International. Brutalising society Brutalising individuals Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and an increase in murder rate. It is also linked to increased number of police officers murdered. Brutalising the state Capital punishment may brutalise society in a different and even more fundamental way, one that has implications for the state's relationship with all citizens. George Kateb, The Inner Ocean The murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is repeated in cold blood, remorselessly Beccaria, C.

Expense In the USA capital punishment costs a great deal. Over to you Nike's slogan "Just do it" was actually inspired by the last words of a man about to be executed! What if, instead of killing criminals, we could simply make them better people — just by popping a pill? Philosopher, Dr David Birks University of Oxford discusses the future of punishment and the possibility of a crime-stopping drug. It might help you grieve and move on from their death if you knew the person who had killed them was gone too.

Sometimes the courts and judges get it wrong and condemn an innocent person to death. Imagine if we put to death someone who might have worked out the cure for cancer? The death penalty makes it impossible for criminals to do bad things over and over again. It also scares other people who might be thinking about committing a crime and so it serves as a 'deterrence'. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document that sets out key things that all human beings should be allowed.

Things like freedom of belief, the right to get married, and the right not to be held as a slave. In some areas of the law and of Human Rights there are exceptions. In a similar way, in countries that have capital punishment, the law gives everyone the right to life - but if an individual commits a certain crime deemed as punishable by the death penalty, then they lose its protection.

In the US, the death penalty is very expensive. It's not just the cost of prosecuting and putting a person on death row, there's also the cost of keeping them there.

When criminals are on death row they can appeal their sentence argue that they are innocent , a process that may last more than a decade.

This makes the death penalty three times as expensive. We use cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. By continuing without changing your cookie settings, we assume you agree to this.

Please read our cookie policy to find out more. Do we have a right to live? So what rights do we have? So how can the death penalty be legal? Take a look: "Every human being has the inherent right to life. Has the Human Rights Act got it right? Around the world in executions Which is the only country in Europe to retain the death penalty? Poland Belarus Finland. How many people have the US executed since ? Which country sentences the most people to death? Russia The US China.

How many countries still have the death penalty? Nigeria The Philippines Iraq. When was the guillotine last used in the Western world? Murder Treason Sodomy. Prev Next. The death penalty: good idea or bad idea? In , constitutional guidelines were instituted in an attempt to prevent such capriciousness in the future.

Irrelevant factors such as race, poverty, and geography still seem to determine who is sentenced to death. Short of applying the death penalty in all murder cases a path condemned by the Supreme Court , it may be impossible to devise rules that clearly delineate which crimes and which defendants merit death and that juries and judges are able to consistently apply.

DPIC provides statistics on executions, death sentences, and death row that include demographic information on the defendant and victim. DPIC has also highlighted relevant studies demonstrating the continued arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty.