Ethical Issues In The Death Penalty

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The Death Penalty practice has always been a topic of major debate and ethical concern among citizens in society. The death penalty can be defined as the authorization to legally kill a person as punishment for committing a crime, this practice is also known as Capital Punishment. The purpose of creating a harsher punishment for criminals was to deter other people from committing atrocious crimes and it was also intended to serve as a way of incapacitation and retribution. In fact, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are some of the basic concepts in the justice system, which explain the intentions of creating punishments as a consequence for illegal conduct. In the United States, the Congress approved the federal death penalty on June 25, 1790 and according to the Death Penalty Focus (DPF, 2011) organization website “there have been 343 executions, two of which were women”. Several important …show more content…

However, the majority of people would want answers and clarification for numerous questions, is it morally acceptable to have a jury that has no knowledge about the law decide on the culpability or innocence of the defendant? Is it fair to have the jury make this decision based on their personal beliefs or based on little or no evidence? How can the system ensure that juror’s verdict do not reflect prejudiced community standards? Is it ethical to place a defendant on death row if a decision is made solely based on discrimination? How logical is it to continue with this practice if there is proof that it is not an effective method of deterrence? What will be the consequences of completely abolishing the death penalty for good? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the death penalty history, political influence and the ethical issues to establish a possible solution to the current conflict in the criminal justice system and also in the society as a

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