Are the methods of legal execution consistent with
the argument
of justice and capital punishment?
Pro
In Gregg v. Georgia the United States Supreme Court
in the majority decision ruled that the death penalty
does not result in cruel and unusual treatment. In
particularity
this case deals with murder. There are non-
capital crimes
of enormity as rape where such would be
cruel and unusual
treatment in the U.S.A.
Although a
legislature is
permitted to choose a punishment it does
not have to use
the least severe method. The existence
of capital punishment
has a long history in the U.S.A.
and was accepted
by the framers of the constitution.
The court in
re: Kemmler asserted that electrocution
was not cruel
and unusual treatment (Stewart, Powell, &
Stevens 1976).
Con
Any form of execution is inhuman. The search for a
humane method
should be seen for what it is; a quest
to make such
more palatable to those who carry out the
execution, the
government and the public. Lethal
injection avoids
many of the unpleasant effects of other
forms of execution:
bodily mutilation and bleeding due
to decapitation,
smell of burning flesh in electrocution,
disturbing sights
and/or sounds in lethal gassing and
hanging. However,
lethal injection increases the risk
that medical
personnel will be involved in killing for the
state, in breach
of long-standing principles of medical
ethics. Capital
punishment should be abolished
unconditionally.
Summary
The case on capital
punishment represents two
polarities of
abstract thought concerning justice
descending into
concrete acts on a historical and
international
basis. The pro capital punishment
alignment has
origins in theological and secular thought,
as does the abolitionist
encampment. A theocracy
would endeavor
to have a clear descent of authority from
eternal, natural,
to the positive law. The moral
argument on the
former is justice based with a
retributive argument
lex talonis balanced with
deterrence the
more popular support for the death
sentence. The
historical secularization of culture at
times pairs the
propagated infallibility of religious
thought to acts
which contradict this case. A contrarian
position,
which at times uses capital punishment to
achieve other
political goals, is apparent. This appears
to be democratic
and of a power and control
perspective.
If one were to argue the political
philosophies,
levels of government as international,
federal, and
state law, one would notice system effects
as these structures
operate and change the boundaries
of one another
(Reid, 2003).
A
transitional figure in the secularization of western
thought is Immanuel
Kant whose writings are in favor of
capital punishment.
Kants writings are one of the most
common sources
of support for the classical position
(Anderson,
1998). The Social Contract theory is the
universally accepted
correct model of constitutions. The
text of the same
name by Jean Jacque Rousseau
postulates how
man gives up natural rights to the
collective in
order to live under the civil state
(Rousseau, 1968).
