Opponents of the death penalty have a distinct advantage when arguing their point over advocates. Their advantage is the fact that taking the life of another is immoral, and if you remove all outstanding circumstances capital punishment is nothing more than legalized murder. This argument alone is not strong enough, though, because of the many circumstances surrounding capital punishment, such as the fact that the convict being executed has more than likely taken someone else's life.

The first justification for the claim that capital punishment is immoral is the idea that it creates a climate of violence. If a society punishes a murderer by murdering them what are we saying about violence? Our society teaches its children that violence does not solve anything, and yet our highest form of punishment is no different than the crime it punishes.

Capital punishment also furthers the desensitizing of our society. In the days where mass media was not available it was rare to see a corpse, let alone someone actually dying. Today our society is assaulted with a barrage of violent images, whether fictional or not. People no longer think twice when they see a character die in a movie or a bullet riddled high-schooler jump out of a second story window. The concept of human life has completely lost its meaning. Capital punishment contributes to this problem. A convict is not thought of as a person. All humanity associated with them is removed. This rationalization is required in order have a society where capital punishment is legal. If a society removes humanity from convicts, characters in movies, or people on the 6 o'clock news it will begin to remove humanity from people encountered in every day life.

With time violence may become such a commonplace that even seemingly sane people will see no problem murdering a store clerk, opening fire on someone that cut them off on the highway, or killing a disobedient child. "A society that chooses violent death as a solution to a social problem gives official sanction to a climate of violence." (Prejean, 57)

The next argument supporting the immorality of capital punishment is that the reality of it is hidden. The majority of Americans support the death penalty, yet a very small minority of them has actually witnessed an execution. Also, very few Americans have known an executed criminal.

These two facts contribute to the entire rationalization process. No matter how anyone looks at it, no one can deny the fact that capital punishment is the killing of a living breathing human being. A human with a mother and father, memories, a favorite holiday, perhaps a pet, and a girlfriend or wife. This human has made mistakes, of either his or her own volition, or the environment they were raised in.

The reality of the execution is also hidden. The most experience people have with execution is the headline that simply says, "[fill in criminal's name here] is Executed." Very few people have the misfortune of entering a room, sitting down behind a glass barrier, watching a state employee put IV's into the arm of a person, watching the person writhe, scream and cry, and five minute later be face to face with a corpse. Conveniently these facts of capital punishment are hidden from citizens.

Even the term 'capital punishment' obscures the reality. "The fact is that capital punishment is a fancy phrase for legally killing people." (Amsterdam, 346) Our society uses high-tech murder weapons such as lethal injection, lethal gas, or electrocution because hanging, stoning, or burning at the stake disgusts people. It's quite silly that we invent more and more "humane" ways to kill our criminals because the end product is always the same.

Capital punishment is still legal in thirty-eight states because people do not realize all of these facts when they think about the execution of a criminal. Many death penalty opponents believe that if America brought back public execution capital punishment would be abolished shortly after. Albert Camus tells a story of when his father witnessed the public execution of a murderer: "What he saw that morning he never told anyone. My mother relates merely that he came rushing home, his face distorted, refused to talk, lay down for a moment on the bed, and suddenly began to vomit." (Camus, 132) Most people would probably have the same reaction; therefore it is immoral that a society allows a practice to continue without fully knowing the complete horror of the practice.

What about the response that capital punishment may be a practice that would make most people sick if they were forced to witness it, but is nonetheless necessary, and that is why we hide it? The best retort to this is, why does it make people sick? The fact that it makes people squeamish should make people think that there is something not entirely right about it. With the exception of medical procedures, there are very few things that make people uncomfortable and are considered almost entirely moral. For example, if everyone went to a slaughterhouse once in their life there would almost certainly be a lot more vegetarians in this world. Also, if everyone witnessed the horrors of war there would probably be a lot more pacifists in the world. As far as the necessity of capital punishment, what defines need? It has been proven that it does not deter criminals, therefore what other need could there possibly be? I think it is quite clear that the death penalty is anything but necessary.

Another argument against the death penalty takes all of its justifications from the same book as an argument for the death penalty, the Bible. The most important difference between the Christian argument for capital punishment and the Christian argument against it is that the current stance of most branches of Christianity is that the death penalty is immoral. Again, there are many examples of this in the Bible.

"Let him without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7) is perhaps the most commonly used quote by Christian death penalty opponents. Using Bible quotes to argue for or against capital punishment is what Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, calls "biblical quarterbacking." By this she means that any quote taken out of context in the Bible can be used to argue for almost anything.

Instead of using quotes in the debate Prejean, and many Christian opponents, choose to use Jesus' teachings and their interpretation of them. Therefore, capital punishment contradicts almost all of these teachings, no matter how they are interpreted. There is no clause in the Bible that says "Love one another ... except murderers."

Prejean also discusses the moral cost of the death penalty. "Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons." As mentioned before, if we allow the dignity of criminals to be destroyed, who is next? Criminals are no less human than free citizens are, and yet American society sees no problem with murdering them. If this society can allow this what is to prevent us from being swayed into believing that blacks, Jews, or the poor are "lesser."

In fact, the most commonly used Bible quote by death penalty advocates is actually misinterpreted. "Eye for an eye ..." does not mean "he or she killed someone, so kill them." The full passage is: "If, when men come to blows, they hurt a woman who is pregnant and she suffers a miscarriage, though she does not die of it, the man responsible must pay the compensation demanded of him by the woman's master; he shall hand it over after arbitration. But should she die, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stroke for stroke." (Exodus 21:22-25) The "compensation" this passage mentions does not refer to physical compensation, but monetary compensation. So, the passage may not give religious permission for capital punishment, but it is horribly sexist.

One of the least often mentioned justifications for the immorality of the death penalty is the idea that it is, in fact, psychological torture. American society has spent years making sure criminals are in as little physical pain as possible during their execution. On the other hand, the psychological pain the convict goes through in the days, months, or years leading up to their execution can be compared to no other, and can be described as nothing but torture.

Criminals sentenced to death spend the time leading up to their demise in what is commonly known as death row. Prisoners on death row live alone in very small cells, which they rarely leave, are allowed less visits than normal prisoners, and usually only interact with guards and other death row inmates. Death row was originally created in this manner because it was only planned to be a holding center for the short time between sentencing and execution. As most Americans know, that short time can now be decades.

Most death row inmates spend their time working on appeals. After appeals fall through, which the majority do, they begin vying for stays of execution. Most stays of execution also fall through. So what does all of this mean in real words, as opposed to prison talk? The prisoner spends his or her remaining time on earth fighting for their life in a cramped cell.

Prisoners on death row get to know each other. This, whether they know it or not, sets them up for more mental anguish. As they get to know each other better, they become friends through the walls. They share stories, memories, and ideas. This makes life on death row better, until the inevitable happens. If two prisoners become close friends, one will eventually have to die first. The other is left with not only the knowledge that a good friend was just murdered, but he or she will soon be murdered as well.

"Death row is a grisly laboratory, the ultimate experimental stress, in which the prisoner's personality is incredibly brutalized." (Washington Research Project, 30) Many death row prisoners eventually fall into psychosis under the stress. This brings up an interesting problem though, a prisoner of unsound mind can not be executed, so their psychosis delays their execution. This is perhaps the most disturbing story related to that:

"Henry McCracken, a condemned sex murderer, fell into a "self-induced hypnotic condition caused by fear of his impending execution..." The execution was stayed and McCracken was given electric shock treatments. He showed improvement, stopped imagining there were rabbits and cats in his cell, became neat in his personal habits, and began playing the guitar. The successful treatment meant that the stay of execution must be removed; McCracken was sane and ready to be killed." (Washington Research Project, 31).

These facts all but prove that capital punishment is psychological torture. Torture qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment, therefore the death penalty should probably be unconstitutional as well as immoral. Again, if most citizens knew of stories like the McCracken story, chances are there would be no death penalty.

What if one condoned torture? If someone is able to accept capital punishment, his or her acceptance of torture is not terribly surprising. The level of moral rationalization required to argue for torture is not much different than what is required to argue for capital punishment. Therefore, the response against torture would really no different than the response against capital punishment.

Besides the debate over the morality of the death penalty there are questions concerning whether the death penalty is applied unfairly to blacks and the poor. The current American justice systems makes every attempt to provide an unbiased trial, but it is impossible to provide equal justice for all defendants. This raises the question of whether the death penalty, the harshest of all punishments, should be an option in a system that discriminates.

There is almost concrete proof that the death penalty is applied more often to people of lesser income than more fortunate people are. The most recent, and high profile, example of this was the O.J. Simpson case. The fact that the Los Angeles County District Attorney did not seek the death penalty in the case screamed inequity. If O.J. Simpson had been a lower class, non-famous, factory worker instead of a household name, the DA would have almost definitely sought the death penalty. It is rare, especially in the state of California, that in a double first degree homicide case the prosecution would not seek the death penalty. Was it by mere chance or convenience that O.J., a multi-million dollar man, didn't have to fight for his life?

Why does our criminal justice system seek the death penalty in cases dealing with lower class criminals more often than in cases dealing with wealthy criminals? "It is nearly impossible, even upon conviction, to execute an individual of wealth, one who is represented by nine attorneys and no one knows how many investigators who assist them." (DiSpoldo, 163) A wealthy defendant can afford to defend himself or herself better than a poor defendant by: posting bail, hiring attorneys of their choice, hiring investigators, and doctors and experts of their choice. The poor defendant is forced to either accept the state assigned defense attorney, who isn't getting paid $1500 an hour and is working on at least three other cases so probably isn't going to work as hard for their client, or defend themselves.

In addition to the death penalty being applied unfairly to people of lesser income there is a good number of statistics supporting the idea that it is also applied unfairly to blacks and minorities. Forty percent of the criminals on death row are black, despite the fact that blacks make up only twelve percent of the United States population. (Ross, 149) In almost every state where capital punishment is allowed the percentage of blacks on death row far exceeds the percentage of blacks that populate the state.

One could argue against these facts by noting that fifty percent of people arrested for murder are black. Therefore blacks are more likely to be in a position where they could be given the death penalty than whites. On the other hand, 227 criminals were executed between 1976 and 1994. These criminals claimed the lives of 302 victims. 255 of these victims were white and 47 were members of a minority group. Take these numbers into consideration, now realize that 86 minority prisoners have been executed for murdering whites, but only two white murderers have been executed for murdering minorities.

Why does it seem that blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty for capital crimes than whites? Quite simply, it is because of racist jurors and prosecutors. If a black man has murdered a white woman the prosecutor will attempt to get a jury of all white, married, lower class men. These jurors are most likely to hold racial biases that will flare up when they see a black man that has murdered a white woman. The majority of prosecutors in America are white, and it is the prosecutors that decide whether or not to seek the death penalty.

There is an equally strong argument that racial bias does not exist in the American Justice system. Stanley Rothman and Stephen Powers bring up a number of examples and statistics in their article concerning racial bias in the justice system showing that despite how it appears, extensive racial bias does not exist.

The first point they raise is the fact that 94% of all homicides are intra-racial (black-black or white-white). They state that most black-black murders result from an altercation where the two parties know each other. On the other hand most black-white murders result while another felony is being committed, such as the murder of a store clerk during a robbery. In fact, 67% of black-white murders in Georgia in 1972 took place during an armed robbery, while only 7% of black-black murders involved an armed robbery. Rothman and Powers use these statistics to explain why 11% of blacks that killed white received the death penalty, while only 1% of blacks how killed blacks were sentenced to death.

These murders, because multiple felonies are involved, are much more likely to receive the death penalty than murders that resulted out of an altercation, or where there was no other felony involved. Rothman and Powers also raise the point that 95% of black victim homicides were committed by blacks, and there were so few black victim homicides that were committed by whites that there wasn't sufficient evidence to formulate any kind of pattern.

When I started this project I did not have a stance on capital punishment. That is one of the reasons I wanted to research this topic. One of the first things I realized is that if I believed that the death penalty was anything but immoral I would be fooling myself. Taking someone's life, unless in defense of your own, is immoral, no matter what the circumstances are. The next question I was faced with was if I could allow myself support an immoral institution. After reading about John Wayne Gacy and other ruthless criminals it is hard not to give into one's most basic desires, in this case to support the murder of horrible criminals. After more research, especially the article on the psychological effects of death row on inmates and Helen Prejean's article I realized that capital punishment should not be allowed in our society. The death penalty serves no purpose but to assuage our basic human barbaric desires.

I am almost certain that if most people knew all of the facts the death penalty it would not be a viable punishment option in our society. People like the idea of capital punishment but they do not like the specific facts surrounding it, and choose to remain jaded about the immorality of it. I will end with what I thought was the most fitting quote to summarize how I now feel. "Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons." (Prejean, 59)

Works Cited

Hook, Donald D and Kahn, Lothar. Death in the Balance: The Debate over Capital Punishment. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989.

Berns, Walter. For Capital Punishment. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1979.

Bedau, Hugo Adam, ed. The Death Penalty in America. Oxford, New York, Toronto, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982.

McCuen, Gary E. and Baumgart, R.A. Reviving the Death Penalty. Hudson, WI: Gary E. McCuen Publications, 1985.

Isenberg, Irwin. The Death Penalty. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1977.

Masters, Jarvis Jay. Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row. Junction City, CA: Padma Publishing, 1991.

Camus, Albert. Reflections on the Guillotine, trans. Justin O'Brien. New York: Knopf. 1961.

The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press Inc, 1986.

The Washington Research Project. The Case Against Capital Punishment. 1971.

Sowell, Thomas and DiIulio, John J. Jr. "The Death Penalty is a Deterrent." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. 1986.

King, Glen D. "On Behalf of the Death Penalty." The Death Penalty in America. 1982.

Prejean, Helen. "The Death Penalty is Morally Unjust." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. 1986.

Amsterdam, Anthony G. "Capital Punishment." The Death Penalty in America. 1982.

DiSpoldo, Nick. "The Death Penalty is Applied Unfairly to the Poor." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. 1986.

Ross, Michael. "The Death Penalty is Applied Unfairly to Blacks." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. 1986.

Rothman, Stanley and Powers, Steven. "The Death Penalty is Not Applied Unfairly to Blacks." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. 1986.