“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” says the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The death penalty is attributed to being one of the most divisive *social issues of the past half-century (Caplan 58). Like anything, the perspectives and motives behind capital punishment have shifted with time and will continue to shift for the rest of modern government. In 1976 the death penalty was reinstated by the courts, even though most of the public was blissfully unaware of any potential consequences. The death penalty is immoral and should be abolished because its practice is unnecessary, a blatant violation of the right to life, and inherently biased. 

The continued practice of the death penalty is unnecessary. Throughout history, the death penalty has remained. The vast roots of capital punishment date back to the eighteenth century; it was then known as retribution. “Retribution, known in legal jargon as lex talonis (an eye for an eye), is a principle of justice [that originated]… [from] Babylonia [soon to be carried] over into Judeo-Chrstian culture” (Morrow 201). Capital punishment’s barbaric nature only teaches revenge and warps the public’s perception of bloodshed. 

“140 countries have abolished it in the decades since the United States revived it. In 2015, the nation ranked fifth among countries with the death penalty in the number of prisoners it executed, behind China, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia” (Caplan 57). The judicial system’s inability to see the malevolent presence in the death penalty has caused American society’s progress, as a whole, to be set back from other developed nations. “… the death penalty compromises the ability of the United States to be a leader in the world on human rights issues. How can we lecture other countries about human rights when we lead the world in the execution of child offenders? Is the scorn of the rest of the world a price we are willing to pay to continue this outdated form of punishment” (Bright 75)? The death penalty only focuses on punishment instead of crime prevention and rehabilitation. “… the court system will always be fallible and reversible while the death penalty will always be final and irreversible…” (Bright 75). 

The death penalty is a blatant violation of the right to life. Juries have a wide latitude to impose a death sentence with no restrictions or standards to guide them. They impose the death sentence rarely, yet juries impose the death penalty “so wantonly and so freakishly” that the punishment is cruel and unusual under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment (Caplan 56). Many states have not been able to comply with the rules set by the Constitution. “One state after another has botched execution by lethal injection, leading to excruciating pain for those being executed…” (Caplan 57). The administration of the death penalty has been shown multiple times to violate the Eighth Amendment; since capital punishment cannot be carried out properly, the Supreme Court should decide that it is unconstitutional. Morrow reiterates “the essence of capital punishment: human sacrifice, a ritual of power in which the state and the ruling class demonstrate, sanctify, and celebrate their ultimate power” (202).

How the death penalty is imposed carries significant bias. “The Baldus study found that the prosecutor sought the death penalty in 70% of cases involving a… [defendant of African descent] and [a] white victim; 15% of cases involving… [a defendant and victim both of African descent]; and 19% of cases involving a white defendant and… [victim of African descent]” (Chemerinsky 522). The justice system, in its entirety, is biased against race. In Turner v. Murray, the trial judge did not question any of the jurors about racial bias “… Because of the range of discretion entrusted to a jury in a capital sentencing hearing, there is a unique opportunity for racial prejudice to operate but remain undetected” (Chemerinsky 524). The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution stands to offer equal protection under the law to all citizens of America. “Of the 236 people executed in this country since 1976, over 80% of the cases involved a white victim while nearly 50% of the homicide victims each year are… [people of color]…” (Chemerinsky 523). Chemerinsky continues, “The overall result is that the most fundamental decision that a society can make--who shall live and who shall die--are racially biased” (524).

The justice system offers a more favorable outcome to those of higher socioeconomic class. For people in less fortunate positions, represented by a court-appointed lawyer who may or may not have the skills or resources to provide a competent defense once convicted and sentenced, the likelihood of being able to challenge post-conviction is low (Bright 78). “… our society continues to underfund legal representation for the poor and ignore the racial discrimination that infects every aspect of our criminal justice system…” (Bright 79).

Many of the arguments for the death penalty are based on the deterrence effect. “… One leading study finds that as a national average, each execution deters some eighteen murders” (Sunstein and Vermeule 703). The material costs of using the death penalty as a deterrence method are enormous. Morrow quotes Clarence Darrow, author of Resist Not Evil, who says, 

“By no method of reasoning can it be shown that the injustice of killing one man is retrieved by the execution of another” (56). He argues that if deterrence were the real object of punishment, life in prison must be considered as efficacious as execution. Furthermore, the sentence of death would have to be administered in the most horrific and public way possible; yet as Darrow notes, public executions were abandoned when their deleterious effects were confirmed: “It is now everywhere admitted that the brutalizing effects of public executions are beyond dispute” (66). Darrow argues that the effect of the execution on those who witness it is “to harden and brutalize the heart and conscience, to destroy the finer sensibilities, to cheapen human life, to breed cruelty and malice that will bear fruit in endless ways and unknown forms” (70). In essence, Darrow argues that if capital punishment is not abolished because of its injustice to the criminal, it should be abolished because of the damage it does society as a whole. By the time Darrow published Crime: Its Cause and Treatment in 1922, he was also convinced that the possibility of erroneous convictions was a persuasive argument against the death penalty: “Doubtless more men have been executed for crimes they did not commit and could not commit than for any real wrong of which they were guilty” (163) 

The death penalty should be abolished because it is unnecessary, violates the right to life, and is biased. The death penalty is outdated, allowing for society’s slow progression. The barbaric nature of the death penalty and its failure to be used correctly violates the Eighth Amendment. Significant racial and socioeconomic biases exist in the death penalty’s failed application. When an innocent person is condemned to death, the system is not working. “… The death penalty in the United States is destabilized by the inherent limits of mass criminal justice. The only clear path out of the impasse is an end to executions” (Geraghty 209).

Work Cited 

Bright, Stephen B. (2002) "Race, Poverty, the Death Penalty, and the Responsibility 

of the Legal Profession," Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 6, 72-82. digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol1/iss1/6. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023.

Caplan, Lincoln. “Death Throes Changing How America Thinks About Capital Punishment.” 

Harvard Magazine, Fall 2016, pp. 56-95. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. 

Chemerinsky, Erwin. “Eliminating Discrimination in Administering the Death Penalty: the Need 

for the Racial Justice Act.” Vol. 35, Santa Clara Law Review, 1995, pp. 519-533. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. 

Geraghty, Thomas F. "Trying to understand America's death penalty system and why we still 

have it." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 94, no. 1, fall 2003, pp. 209+. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A114475004/SUIC?u=multnomah&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=8b990af4. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023.

Sunstein, Cass R. and Adrian Vermeule. "Is capital punishment morally required? 

Acts, omissions, and life-life tradeoffs." Stanford Law Review, vol. 58, no. 3, Dec. 2005, pp. 703+. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A142148201/SUIC?u=multnomah&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=412601c8. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Morrow, Nancy. "Capital Punishment." American History Through Literature 1870-1920, edited by Tom Quirk and Gary Scharnhorst, vol. 1, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006, pp. 199-203. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3470800047/SUIC?u=multnomah&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=ebca3c13. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.