Death Penalty

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Overview/Background The United States remains in the minority of nations in the world that still uses death as penalty for certain crimes. Many see the penalty as barbaric and against American values. Others see it as a very important tool in fighting violent pre-meditated murder. Two things have once again brought this issue to national debate. One is the release of some highly publicized studies that show a number of innocents had been put to death. The second is the issue of terrorism and the need to punish its perpetrators. Hoa Kz vẫn còn trong số ít quốc gia trên thế giới vẫn sử dụng cái chết là hình phạt cho tội phạm nhất định. Nhiều người coi những hình phạt dã man và chống lại các giá trị Mỹ. Những người khác nhìn thấy nó như một công cụ rất quan trọng trong cuộc chiến chống bạo lực trước khi thiền định giết người. Hai điều đã một lần nữa đưa vấn đề này ra cuộc tranh luận quốc gia. Một là việc phát hành một số nghiên cứu đã công bố rằng một số người vô tội đã được đưa đến chết. Thứ hai là vấn đề khủng bố và sự cần thiết để trừng phạt thủ phạm của nó. Yes Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. Most people don't realize that carrying out one death sentence costs 2-5 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for the rest of his life. How can this be? It has to do with the endless appeals, additional required procedures, and legal wrangling that drag the process out. It's not unusual for a prisoner to be on death row for 15-20 years. Judges, attorneys, court reporters, clerks, and court facilities all require a substantial investment by the taxpayers. Do we really have the resources to waste?

Chi phí tài chính cho người nộp thuế của hình phạt tử hình nhiều lần của một người nào đó ở trong tù cho cuộc sống.Hầu hết mọi người không nhận ra rằng thực hiện một án tử hình chi phí 2-5 lần nhiều hơn giữ rằng hình sự cùng ở trong tù cho phần còn lại của cuộc đời mình. Làm thế nào điều này có thể được? Nó có để làm với các kháng cáo vô tận, thủ tục bổ sung, và tranh cãi pháp l{ kéo quá trình. Nó không phải bất thường đối với một tù nhân có án tử hình cho 15-20 năm. Thẩm phán, luật sư, phóng viên của tòa án, thư k{, và các cơ sở tòa án tất cả các đòi hỏi một đầu tư đáng kể của người nộp thuế. Chúng ta có thực sự có các nguồn lực để lãng phí?
It is barbaric and violates the "cruel and unusual" clause in the Bill of Rights. Whether it's a firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, or hanging, it's barbaric to allow state-sanctioned murder before a crowd of people. We condemn people like Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi, and Kim Jong Il when they murder their own people while we continue to do the same (although our procedures for allowing it are obviously more thorough). The 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the use of "cruel and unusual punishment". Many would interpret the death penalty as violating this restriction.

Đó là dã man và vi phạm điều khoản "độc ác và bất thường" trong Tuyên ngôn Nhân quyền.Cho dù đó là một đội xử bắn, ghế điện, phòng hơi ngạt, tiêm thuốc độc, hoặc treo, đó là dã man để cho phép nhà nước xử phạt vi phạm tội giết người trước khi một đám đông của người dân. Chúng tôi lên án những người như Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi, và Kim Jong Il khi họ giết người dân của họ trong khi chúng tôi tiếp tục làm như vậy (mặc dù thủ tục của chúng tôi cho phép nó rõ ràng là kỹ lưỡng hơn). Điều sửa đổi thứ 8 của Hiến pháp Hoa Kz ngăn cản việc sử dụng các hình phạt dã man và khác thường ". Nhiều người sẽ giải thích án tử hình là vi phạm sự hạn chế này.
The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system. The U.S. court system goes to enormous lengths before allowing a death sentence to be carried out. All the appeals, motions, hearings, briefs, etc. monopolize much of the time of judges, attorneys, and other court employees as

well as use up courtrooms & facilities. This is time & space that could be used for other unresolved matters. The court system is tremendously backed up. This would help move things along. We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. The "eye for an eye" mentality will never solve anything. A revenge philosophy inevitably leads to an endless cycle of violence. Why do you think the Israeli-Palestine conflict has been going on for 60+ years? Why do you think gang violence in this country never seems to end? It is important to send a message to society that striking back at your enemy purely for revenge will always make matters worse. It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Yes, we want to make sure there is accountability for crime and an effective deterrent in place; however, the death penalty has a message of "You killed one of us, so we'll kill you". The state is actually using a murder to punish someone who committed a murder. Does that make sense? Life in prison is a worse punishment and a more effective deterrent. For those of you who don't feel much sympathy for a murderer, keep in mind that death may be too good for them. With a death sentence, the suffering is over in an instant. With life in prison, the pain goes on for decades. Prisoners are confined to a cage and live in an internal environment of rape and violence where they're treated as animals. And consider terrorists. Do you think they'd rather suffer the humiliation of lifelong prison or be "martyred" by a death sentence? What would have been a better ending for Osama bin Laden, the bullet that killed him instantly, or a life of humiliation in an American prison (or if he was put through rendition to obtain more information). Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a more favorable image of America. It's no secret that anti-Americanism is rampant around the world. One of the reasons is America's continued use of the death penalty. We're seen as a violent, vengeful nation for such a policy. This is pretty much the same view that Europeans had of America when we continued the practice of slavery long after it had been banned in Europe. Some jury members are reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death. Many states require any jury members to be polled during the pre-trial examination to be sure they have the stomach to sentence someone to death before they're allowed to serve. Even if they're against the death penalty, they still may lie in order to get on the panel. The thought of agreeing to kill someone even influences some jury members to acquit rather than risk the death. Some prosecutors may go for a lesser charge rather than force juries into a death-or-acquit choice. Obviously, in all these situations, justice may not be served. The prisoner's family must suffer from seeing their loved one put to death by the state, as well as going through the emotionally-draining appeals process. One victim's innocent family is obviously forced to suffer from a capital murder, but by enforcing a death sentence, you force another family to suffer. Why double the suffering when we don't have to? The possibility exists that innocent men and women may be put to death. There are several documented cases where DNA testing showed that innocent people were put to death by the government. We have an imperfect justice system where poor defendants are given minimal legal attention by often lesser qualified individuals. Some would blame the court system, not that death penalty itself for the problems, but we can't risk mistakes. Mentally ill patients may be put to death. Many people are simply born with defects to their brain that cause them to act a certain way. No amount of drugs, schooling, rehabilitation, or positive reinforcement will change them. Is it fair that someone should be murdered just because they were unlucky enough to be born with a brain defect. Although it is technically unconstitutional to put a mentally ill patient to death, the rules can be vague, and you still need to be able to convince a judge and jury that the defendant is in fact, mentally ill. It creates sympathy for the monstrous perpetrators of the crimes. Criminals usually are looked down upon by society. People are disgusted by the vile, unconscionable acts they commit and feel tremendous

sympathy for the victims of murder, rape, etc. However, the death penalty has a way of shifting sympathy away from the victims and to the criminals themselves. An excellent example is the execution a few years ago of former gang leader "Tookie" Williams. He was one of the original members of the notorious Crips gang, which has a long legacy of robbery, assault, and murder. This is a man who was convicted with overwhelming evidence of the murder of four people, some of whom he shot in the back and then laughed at the sounds they made as they died. This is a man who never even took responsibility for the crimes or apologized to the victims -- NOT ONCE! These victims had kids and spouses, but instead of sympathy for them, sympathy shifted to Tookie. Candlelight vigils were held for him. Websites like savetookie.org sprang up. Protests and a media circus ensued trying to prevent the execution, which eventually did take place -- 26 years after the crime itself! There are many cases like this, which make a mockery of the evil crimes these degenerates commit. It often draws top talent laywers who will work for little or no cost due to the publicity of the case and their personal beliefs against the morality of the death penalty, increasing the chances a technicality or a manipulated jury will release a guilt person. Top attorneys are world-class manipulators. They know how to cover up facts and misdirect thinking. They know how to select juries sympathetic to their side. They know how to find obscure technicalities and use any other means necessary to get their client off without any punishment. Luckily, most criminal defendants cannot afford to hire these top guns; they must make do with a low-paid public defender or some other cheaper attorney. However, a death penalty case changes everything. First of all, a death penalty case almost always garners significant media attention. Lawyers want that exposure, which enhances their name recognition & reputation for potential future plantiffs and defendants. Second of all, thousands of attorneys have made their personal crusade in life the stomping out of the death penalty. Entire organizations have sprung up to fight death penalty cases, often providing all the funding for a legal defense. For an example, look no further than the Casey Anthony trial, in which a pool of top attorneys took on a high profile death penalty case and used voir dire and peremptory challenges to craft one of the stupidest juries on record, who ended up ignoring facts and common sense or release an obviously guilty woman who killed her daughter. After the "not guilty" verdict was rendered, defense attorneys such as Cheney Mason went into long-winded speeches for the media about the evils of the death penalty. It is useless in that it doesn't bring the victim back to life. Perhaps the biggest reason to ban the death penalty is that it doesn't change the fact that the victim is gone and will never come back. Hate, revenge, and anger will never cure the emptiness of a lost loved one. Forgiveness is the only way to start the healing process, and this won't happen in a revenge-focused individual. No The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much. Some family members of crime victims may take years or decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Some may never recover. One of the things that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim. A death sentence brings finality to a horrible chapter in the lives of these family members. It creates another form of crime deterrent. Crime would run rampant as never before if there wasn't some way to deter people from committing the acts. Prison time is an effective deterrent, but with some people, more is needed. Prosecutors should have the option of using a variety of punishments in order to minimize crime. Justice is better served. The most fundamental principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime. When someone plans and brutally murders another person, doesn't it make sense that the punishment for the perpetrator also be death? Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims. It's time we put the emphasis of our criminal justice system back on protecting the victim rather than the accused.

Remember, a person who's on death row has almost always committed crimes before this. A long line of victims have been waiting for justice. We need justice for current and past victims. It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a life sentence. What about people already sentenced to life in prison. What's to stop them from murdering people constantly while in prison? What are they going to do--extend their sentences? Sure, they can take away some prison privileges, but is this enough of a deterrent to stop the killing? What about a person sentenced to life who happens to escape? What's to stop him from killing anyone who might try to bring him in or curb his crime spree? DNA testing and other methods of modern crime scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence. One of the biggest arguments against the death penalty is the possibility of error. Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. And even if DNA testing and other such scientific methods didn't exist, the trial and appeals process is so thorough it's next to impossible to convict an innocent person. Remember, a jury of 12 members must unanimously decide there's not even a reasonable doubt the person is guilty. The number of innocent people that might somehow be convicted is no greater than the number of innocent victims of the murderers who are set free. Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another chance to kill. Perhaps the biggest reason to keep the death penalty is to prevent the crime from happening again. The parole system nowadays is a joke. Does it make sense to anyone outside the legal system to have multiple "life" sentences + 20 years or other jiverish? Even if a criminal is sentenced to life without possibility of parole, he still has a chance to kill while in prison, or even worse, escape and go on a crime/murder spree. It contributes to the problem of overpopulation in the prison system. Prisons across the country face the problem of too many prisoners and not enough space & resources. Each additional prisoner requires a portion of a cell, food, clothing, extra guard time, and so on. When you eliminate the death penalty as an option, it means that prisoner must be housed for life. Thus, it only adds to the problem of an overcrowded prison system. It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs in an overcrowded court system. The number of criminal cases that are plea bargained (meaning the accused admits guilt in return for a lesser sentence or some other concession) can be as high as 80 or 90 percent of cases. With the time, cost, and personnel requirements of a criminal case, there really isn't much of a choice. The vast majority of people that are arraigned are in fact guilty of the crime they are accused. Even if you believe a defendant only deserves life in prison, without the threat of a death sentence, there may be no way to get him to plead guilty and accept the sentence. If a case goes to trial, in addition to the enormous cost, you run the chance that you may lose the case, meaning a violent criminal gets off scot free. The existence of the death penalty gives prosecutors much more flexibility and power to ensure just punishments. arguments Against Death Penalty 1. Denial of basic right - According to the Humans Right Association, capital punishment overrules our most basic(co ban) human right - the right to life. Human life has a fundamental value. The blessedness of human life is denied by the death penalty. Life is precious.(quy gia) 2. The possibility of error - When an individual stands for a trial, he is convicted on the basis of the evidence against him. There have been times wherein evidence has been fabricated against an individual to settle personal scores. If later investigations find that there has been an error in judgment, then it can release the person and compensate him for the injustice, however, in case of a death penalty, the jury can do nothing apart from feeling guilty for taking the life of an innocent.

3. Unfair Judgment - Generally, it is observed that capital punishment is inflicted unduly on the poor and minorities. If you follow the data of these victims, you will find that the mentally ill, poor, and people belonging to minorities form a large chunk of the total number. You can also notice a kind of racial discrimination happens due to varied reasons. Because the poor can offer very low compensation the defense lawyers are often incompetent, resulting in losing the case. Due to prejudice and bias, poor people, and people from minority sections become soft target for such capital punishments, as unrestricted discretion has been offered to District attorney. If any one wants to appeal, then it becomes a burdensome process for him often resulting in denial of justice. 4. Lack of Deterrence(ngan chan) - The purpose (muc dich)of any punishment should be deterrence from repeating the same act. But, according to the statistics available, the death penalty has not been effective in controlling the homicide rate. The studies have revealed the shocking truth that executions actually increase the murder rate. That means the capital punishment does not deter violent crime. According to a New York Times study, the last 20 years witnessed 48% homicide rate in states with the implementation of capital punishment compared to 23% in the states without capital punishment. 5. The prolonged uncertainty - The validity to the deterrence argument is annulled by the delays, endless appeals, retrials, and technicalities that keeps a person predestined to capital punishment waiting for execution for years. In fact, we are not competent enough to carry out execution. This uncertainty and incompetence offers another great injustice. It is itself cruel and a form of torture. 6. Justifying circumstances - Sometimes, individuals suffering from emotional trauma, abandonment, violence, neglect or destructive social environment commit such heinous crimes. These mitigating situations can have devastating effect on their humanity. So, it is unfair to hold them fully responsible for their crimes. It is our social responsibility to show sympathy to some extent. 7. Effects on society(xa hoi) - Capital Punishment is itself a premeditated murder(giet nguoi). This is unacceptable even it is inflicted(gay ra) by state authority as it lowers the value of life. In fact, such act can only brutalize(hung bao)the society. "Revenge(tra thu) is essential(thiet yeu)" can become a society attitude(thai do). By witnessing such acts, our own mental makeup starts believing that violence is necessary to curb the wrongdoings. In conclusion, capital punishment is a moral dishonor. The mockery is that the very civilizations that have no right to impose it, are in particular leading the traditions of capital punishments. The economic malfunctions and cultural diseases in those very societies contribute to the violence. So, instead of inflicting Capital punishment, it's our duty to provide opportunities for all people to accomplish a good life in a rational culture. As Most Rev. David B. Thompson, Bishop of Charleston, S.C. said, "Capital punishment feeds the cycle of violence in society by pandering to a lust for revenge. It brutalizes us, and deadens our sensitivity to the precious nature of every single human life." Value of human life Everyone thinks human life is valuable. Some of those against capital punishment believe that human life is so valuable that even the worst murderers should not be deprived of the value of their lives. They believe that the value of the offender's life cannot be destroyed by the offender's bad conduct even if they have killed someone. Some abolitionists don't go that far. They say that life should be preserved unless there is a very good reason not to, and that the those who are in favour of capital punishment are the ones who have to justify their position.

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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. This is very similar to the 'value of life' argument, but approached from the perspective of human rights.

The counter-argument is that a person can, by their actions, forfeit human rights, and that murderers forfeit their right to life. Another example will make this clear - a person forfeits their right to life if they start a murderous attack and the only way the victim can save their own life is by killing the attacker. 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... Therefore to kill a man who retains his natural worthiness is intrinsically evil, although it may be justifiable to kill a sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as Aristotle points out, an evil man is worse than a beast and more harmful.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae
Aquinas is saying that certain contexts change a bad act (killing) into a good act (killing to repair the violation of justice done by the person killed, and killing a person who has forfeited their natural worthiness by killing).

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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. Witnesses, (where they are part of the process), prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes. When this is coupled with flaws in the system it is inevitable that innocent people will be convicted of crimes. Where capital punishment is used such mistakes cannot be put right. The death penalty legitimizes an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims. As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated

Amnesty International
There is ample evidence that such mistakes are possible - in the USA, 116 people sentenced to death have been found innocent since 1973 and released from death row. The average time on death row before these exonerations was 9 years. Things were made worse in the USA when the Supreme Court refused to hold explicitly that the execution of a defendant in the face of significant evidence of innocence would be unconstitutional [Herrera v. Collins, 560 U.S. 390 (1993)]. However many US lawyers believe that in practice the court would not permit an execution in a case demonstrating persuasive evidence of "actual innocence". The continuous threat of execution makes the ordeal of those wrongly convicted particularly horrible.

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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.

U.S. Catholic Conference
To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice.

Attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Vengeance The main argument that retribution is immoral is that it is just a sanitised form of vengeance. Scenes of howling mobs attacking prison vans containing those accused of murder on their way to and from court, or chanting aggressively outside prisons when an offender is being executed, suggest that vengeance remains a major ingredient in the public popularity of capital punishment. But just retribution, designed to re-establish justice, can easily be distinguished from vengeance and vindictiveness. In any case, is vengeance necessarily a bad thing?

The Victorian legal philosopher James Fitzjames Stephens thought vengeance was an acceptable justification for punishment. Punishment, he thought, should be inflicted: for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred-call it revenge, resentment, or what you will-which the contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites in healthily constituted minds.

Sir James Fitzjames Stephens, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Retribution and the innocent But the issue of the execution of innocent persons is also a problem for the retribution argument - if there is a serious risk of executing the innocent then one of the key principles of retribution - that people should get what they deserve (and therefore only what they deserve) - is violated by the current implementation of capital punishment in the USA, and any other country where errors have taken place. Uniqueness of the death penalty It's argued that retribution is used in a unique way in the case of the death penalty. Crimes other than murder do not receive a punishment that mimics the crime - for example rapists are not punished by sexual assault, and people guilty of assault are not ceremonially beaten up. Camus and Dostoevsky argued that the retribution in the case of the death penalty was not fair, because the anticipatory suffering of the criminal before execution would probably outweigh the anticipatory suffering of the victim of their crime. Others argue that the retribution argument is flawed because the death penalty delivers a 'double punishment'; that of the execution and the preceding wait, and this is a mismatch to the crime. Many offenders are kept 'waiting' on death row for a very long time; in USA the average wait is 10 years. In Japan, the accused is not told when their execution is to take place. Executions only happen on Fridays, so if an offender is still in his cell by 9am on Friday morning, he knows he has at least another week to live. The result of this is that each week of their life is lived as if it was their last. Capital punishment is not operated retributively Some lawyers argue that capital punishment is not really used as retribution for murder, or even consistently for a particular kind of murder. They argue that, in the USA at least, only a small minority of murderers are actually executed, and that imposition of capital punishment on a "capriciously selected random handful" of offenders does not amount to a consistent programme of retribution. Since capital punishment is not operated retributively, it is inappropriate to use retribution to justify capital punishment. This argument would have no value in a society that applied the death penalty consistently for particular types of murder. Capital punishment is not retribution enough Some people who believe in the notion of retribution are against capital punishment because they feel the death penalty provides insufficient retribution. They argue that life imprisonment without possibility of parole causes much more suffering to the offender than a painless death after a short period of imprisonment. Another example is the planner of a suicide bombing - execution might make that person a martyr, and therefore would be a lesser retribution than life imprisonment.

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Failure to deter The death penalty doesn't seem to deter people from committing serious violent crimes. The thing that deters is the likelihood of being caught and punished. The general consensus among social scientists is that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is at best unproven.

In 1988 a survey was conducted for the UN to determine the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates. This was then updated in 1996. It concluded: ...research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis. The key to real and true deterrence is to increase the likelihood of detection, arrest and conviction. The death penalty is a harsh punishment, but it is not harsh on crime.

Amnesty International
NB: It's actually impossible to test the deterrent effect of a punishment in a rigorous way, as to do so would require knowing how many murders would have been committed in a particular state if the law had been different during the same time period. Deterrence is a morally flawed concept Even if capital punishment did act as a deterrent, is it acceptable for someone to pay for the predicted future crimes of others? Some people argue that one may as well punish innocent people; it will have the same effect. This isn't true - if people are randomly picked up off the street and punished as scapegoats the only consequence is likely to be that the public will be frightened to go out. To make a scapegoat scheme effective it would be necessary to go through the appearance of a legitimate legal process and to present evidence which convinced the public that the person being punished deserved their punishment. While some societies have operated their legal systems on the basis of fictional evidence and confessions extracted by torture, the ethical objections to such a system are sufficient to render the argument in the second paragraph pointless.

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Brutalising society Brutalising individuals Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and an increase in murder rate. In the USA, more murders take place in states where capital punishment is allowed. In 2003, the murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished was 4.10 per cent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was 5.91 per cent. These calculations are based on figures from the FBI. The gap between death penalty states and non-death penalty states rose considerably from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to 44 per cent in 2003. Disturbed individuals may be angered and thus more likely to commit murder. 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. ...the state's power deliberately to destroy innocuous (though guilty) life is a manifestation of the hidden wish that the state be allowed to do anything it pleases with life.

George Kateb, The Inner Ocean 1992
Brutalising the law Capital punishment is said to produce an unacceptable link between the law and violence. But in many ways the law is inevitably linked with violence - it punishes violent crimes, and it uses punishments that 'violently' restrict human freedoms. And philosophically the law is always involved with violence in that its function includes preserving an ordered society from violent events. Nonetheless, a strong case can be made that legal violence is clearly different from criminal violence, and that when it is used, it is used in a way that everyone can see is fair and logical.

Capital punishment 'lowers the tone' of society Civilised societies do not tolerate torture, even if it can be shown that torture may deter, or produce other good effects. In the same way many people feel that the death penalty is an inappropriate for a modern civilised society to respond to even the most dreadful crimes. The murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is repeated in cold blood, remorselessly

Beccaria, C. de, Traité des Délits et des Peines, 1764
Because most countries - but not all - do not execute people publicly, capital punishment is not a degrading public spectacle. But it is still a media circus, receiving great publicity, so that the public are well aware of what is being done on their behalf. However this media circus takes over the spectacle of public execution in teaching the public lessons about justice, retribution, and personal responsibility for one's own actions.

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Expense In the USA capital punishment costs a great deal. For example, the cost of convicting and executing Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bombing was over $13 million. In New York, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1995, costs for each person condemned to death were approximately $23 million. In countries with a less costly and lengthy appeals procedure capital punishment seems like a much cheaper option than long-term imprisonment. Counter-arguments Those in favour of capital punishment counter with these two arguments: It is a fallacy that capital punishment costs more than life without parole Justice cannot be thought of in financial terms

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People not responsible for their acts This is not an argument against capital punishment itself, but against applying it wrongly. Some countries, including the USA, have executed people proven to be insane. It's generally accepted that people should not be punished for their actions unless they have a guilty mind - which requires them to know what they are doing and that it's wrong. Therefore people who are insane should not be convicted, let alone executed. This doesn't prevent insane people who have done terrible things being confined in secure mental institutions, but this is done for public safety, not to punish the insane person. To put it more formally: it is wrong to impose capital punishment on those who have at best a marginal capacity for deliberation and for moral agency. A more difficult moral problem arises in the case of offenders who were sane at the time of their crime and trial but who develop signs of insanity before execution.

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Applied unfairly There has been much concern in the USA that flaws in the judicial system make capital punishment unfair. One US Supreme Court Justice (who had originally supported the death penalty) eventually came to the conclusion that capital punishment was bound to damage the cause of justice: The death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake ... Experience has taught us that the constitutional goal of eliminating arbitrariness and discrimination from the

administration of death ... can never be achieved without compromising an equally essential component of fundamental fairness - individualized sentencing.

Justice Harry Blackmun, United States Supreme Court, 1994
Jurors Jurors in many US death penalty cases must be 'death eligible'. This means the prospective juror must be willing to convict the accused knowing that a sentence of death is a possibility. This results in a jury biased in favour of the death penalty, since no one who opposes the death penalty is likely to be accepted as a juror. Lawyers 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.

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Cruel, inhumane, degrading 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. Lethal injection 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 2005 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.

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Unnecessary 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. The state does have an obligation to punish crime, as a means to preserve an orderly and contented society, but it should do so in the least harmful way possible Capital punishment is the most harmful punishment available, so the state should only use it if no less harmful punishment is suitable Other punishments will always enable the state to fulfil its objective of punishing crime appropriately Therefore the state should not use capital punishment 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.

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Free will 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. I'm against it for several reasons, (mainly practical rather than ethical to be honest): -To kill a criminal punishes not only them, but their family and friends. (This I think is probably the single most persuasive argument) Whatever a son, daughter, parent or sibling has done, it is near enough impossible to detach oneself enough as to be indifferent to their death. This is particularly the case where the condemned person is a parent of a young child, incapable of understanding the situation fully. With prison a relative can at least visit the prisoner. -It is very easily abused for political ends- victims of the death penalty in many countries are guilty only of opposing a particular regime. In the middle east girls as young as fifteen have been executed for "crimes against chastity". It is often used as a tool of fear, oppression and control by governments, and is disproportionately used against specific groups in society (e.g. the black population in South Africa, the poorer classes almost everywhere.) There is no way to ensure that it is carried out in an impartial manner, and is scarily open to abuse as a way of cleansing "undesirables" from society. There is no better way to rid yourself of a political threat than to place threat of execution (often on a fabricated, exagerrated or grossly manipulated charge) on your opponents. - I don't believe that any human being has the right to decide who deserves to live and who to die according to some arbitrary principle. Moral values change, and are culturally specific, many offences which would have been capital offences at one time, or still are in certain countries, are no longer even crimes (adultery, homosexuality for example). Whether someone faces the death penalty can depend very much on accident of birth. -It has a brutalising affect on society, and encourages a sort of state-sanctioned bloodlust. The sick tshirts sold at the execution of Timothy McVeigh and the baying and cheering of execution crowds in Saudi Arabia, not to mention the numerous imaginative ways man has found to carry out the execution process, do nothing to persuade me that executions create a morally upstanding population. Listen to itthats not a celebration of the judicial process. Many serial killers see themselves as vigilantes, cleansing society of perceived sin through violence. Or they enjoy lording the power of life and death over other "lesser" beings.The morals are different- the principle seems much the same. It makes me feel quite sick to feel I live in a world where people can cheer as a man dies, no matter how evil he may have been. A truly civilised society should raise itself above the level of a killer, not resort to its own self-righteous version of his perverted bloodlust. -I see it mainly as a process carried out for the satisfaction of the victims family and of popular society than a punishment as such. Many killers are unafraid of death, even welcoming it. (And I don't understand the logic of "humane" processes such as lethal injection - isn't that how we put an ill old dog

to sleep? Seems strangely kind.) Murder still occurs in countries where the death penalty is carried out, often on a greater scale than those where it is not. Famously the US states that use the death penalty are still those with the highest homicide rates- see also "no deterent" argument below. Whilst the feelings of the victim and the public at large should always be a consideration when sentencing a criminal, they should not be the sole reasoning for a sentence. Whilst I have total sympathy for victims of violent crime, they and their families are in a heightened emotional state. Justice should be calm, rational and impartial, not powered by hysteria and personal emotion. -Its irreversible. A prisoner can be released if he is later found not guilty. A dead man is dead forever. -It can make martyrs of criminals. Particularly in the case of terrorists and political figures such as Saddam Hussein. Some people are effectively more dangerous dead than they are alive. HOW DO MANAGER DEAL WITH CONFLICT Conflict management intergral part of successful business administration. Research shows that managers often spend as much as 20 percent of their work day trying to resolve conflict. Ways to resolve conflict: -Negotiation: This is the process where mandated representatives of group in a conflict situation meet together in order to resolve their differences and to reach agreement. It is a deliberate process, conducted by presentative of groups, designed to reconcile differences and to reach agreements by consensus. The outcome is often dependent on the power relation ship between the groups. Negotiation often involve compromise- one group may win one of their demands and give on another Organizational settings for negotiation: -Two- party negotiation -group negotiation -intergroup negotiation -Constituency negotiation Arbitration means the appointment of independent person to act as an adjudicator (or judge) in a dispute to decide on the terms of a settlement. Both parties in a conflict have to agree about who the adbitrator should be ,and that decision of the adbitrator will be binding on them all. Arbitration differs from mediation negotiation in that does not promote the continuation of collective bargaining : the adbitrator listens to and investigates the demands and counter- demands and takes over the role of decision-maker. People or organizations can agree on having either a single arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators whom they respect and whose decision they will accept as final, in order to resolve the conflict. Features: -Simpler, faster alternative to tribunal hearing. -Only available for cases involving unfair dismissal or flexible working. -Often conductes on the phone; parties may not talk to each other -After mediation is complete it is difficult to cooperate.

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