Arellano University

Juan Sumulong Campus

Senior High School Department

“Death Penalty: To implement or not?”

In partial fulfillment of the requirements in

Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

March 2019

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 ABSTRACT

This term paper contains information about "Death Penalty: To implement or not"

and this content have important role to the readers. This is a 15-page paper written and

complied by the researcher in partial fulfillment of the requirements in the subject

Understanding Culture, Society and Politics. The paper is said to be a test on how well

the researcher can apply the lessons in their daily life. The paper consists of three parts,

the introduction to give initial background to what and why it is chosen by the researcher,

the review of related literature to learn the social issue on the deeper context, and the

reflection to summarize, compartmentalize and give conclusions or maybe suggestions

on how to aid or to address the social issue, written in APA citation format. The information

of the paper are gathered through internet articles and books. Finally, the purpose of this

paper is to address the social issue that the researcher wanted to give statement about.

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 INTRODUCTION

Do other people agree on this thing? Is really death penalty is the only thing that

can able to erase someone’s fault? What if ‘that’ criminal is just accused to the crime that

he/she didn’t really committed? Are those crimes that is being committed really

reasonable enough to take someone’s life? Is Death Penalty is the only thing that can be

used to criminal in able for the victim to get the justice that he/she want? Many in our

fellow Filipinos believed that by taking someone’s life or by implementing death penalty

will eventually erase the CRIME he/she committed in which includes killing or committing

rape to someone. But isn’t obvious that taking someone’s life by using death penalty is a

CRIME too? Before I answer those questions, I’ll describe furthermore what is death

penalty and how is it applied on criminals in other countries. The Death penalty is known

as capital punishment. It symbolizes crime punishment as the biggest and most important

consequence. The Death penalty can be easily described as punishment of execution,

administered to someone convicted of a capital crime. Crimes are happening every day,

but have different ways of being justified. Many are pro death penalty when it comes to

murder. Others see the death penalty as inhumane and ineffective. Death Penalty is an

act of taking someone’s life due to the crime that he intentionally committed or not. Death

Penalty is a punishment that is being sentenced to those criminals who committed some

serious crimes The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to

as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as

an execution. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes or capital

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offences, and they commonly include offences such as murder, mass

murder, terrorism, treason, espionage, offenses against the State, such as attempting to

overthrow government, piracy, drug trafficking, war crimes, crimes against

humanity and genocide, but may include a wide range of offences depending on a

country. Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in several countries and

states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In

the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European

Union prohibits the use of capital punishment. The Council of Europe, which has 47

member states, has sought to abolish the use of the death penalty by its members

absolutely, through Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However,

this only affects those member states which have signed and ratified it, and they do not

include Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan.

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 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), the Court refused to

expand Furman. The Court held the death penalty was not per

se unconstitutional as it could serve the social purposes of retribution and

deterrence. Specifically, the Court upheld Georgia’s new capital sentencing

procedures, reasoning that the Georgia rules reduced the problem of arbitrary

application as seen in earlier statutes.

In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), the U.S. Supreme Court

held that a penalty must be proportional to the crime; otherwise, the

punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and

unusual punishments. In performing its proportionality analysis, the Supreme

Court looks to the following three factors: a consideration of the offense's

gravity and the stringency of the penalty; a consideration of how the

jurisdiction punishes its other criminals; and a consideration of how other

jurisdictions punish the same crime.

Twenty-one years later, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407

(2008), the Supreme Court extended its ruling in Coker, holding that the

penalty is categorically unavailable for cases of child rape in which the victim

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lives. Because only six states in the country permitted execution as a penalty

for child rape, the Supreme Court found that national consensus rendered the

death penalty disproportionate in these cases.

In Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), the Supreme Court held

that it is unconstitutional for "a sentencing judge, sitting without a jury, to

find an aggravating circumstancenecessary for imposition of the death

penalty."

The Supreme Court further refined the requirement of "a finding

of aggravating factors" in Brown v. Sanders, 546 U.S. 212 (2006). For cases

in which an appellate court rules a sentencing factor to be invalid, the

sentence imposed becomes unconstitutional unless the jury found some other

aggravating factor that encompasses the same facts and circumstances as the

invalid factor.

Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U.S. 163 (2006) offered yet another

clarification to the principle of individualized sentencing jurisprudence.

Under Marsh, states may impose the death penalty when the jury finds

any aggravating and mitigating factors to be equally weighted, without

violating the principle of individualized sentencing. A legislature may prescribe

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the manner of execution, but the manner may not inflict unnecessary or

wanton pain upon the criminal.

State courts and lower federal courts have refused to strike

down hanging and electrocution as impermissible methods of execution.

In Baze v. Rees, 553. U.S 35 (2008), the Supreme Court held that the lethal

injection does not constitute a cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme

Court in Baze also applied an "objectively intolerable" test to determine if the

method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and

unusual punishments. The legality of lethal injection was upheld in Glossip v.

Gross, 576 U.S.(2015).

In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the Supreme Court

determined that executing mentally retarded criminals violates the ban on

"cruel and unusual punishments" because their mental handicap lessens the

severity of the crime and therefore renders the extraordinary penalty of death

as disproportionately severe. However, in Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825 (2009),

the Court held that states may conduct hearings to reconsider the mental

capacity of death row inmates who were labeled mentally retarded before the

Court decided Atkins, because before Atkins, states had little incentive to

aggressively investigate retardation claims.

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 In Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), the Supreme Court

invalidated the death penalty for all juvenile offenders. The majority opinion

pointed to teenagers' lack of maturity and responsibility, greater vulnerability

to negative influences, and incomplete character development. The Court

concluded that juvenile offenders assume diminished culpability for their

crimes.

Bhumika N. (2012). Had written in her article whether death penalty

violating under article 19, 14 and 21of the Indian constitution. Krishna Ayer judge express

their view in Rajendra Prasad case death penalty is violated of article 14, 19 and 21of the

Indian constitution. One more Jagmohan Singh case death penalty could not violated

under article 19 of the Indian constitution. I agree with the Hon‟ble Krishna Ayer death

penalty is violated under article 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian constitution. Death penalty is

not rule it is exception I am going through of this judgment today we need to unanimous

judgment to secure and protect the people and society.

Shallu B.A. (2010) has written in her article no one shall deprived of his

life except to procedure established by law under article 21 of the constitution of India and

it is postulates person deprived of his life in procedure reasonable fair and just procedure

death penalty a person depriving of his life. Dr. Shallu has explained Rajiv Gandhi in the

year 1991in this case twenty six accused guilty committing crime under the POTA

act1987 death sentence them in the year 1998.The supreme court in the 1999. The Rajiv

Gandhi‟s killer is waiting their execution. The president has not yet taking decision on

mercy petition social economical background of the person. One of the point delays in
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execution of the death sentence which considered the delay in the mercy petition disposal

against the principle of rule of law.

M.B.Biradar (2012) has written in his article about the rights of a man

such as social right and cultural right, natural right as well as right to live death sentenced

condemns or curtails most of these rights. The human rights organization as improve the

quality of life rather than finish life .Death penalty is not necessary no person is never a

born criminal and everyman is born good but some circumstances or fanatism compel

him to commit crime. In criminal jurisprudence said „Hate the crime and not the criminal‟.

There are many reasons in death penalty against the human rights as well as the abolition

of the death penalty „every saint has his past and every sinner has his future‟. Offence of

death penalty is murder, highway dacoit, robbery, atrocities on women and child gang

rape internet obscenity and economical offences or white collar offences.

Bohm (2003) argues that public support for the death penalty contributes

to its continued use in at least five ways. First, strong public support can sway legislators

to vote in favor of the death penalty and against any statutes seeking its repeal. Second,

he argues that prosecutors may seek the death penalty for political rather than legal

purposes. Third, it may influence judges to impose death sentences or uphold death

sentences on appeal. Fourth, governors may be less likely to veto death penalty

legislation or commute a death sentence due to fear of risking re-election. Lastly, and

what Bohm argues is the most important, is that supreme court justices (both state and

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federal) examine support for the death penalty as a measure of “evolving standards of

decency” to decide whether the death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution’s 8th

Amendment “cruel and unusual punishment” clause.

Although a large amount of research in this area has been conducted by

academics, much of our knowledge of death penalty opinion has been a result of public

opinion polls (e.g., Gallup polls). Beginning with studies in the 1930s, public opinion on

capital punishment has been measured in a variety of ways. Until recently, however, the

majority of death penalty opinions were measured by some form of the question: “Do you

oppose or favor the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?” In addition, these

studies only offered yes/no or oppose/favor responses and left out options such as don’t

know, not sure, or no opinion (Bohm, 2003). Current research, however, is taking steps

to test different methodological approaches to measuring public opinion on this issue

(Bohm; Jones, 1994; McGarrell & Sandys, 1996).

In the United States Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia (1972) the

Court ruled that the death penalty violated the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment “cruel

and unusual punishment” clause. This decision was made at a time when support for the

death penalty was at its lowest in history, thus the decline in public support was cited as

a measure of “evolving standards of decency.” Justice Marshall argued that if given

information about the death penalty, “the great mass of citizens would conclude…that the

death penalty is immoral and therefore unconstitutional.” In other words the Supreme

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Court decided that informed public opinion was opposed to the death penalty and it

should, therefore, be ruled unconstitutional. After the Furman case, researchers began to

test the “Marshall hypothesis” but encountered a number of methodological issues

(Bohm, Clark, & Aveni, 1991; Bohm & Vogel, 1991, 1994; Cochran & Chamlin, 2005;

Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Sarat & Vidmar, 1976; Vidmar & Dittenhoffer, 1981).

Difficulty deciding what kind of knowledge is required, to what extent someone is

“informed,” and how the knowledge should be imparted to the subjects were all commonly

faced problems (Bohm, 2003). It is likely that many of these issues contributed to the

mixed findings they produced. Some found support for the hypothesis that information

can decrease the public’s support of the death penalty (Bohm et al.; Sarat & Vidmar;

Vidmar & Dittenhoffer), while others found that the presentation of information did not

decrease support and at times may have polarized opinions (Bohm, 1990; Lord et al.).

A Spring 2018 article in the University of Chicago's philosophy

journal Ethics, co-authored by Michael Cholbi, Professor of Philosophy at California State

Polytechnic University and Alex Madva, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cal Poly

Pomona, examines the philosophical underpinnings of those assertions and concludes

that they are correct. In Black Lives Matter and the Call for Death Penalty Abolition, the

authors examine "the two central contentions in the movement’s abolitionist stance"—

that the death penalty as practiced in the United States wrongs Black communities as a

whole, rather than just the individual Black defendants charged with capital murder or the

particular Black victims whose murders were not capitally prosecuted; and that abolition

of the death penalty in its entirety, rather than attempts at piecemeal reform, is "the most

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defensible remedy for this wrong." Cholbi and Madva review numerous 21st-

century death-penalty studies and find that the data show two major classes of racial

distinctions in American death-penalty practices: a White-victim preference in both

prosecutorial choices to seek and jury verdicts to impose the death penalty and

a sentencing bias against non-White defendants once a case has been designated as

capital. Cholbi and Madva conclude that Black Americans are subject to a citizenship

class that renders them vulnerable to both retributive and distributive injustice: retributive

in the sense that individual Black capital defendants are empirically more likely to be

subject to execution than defendants of other races and distributive in that that those who

murder Black people are empirically less likely to be subject to execution than those who

murder non-Black people. As a result of, in part, implicit racial biases that manifest at

every level of the capital punishment system, Black capital defendants face the retributive

injustice of being more likely to be sentenced to death than any other group. “Preexisting

biases regarding blacks' proclivity toward and insusceptibility to violence that may

otherwise remain dormant are galvanized when individuals are afforded the opportunity

to render judgments regarding who ought to be executed for their crimes,” Cholbi and

Madva write. In one shocking study cited by the pair, White respondents became more

supportive of capital punishment when informed about the issue of racial bias in capital

sentencing. Another study showed White members of a mock jury more likely to convict

Black people and less likely to convict White people when informed that the maximum

sentence possible was death as opposed to a life sentence. “Such results suggest that

capital punishment is not just another arena infected with bias but instead represents a

distinctive channel for racial discrimination” where anti-Black biases are "activate[d] and

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amplif[ied]." To not address the distinct and permeative nature of this

discrimination, Cholbi and Madva write, “amounts to a form of societal or institutional

recklessness.” Research supports the Movement for Black Lives' assertion that all Black

people, not just individual Black capital defendants, are unjustly impacted by capital

punishment’s systemic racial bias. Because the murder of a Black person is less

statistically likely to result in a death sentence, Cholbi and Madva argue, “the law fails to

penalize killings of blacks in a manner consistent with their having the equal protection of

the law.” Given that the law “routinely punishes those who kill blacks less harshly than

those who kill others, killing blacks becomes commensurably less risky (especially if the

killer is white)." This distributive injustice “is one that all blacks face, not only those who

actually are murdered.” The authors analyze attempted state-level death-penalty reforms

and conclude that they “have had modest success at best” at eliminating racial bias, and

therefore "abolishing the death penalty may itself be one among many necessary reforms

for reducing broader racial disparities in criminal imprisonment." The task of ensuring that

the lives of Black people are comparably protected and their killers are equally punished

in the U.S. criminal justice system is impossible, they argue, without dismantling the

capital punishment system for good.

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 REFLECTION/OPINION

At this time, I therefore agree that implementing the death penalty won’t help

you to claim the ‘justice’ that you want. Sure, it somehow gives you satisfaction that, ‘that’

criminal is being sentenced with death penalty because he committed a crime. But you

should know to yourself that by having death penalty to those criminals is like committing

the same crime that they have committed. The death penalty is unjust and morally wrong.

When someone murders someone else, the correct punishment is not to murder him or

her, but to try and help them. We don’t steal from the thieves, or rape the rapists.

Too many innocent people already been put to death throughout history. Some

criminal are good to be put to death. But it not be appropriates to ordinary crimes to be

prosecuted with the same way.

It is also not convincing that we should have the death penalty just because

he/she committed a crime because some criminals who are now in jail didn’t really have

a fault on the said crime. Remember that some of them are just being accused by

someone who have a power to put them in jail. We should be contented that those

criminal should just be sentenced a lifetime imprisonment, not sentenced with death

penalty. We should give them the proper consequences that they really deserved without

committing another crime or taking someone’s life even though they committed some

crimes in which includes taking someone’ life. We should always to ourselves that not all

the laws that is being implemented in other countries shall be implemented in our country

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too. We should not be a criminal ourselves just by wanting the death penalty. All these

crimes that are being committed by the criminals are completely horrifying and disgusting

but I still don’t support the death penalty. It’s so hypocritical. You killed someone so in

return we’re going to kill you? I just don’t agree. The system can be judge and juror but

NOT executioner. We should not put the law in our hands. Let our Almighty God do the

thing that they deserve. We should not predict the future that we think those criminals

deserve.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acknowledgement for all sources;

“Death Penalty.” LII / Legal Information Institute.

Legal Information Institute, n.d. Web 25 Apr.2014Retrieved from:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/death_penalty

Literature Review
http://shodh.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/3693/7/3_litreature%20revie
w.pdf

Public Opinion and the Death Penalty: A Qualitative Approach

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ926337.pdf

ANALYSIS: Research Supports Assertion that U.S. Death Penalty "Devalues Black
Lives"
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/7099

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