Capital punishment for heinous crimes

like Rape violates the human right to

life
FOR THE MOTION AGAINST THE MOTION
◈ Shruti Arora ◈ Reetika
◈ Twinkle ◈ Mansi
◈ Riya ◈ Ayushi
◈ Aditi ◈ Mallari Shashivarna
◈ Navin ◈ Palak
◈ Prerna ◈ Shruti Jhunjhunwala
 Problems with Capital Punishment
1
 “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” said Mahatma Gandhi.
 Revenge is not the answer. The answer lies in reducing violence, not causing more death.
 Miscarriage of justice- wrongfully hanged
Column1  14 eminent retired judges wrote to the President, pointing out that the Supreme Court had
erroneously given the death penalty to 15 people out of 60 since 2000, of whom two were
25% Error
rate hanged.
 The judges called this “the gravest known miscarriage of justice in the history of crime and
punishment in independent India.”
 Capital punishment is given to the one without capital or marginalized either by
religious, caste denominations or class- Disproportionate subject to death penalty.
 The 65th United Nations General Assembly voted in December 2010, for the third time, in
favour of abolishing the death penalty and called for a global moratorium on executions.
Jan 2000 to June 2015  Amnesty International reports that 140 countries — more than two-thirds of the world — do
15 out of not use the death penalty any more. 

60 cases
Two-Thirds of country do not use Capital punishment

Paradigm shift: Sharp decline in Capital

punishment by USA
 Human Rights are Universal
2 ◈ In 2015 alone, Fiji, Madagascar and Suriname all turned their backs on the
death penalty once and for all.
◈ Burkina Faso, Mongolia and South Korea are on their way to doing the same.
◈ Europe remains virtually free of the death penalty.
◈ USA, historically one of the nations most reluctant to give up the death penalty,
is slowly turning against capital punishment.

Human rights apply to the best of us – and the worst of us.

◈ The uniqueness of the death penalty - It's argued that retribution over
rehabilitation is used in a unique way in the case of the death penalty.
 Fake Cases Guilty until proven Innocent

Delhi Commission of Women

53.2% of the rape cases filed between
April 2013 and July 2014 in the capital
were found ‘false’.

Jaipur Police
In 2016, 330 rape cases recorded and
of the 276 cases solved, 43% turned
out to be fake

Reasons
Extortion
Revenge
Sex Rape

Death is irreversible
Rarest of the Rare Crimes

Once proved guilty,

Death becomes a small
punishment
 Capital Punishment – Violation of Human Rights !
8 ◈ Is rape resulting in death only the heinous crime ?
◈ Supreme Court Lawyer – Karuna Nundy asked
what is “true justice” ?
◈ Many that live deserve death. And some that die
deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not
be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
◈ Will death penalty stops Rape ? – No… the rot
runs deeper

“CHURI NAHI CHALI, KHOON NAHI BAHA ISKA MATLAB YE NAHI KI

MUJHE DARD KAM HUA THA YA TAQLEEF KAM HUI THI” -
 Does CP create
DETERENCE?
• In India every 22 minutes a woman is raped a
per reports in 2017.
• Even after the amendment act in 2013, rape
cases are consecutively increasing.
• Indian courts disposed of only 18300 cases
related to rape that year, leaving more than
127800 cases pending at he end of 2017.

9
 Death Penalty is not a proven deterrent to future
rapists/murders
◈ Some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain
that the death penalty has the opposite effect of deterrence that is, the society is
brutalized by the use of the death penalty and this increases the likelihood of more
murder.
◈ States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower
murder rates than states that do.
◈ The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with
the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada,
which do not use the death penalty.
◈ There is no conclusive proof that the death penalty acts as a better deterrent than the
threat of life imprisonment.
 Death Penalty: Just another form of violence

◈ Is the death penalty instilling peace and harmony or just instilling feelings of
violence amongst the people??
◈ Understanding the psychology of the criminal.
◈ The criminals who perform these heinous crimes are, mentally ill, disturbed or
may be retarded and do not share OUR value of the human life.

What’s our excuse to want another human being’s life taken and how does
that make us different from them?
 Capital Punishment is Discriminatory
◈ Our death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if
you’re poor and innocent.
◈ The death penalty is mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire
an effective lawyer.
◈ People of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced
to death, and executed, especially if the victim in the case is white.
◈ The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the most culpable. Instead, it's
inflicted on the most vulnerable.
◈ It is used as a political tool. The authorities in some countries use the death
penalty to punish political opponents.
 THE IMPACT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ON
FAMILIES
• The families of the condemned are traumatized as they watch
their government systematically prepare to kill their loved one.
• The death penalty teaches people, especially children, that
killing is an acceptable way to solve problems.
I am not suggesting that the end of a legal case brings
• Not all criminal cases receive the same level of treatment. “closure” to families, but I am suggesting that the
• Straight executions do not give punishment to the prosecutor it ongoing, high profile, nature of death penalty cases
relieves him of the pain of punishment. continues to open up wounds making it extremely difficult
to heal.-----Rachel King
• In some cases the offenders family start helping the victims
family ,but in death penalties this feeling of courtesy expires
• People who initially supported the death penalty sometimes
decide that they no longer support it.

Research paper :JUDICATURE Volume 89, Number 5 March-April 2006 by Rachel King - teaches legal writing at Howard Law
School
the impact of capital punishment on families of ... - IN.gov
www.in.gov
 Capital punishment more
of a revenge than a
punishment
 Only if people are kept alive that there
remains a chance of repentance and
rehabilitation.

Example : Does the fear of death deter a jihadi from continuing with
their vendetta? No, it definitely does not. They believe that if they die as
a result of their mission they will become martyrs and be elevated to
Paradise without awaiting judgement. So, jihadists do not even hesitate
from turning suicide bombers.

Murder Rate in Death Penalty and Non-Death Penalty states ,2016

[Source:https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/]
 Flipside - Against the motion
Capital punishment for heinous crimes
like Rape violates the human right to life

15
3 Pillars of Capital Punishment

◈ All guilty ◈ Only guilty ◈ Guilty people

people deserved people deserve to deserve to be
to be punished. be punished. punished in
proportion to the
severity of their
crime.
Against the Argument
◈ Prevention of reoffending
◈ Sends Strong message of ‘ZERO
TOLERANCE’
◈ It is the manner in which the court respond to
the society’s cry for justice against the
criminals.
◈ Since society has highest interest in preventing
rapes, it should use the strongest punishment
available to deter it.
 Belief in Other Customs
◈ Judism and Christianity- “Whosoever sheadth man’s blood,
shall his blood be shed”
◈ Italian- "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life”
◈ Roman- “One who has taken the life of another, has forfeited
his own right to life.”

Indian law Section 302 states that “ Death penalty given only for
RAREST OF THE RARE Cases” but how rare is rare??
BIGGER PICTURE From 1995-2000, executions at
average 71 per year, the murder rate
dropped from 10.2 (per 100000) to 5.7
which was a 44% reduction

“What about the rights to life of the

victims who did not even do Rosa Velez case (2002), The burglar Luis
anything????” Vera stated openly “Yeah I shot her, and I
knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.”
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20 ◈ Rape is more common crime than murder ◈ The Supreme Court heard 12 death penalty
(National Crime Record Bureau). cases in 2018 but confirmed death penalty
◈ in only one case - of Nirbhaya gangrape
Mother of Hyderabad doctor, demanded
same treatment should be meted out to the and murder.
culprits. ◈ With time the incident of crime fades from
◈ public memory, including those of the
The grandfather of Nirbhaya, demanded
the rapists should be handed over to public prospective rapists. 
who will do "justice" to them.
◈ Whilst a girl was raped, shot dead and
burnt in Bihar; another was raped and
strangulated to death in Karnataka and yet
another was raped and killed in Rajasthan.
◈ It was found that 162 death sentences
were awarded across the country in 2018.
Only 23 were confirmed by the high
courts
Capital Punishment
◈ The principle of capital ◈ Is capital punishment is
punishment is that certain 100% effective as a
murderers deserve nothing deterrent to the criminal
less than death as a just, being executed ?
proportionate and effective
punishment. 
 The death penalty prevents future murders.
◈ In 1973, Isaac Ehrlich, a criminologist, analyzed murder rates to prove if they fluctuated with the
likelihood of convicted murderers being executed. According to his analysis, for every inmate who was
executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder.

◈ According to Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University, sparing the lives
of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the
lives of convicted murderers because of the possibility that executing them would not deter others.

◈ Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The punishment of death penalty a
murderer suffers is voluntarily risked by himself and hence it is not unjust to him.

◈ Both as a deterrent and as a form of permanent incapacitation, the death penalty helps to prevent future
crime.
 A just society requires the death penalty for the taking
of a life.
◈ Retribution has its basis in religious values, which have historically maintained that it is proper to take an
“eye for an eye” and a life for a life.

◈ The victim and the victim's family cannot be restored to the status which preceded the murder, at least an
execution brings closure to the murderer's crime (and closure to the ordeal for the victim's family) and
ensures that the murderer will create no more victims.

◈ Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma City, described his concept of the need for retribution in one
case: "The offenders for the most cruel and heinous crimes should not lie in some prison with three meals
a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need
to die."

◈ If the criminal has forfeited a right to life, he deserves to be executed, especially if it will likely deter
would-be murderers. The state has a duty to execute those convicted of murder and promote justice.
CHILD RAPE, A HENIOUS CRIME
◈ People should have faith in the law which has been enacted.
◈ The law should generate fear in the hearts of potential criminals
and violators.
◈ Raping a child deserves a very harsh sentence, and that sentence is
death.
◈ In most cases, someone who the victim is familiar with commits
the rape.
◈ Capital punishment is not a knee-jerk reaction to the problem.
◈ Undoubtedly, it is not the severity of the punishment but the
certainty and uniformity of it which will reduce crime.
Thankyou!

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