Should Murderers be Allowed to Choose the Death Penalty?

At first glance, this would appear to be a reasonable suggestion. Surely, if someone has been convicted for murder, they should be allowed to choose death as their punishment? This would be in keeping with the ancient quotation from the Old Testament, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ (Exodus

The first of these is the fact that allowing the person to choose the death penalty could be claimed to be government assisted suicide. This would technically compromise the currently existing law. According to the 1961 Suicide Act (UK), this would define the government as an accessory to the suicide, and so under UK law, they could be charged with a criminal offence. Similarly, they could also be charged with conspiring to assist a suicide.

The second of these is that allowing the individual to select suicide allows them to escape any form of punishment that they themselves are aware of. If a criminal is permitted to end their life as a punishment, how can this be considered punishment? When the alternative is a life sentence, many would suggest that death could be considered a “get out clause”, a far more bearable solution. It is also important to consider that a dead individual is useless to the community, and to the family of both the criminal and victim.

The third of these is that many criminals convicted with murder could be considered mentally unstable. When the government offers the choice of death to an unstable criminal, they also accept the moral implications of such a decision. Is it fair to suggest the death penalty as a viable option to someone who is not currently sound of mind?

The final, and surely most important of these, is that such an act compromises the sanctity and value of life. In a democratic society where the death penalty has been abolished, how can such an act truly be justified? All major world religions agree that life is sacred and precious, and should be treasured. Even atheism as a body agrees that life is valuable, and should be lived to the full. This clearly suggests that the introduction of an optional death penalty is as inexcusable as the abolished forced death penalty, simply with the onus redirected to the individual responsible for the crime. Such an option completely counteracts what should be the primary objective of the government in such a situation: to provide a punishment whereby which the criminal learns the value of life, and is in a position to repair the damage he has caused by supporting the victim’s family to the greatest extent possible.

If the government is to impose a punishment upon a murderer, then it should not be forced to stoop so low as to commit exactly the same act as the victim has been convicted for.

21:23–27), in which any wrongdoing must be repaid with equal retribution. But on further examination, a variety of arguments can be raised.