The Case Against the Death Penalty

Watch any report in the aftermath of a serious crime in the U.K and the cry is the same: “Bring back the death penalty!”

Most recently, the convictions of a serial killer responsible for the death of five prostitutes and the man jailed for cutting short the life of an eighteen-year-old girl, have re-ignited the issue to some extent, as understandably, the grieving families ride the crest of an emotional wave.

In both cases, the defendants protested their innocence despite the apparently overwhelming evidence against them, backed up by increasingly celebrated DNA forensic tests. Indeed, this relatively new technology has lead to a number of unsolved cases from years gone by being re-opened and finally concluded with an offender jailed.
But the courts cannot always rely on such powerful evidence. DNA matching is all well and good provided you have the correct samples to match, which is in turn dependant on recognising which suspect to profile or having the entire country and beyond give samples by law. In the mire of a high-profile case, where lies, suggestion and circumstantial detail cloud a jury’s mind, there can be no guarantee that you will jail, or worse, kill the right person for their crime.

However many men and women are put to death for their atrocities with the backing of cast-iron facts, there will be those in line for the ultimate punishment who are innocent. Capital punishment does not allow for mistakes and historically, there have been plenty. As recently as February 7th this year in the U.S, SunHerald.com reported on the case of Justin Albert Johnson who has just been exonerated of all charges against him, having spent the last 15 years behind bars on death row. The real offender, who raped and murdered a three-year-old girl, has proved to be yet another successful capture for DNA profiling. Mr Johnson has the dubious distinction of being the 127th person to escape the death penalty as an innocent man, and while he has been handed back his liberty, he will never recover those lost years.

With the best will in the world, far too many mistakes are made for the death penalty to be either a reliable deterrent for potential offenders or a safeguard for communities in anyone’s country. 127 people may have walked again as free men and women, but how many more died before their story came out? And there is another point to consider.
In a country such as the U.S, if a man shoots another dead, he instantly has nothing to lose. This man can now expect to die if and when he is captured, and this turns him into an altogether more dangerous prospect. With the shadow of capital punishment looming large, he will shoot any witnesses to events, the policeman who comes to arrest him and the subsequent police officers after that. Whatever the cause of the initial incident, whether intended or not, the potential is there to turn the desperate man into a serial killer as he tries to escape the inevitable. But perhaps if there is an alternative on offer, the gun is put down after the first murder when the police surround the house. A very long time in jail beckons, but our killer will live to tell the tale and might even find redemption.

This last point is of course highly controversial. Does anyone capable of killing ever really regret their actions, or make any attempts at re-education? Can they be re-educated, or at least prove to be an example enough to warn subsequent generations? It is fast becoming apparent that rehabilitation is a concept lost in a modern world, where the media help fuel the thirst for blood no matter what the case or its protagonists.

The overriding point though is this: In countries that take pride in their religious heritage, it can only be viewed as hypocrisy to settle things, eye for an eye. Centuries of civilisation and massive social leaps forward are effectively rendered null and void for as long as we continue to satisfy our own lust for revenge and play Gods.