Is the death penalty moral? This is a question of great debate in our country, and it seems everyone has their own opinion on it. 

     Do we follow the philosophy of the Old Testament, where an eye for an eye is the only justified response, or do we turn to the United Nations, who have long opposed capital punishment, instead advocating for reform and long term prison sentencing?

     With so many opinions floating around, and so much variability in laws across the country, it is hard to know what to think and who to believe. 

     Capital Punishment, or the “death penalty” can be dated all the way back to the 18th Century BC. It was brought over to America when the first settlers came over from England, with the first recorded execution being that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. 

     Philosopher Immanuel Kant once stated, “ If… he has committed a murder, he must die. In this case, there is no substitute that will satisfy the requirements of legal justice. There is no sameness of kind between death and remaining alive even under the most miserable conditions, and consequently there is also no equality between the crime and retribution unless the criminal is judicially condemned and put to death.”

     If you were to kill someone, would you be more hesitant to do it knowing that your life was on the line? I know I would be. 

     According to the Pacific Research Institute, violent crime offenders now are only required to serve 50 percent of their sentence before being considered for parole. Enforcing capital punishment makes sure that these violent offenders don’t harm any more innocent people, and can even deter them from harming people before it happens. On the other hand, many abolitionists, (people who oppose the death penalty), argue against this reasoning, stating that we as humans don’t get the right to decide who lives and who dies. 

     There are valid points on both sides, and it ultimately comes down to the amount of forgiveness you are willing to extend to killers and rapists. 

     Because of this conflict in views and information, our country is split in half with whether or not capital punishment is still used. 

     The states that still enforce the death penalty are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. 

     In the state of Montana, you are able to be sentenced to death by lethal injection.

      To be sentenced to capital punishment you have to commit aggravated kidnapping; felony murder; and/or aggravated sexual intercourse without consent. This system is not flawless in any way though, and wrongful killings are more than common.

      According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), 1 in every 8 executions are exonerated. That means if there were 200 people executed in a year, 25 would be innocent. 

     When is the line crossed from strategic executions into mindless murders, almost as bad as those on death row?

     According to the DPIC, “Nearly 40% of those executed since 1976 have been black, even though blacks constitute only 12% of the population. And in almost every death penalty case, the race of the victim is white. Last year alone, 89% of the death sentences carried out involved white victims, even though 50% of the homicides in this country have black victims.”

     Our country has a large issue with racism in the judicial system, and if we can’t get it under control, we should simply abolish the death penalty. 

     All in all, my opinion is that people who commit rape, murder,and kidnapping in any sense are substantial threats to society, and even being left to rot in prison is too great a mercy. 

     What I don’t support is the level of cruelty in which we execute people, and the level of racial discrimination that is fundamentally implemented in the judicial system. If we cannot fix these major issues, then the risk is too high, and we simply must fully abolish the death penalty, for the sake of the hundreds of dead yet innocent citizens who are just as much victims as in any other murder case.