The spokespersons against capital punishment describe it as morally and ethically wrong, equate the death penalty with legalized murder, and ask: If the premeditated killing of another human being is wrong, how does the premeditated killing of the murderer make it right? Shouldn’t society repudiate the death penalty and emphasize mercy rather than revenge?
These questions asked by death penalty opponents are legitimate questions for society to consider. The debate surrounding the death penalty includes discussion of the sanctity of human life, personal responsibility, and the role of the state in administering justice. Yet, for all this complexity, the death penalty remains primarily a form of punishment. It assumes that human life is sacred, and that the killers who take the lives of their victims forfeit the rights to their own.
In the Western legal tradition, murder is defined as the deliberate malicious killing of a person. Throughout history, murder has always been regarded as a serious crime. In tribal societies, it was murder that led to the concept of the blood feud, also known as the vendetta.
According to some historians and anthropologists, the emergence of religious and legal codes were the first attempts by humans to restrain the destruction of blood feuds. The ancient Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (1760 BCE) was one of the first examples of a city forming a religious-secular code of rules for citizens to follow. In the Code of Hammurabi are the first proscriptions against murder, and the first occurrence of the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” which specified that if a free man murdered another free man, he too would die.
The ancient city-states could not allow blood feuds between tribes to escalate into outright war in the streets. By codifying rules of conduct, the state claimed the right and the responsibility of vengeance from the victim’s relatives. Thus, the city-states elevated the crime of murder above the level of the blood feud, claiming that murder affected society as a whole. Murder became the ultimate crime, an offense against society, not just the victim and his family. Finally, the state ended the blood feud by inventing capital punishment.
Some arguments suggest that capital punishment is all about revenge. In fact, Albert Pierrepont, the last official hangman in the United Kingdom, wrote in his memoirs: “Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing but revenge.” But is revenge inherently immoral? Let’s not forget that murder is a horrifying, vicious crime. The reality is that there are few innocent people on death row; the vast majority of these inmates did, in fact, commit the crimes for which they were found guilty. These killers brutally took the lives of innocent victims. Like in the case of Ajmal Amir Kasab, who took millions of lives without a thought, can we rest peacefully, when all his victim’s families still weep over their loved ones, while Kasab is alive and well, with the states permission and the public’s funds?In the end, the death penalty is an individual punishment for an individual crime.
For better or worse, the law is the codified morality of society. While society is far from perfect, it reserves the ultimate judgment on the rule of law. Punishment is the only proven method to enforce the law. Everyone agrees that murder is a crime, and we agree there must be a punishment for the crime. We disagree over whether the death penalty is necessary. If you recognize the sanctity of human life, however, there can be no debate: The ultimate crime deserves the ultimate punishment.
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