With this essay, I aim to refute the most popular arguments in favour of the death penalty. Obviously, the word-limit precludes my discussing the cases for and against in great depth; therefore, I will restrict myself to an examination of the state-sanctioned use of capital punishment for capital crime (murder).

In his Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment , J.S. Mill puts forward a forceful case for retaining the death penalty to punish convicted murderers. His main argument might be stated as follows:

(i) any state-sanctioned punishment against criminals should be the least cruel possible and should act as the strongest social deterrence against future crime;

(ii) the death penalty is the strongest deterrence against murder;

(iii) capital punishment is less cruel than the alternative of lifelong imprisonment;

(iv) executions are quick and death is not so much to be feared;

(v) the murderer has already shown his contempt for life by killing - by killing him in turn, the state shows how much respect it has for the life of the ordinary civilian; therefore,

(vi) it is right that the death penalty be legally-sanctioned.

I wish to demonstrate that, even if one accepts

Of course, imposition of the death penalty would certainly deter a convicted murderer: he would not be alive to re-offend. However, the same end might be achieved through incarceration: if the murderer were sentenced to a life in prison without the possibility of parole, then he would not be free to kill again. Of course, Mill's objection that lifelong imprisonment is barbaric seems pertinent: surely it would be worse for a convict to "linger out what may be a long life in the hardest and most monotonous" prison conditions than to be swiftly executed by the state. Indeed, isn't this latter option the better, as death seems more fearful than it is, whilst the idea of imprisonment is more bearable than its actuality? Again I should answer, "no". As Arthur Koestler and CH Rolph argue in their book, Hanged by the Neck , state-sanctioned executions are horribly cruel (and, perhaps, worse than the murders they purport to punish) precisely because of the condemned's fear of death. H!

premise (i), premises (ii) to (v) are false and that, therefore, Mill's argument is unsound.

It might be argued that many murders are planned, but not carried out, because of the threat of capital punishment - as Lawrence Hinman writes, "some researchers claim that the death penalty saves seven to eight innocent lives each year." However, such research is at best equivocal and at worst misleading. There is no reliable method of ascertaining who has been prevented from committing murder by the idea of their own future imprisonment and death. Statistics are only available on murders actually committed - to quote Mill, "we partly know who those are whom [the death penalty] has not deterred; but who is there who knows whom it has deterred?" Nonetheless, it would seem reasonable that, if capital punishment has a deterrent effect on potential murderers, then those states which retain the death penalty will have lower murder rates than those which have abolished it. This is not so. In his article, The Case Against the Death Penalty, Hugo Bedau sets forth statistics which r!

eveal that USA "death penalty states" show no lower rate of homicide than their pro-abolition neighbours - in fact, the former show a slightly higher rate ("7.5 criminal homicides per 100,000" citizens, compared with 7.4 per 100,000 in "abolition states" ). There is no reliable evidence that capital punishment prevents murders and so we should not assume that it does. In fact, advocates of capital punishment as a means of deterrence may obscure the real motiv

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Approximate Word count = 1700
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)