Death+Penalty+Lit+Review

Rijul Bhardwaj Professor Grimm English 1102 March 10, 2017 Death Penalty The viability of the death penalty has been a hotly debated topic for a long time. Proponents of the death penalty argue that the death penalty is beneficial as a crime deterrent, while researchers such as Jongmook Choe have found that there has been no correlation between crime deterrence and the death penalty. There h as been however have been links from other factors such as age and income to higher homicide rates. We can probably assume that the socioeconomic factors of areas are probably what cause higher rates of crimes, and using the death penalty as a deterrent would have absolutely no effect on the circumstances that actually contribute to these crime rate. Other arguments against the death penalty include the unconstitutionality of it under the 5th amendment, which prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment. In his article, Joseph Blocher argues that even though the 5th amendment has a section contemplating the use of the death penalty, because it was constructed at a different time it will not necessarily translate into the 21st century. He further argues that the only reason the death penalty can even be considered constitutional is because the 5th amendment doesn’t specifically say it is unconstitutional, rather than saying that it is constitutional. Supporters of the death penalty also talk about how it provides justice to the families of the victims of the criminals on death row. However, the families would also be given the justice they deserve if the criminal was sentenced to life without parole. Michael Radelet also argues against the use of the death penalty by saying that the use of the death penalty not only affects the victim’s family, it also affects the innocent members of the criminal’s family. The use of life without parole would only punish the criminal and not the criminal’s innocent family. Furthermore, the use of the death penalty also has a very real risk of killing an innocent person who might have been able to prove their innocence given enough time. In these cases, the use of life without parole would have provided them sufficient time in order to prove their innocence. Overall, t here are much bigger risks and consequences of using the death penalty than t here are benefits. T here are no actual statistical benefits in the use of the death penalty and the justice aspect of it can be achieved through other means. The alternatives to the death penalty provide nearly the same benefits with none of the risks and consequences.

Works Cited Blocher, Joseph. "The Death Penalty and the Fifth Amendment." Northwestern University Law Review, vol. 111, no. 1, 15 Nov. 2016, pp. 275-293. Choe, Jongmook. "Another Look at the Deterrent Effect of Death Penalty." Journal of Advanced Research in Law & Economics (De Gruyter Open), vol. 1, no. 1, July 2010, pp. 12-15 Radelet, Michael L. "The Incremental Retributive Impact of a Death Sentence over Life without Parole." University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, vol. 49, no. 4, Summer2016, pp. 795-815.