Defending the Death Penalty

1980 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Berns
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Law

The allegedly moral objections to capital punishment are a product of modern amoral political philosophy, from which has derived the modern reluctance to exact retribution. Retribution is demanded by angry and morally indignant people, and, it is said, there is no legitimate basis for this anger and indignation. But anger, as Aristotle demonstrates, is con nected to justice; and, when it is aroused by the sight of crime, it deserves to be rewarded. By punishing the criminal, the law rewards this anger and thereby teaches law-abidingness; by so doing, it promotes respect for those things-such as human life-that the criminal has violated. From retribu tion comes the principle that the punishment should fit the crime, and the only punishment that fits some crimes-for example, some particularly heinous murders-is capital punishment. If human life is to be held in awe, as it should be, the law forbidding the taking of it must be held in awe, and the only way the law can be made awe inspiring is to entitle it to inflict the penalty of death.

Death and Dignity in American Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
American Law ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
The Law

Dignity serves many purposes in American law, but the concept is perhaps most vital in decisions on the death penalty. Since 1972, when the Supreme Court briefly banned capital punishment, American jurists have debated whether death sentences violate “the dignity of man.” These legal debates describe dignity as an innately human attribute and a core feature of human nature. In practice, however, courts employ dignity to instantiate a particular model of democratic governance. Legal cases on the death penalty treat dignity as a fundamentally relational concept, less a characteristic of personhood than a state of existing in dialogue with the law. This vision of dignity is more institutional and alienable than conceptions that emphasize unwavering worth. Ultimately, the approach to dignity in death penalty cases displaces an individuated account of the term and raises a basic question about whether dignity can exist in the absence of the law.

scholarly journals PARADIGM OF DEATH PENALTY (COMPARATIVE STUDY IN INDONESIA, SAUDI ARABIA AND CHINA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tedy Nopriandi ◽  
Risky Fany Ardhiansyah
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Right

The death penalty is one of old criminal type as the age of human life, and the most controversial crime in of all criminal systems, both in countries that adhere to the Common Law System and in countries that embrace Civil Law, Islamic Law and Socialist Law. There are two main thoughts about the death penalty, namely: first, those who want to keep it based on the force provisions, and second are those who wish to the abolition as a whole. Indonesia includes a country that still maintains capital punishment in a positive legal system. This paper aims to resolve problems of the death penalty concept concerning the controversy purpose of the death penalty and to analyze the regulations, procedures and philosophies regarding the death penalty in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and China. This paper uses normative juridical research and the methods based on the doctrine and developed by the author. The approach used the legal approach, historical approach and comparative approach, then analyzed by the customary method.The result of the study shows that the death penalty can be seen from the philosophical aspects of Indonesian criminal law, as well as the philosophical aspects of Islamic and Chinese criminal law. So that everything can not be separated from the essential legal objectives, namely for the creation of justice. Death penalty in Islamic law turns out the concept of restorative justice specifically for the crime of deliberate killing (al-qatl al-'amd), which the execution highly depends on the victim’s family. The victim’s family, in this case, has the right to choose whether qisas (death penalty) or their apologize for the murder suspect, and diyat payment. While China in the implementation of death penalty applies the concept of rehabilitation, which in the execution of the death penalty is called a death penalty delay for two years and in its implementation, the defendant is given a job and control them. Whereas in Indonesia, capital punishment is a specific criminal offence and threatened with alternatives and is still a draft Criminal Code.

The Effect of Executions on Homicides: A New Look in an Old Light

1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lempert
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Homicide Rates ◽  
Unemployment Rates ◽  
Relevant Variables ◽  
The Law ◽  
New Look

Professor Isaac Ehrlich, in his well-known article on the death penalty, argues that previous research on the deterrent effects of capital punishment, as exemplified by the work of Thorsten Sellin, is inadequate because it focuses on the wrong issue and because it fails to control for relevant variables. Ehrlich's first point is that if one is searching for deterrence it is the law in action (i.e., the actu al incidence of executions) rather than the law on the books (i.e., the presence or absence of the death penalty) which is crucial. His second point is that in order to spot deterrent effects other factors which might affect homicide rates, such as conviction rates and unemployment rates, must be held constant. Many of those who believe that Ehrlich's work is fundamentally flawed nevertheless accept these criticisms.

scholarly journals Permissibility of Death Penalty as a Hermeneutic Dilemma

Verbum Vitae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-326
Author(s):  
Michał Kosche
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

The notion of moral fairness of application of capital punishment is stretched between two poles of opposite interpretative meanings. On the one hand, there is an imperative related to maintaining the social order and good that justifies in some specific cases killing an individual for the good of the community; on the other hand, there is the message of the Gospel about holiness of each human life. In this regard, at the attempt to investigate the fairness of death penalty, a certain hermeneutic tension related to the overlapping of rights and obligations both with regard to the criminal and society that needs to be protected against him or her. The starting point of this article is an outlook on death penalty with due regard of a ‘hermeneutic charge’ contained both in the duty to protect common good and each individual’s life. Next, the ‘genuine paradox’ was analysed that emerges in a situation where the right to live and the right to protect overlap. All the considerations are concluded with a question whether the recent abolitionist interpretation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church should be classified as the continuity hermeneutic or rather the discontinuity hermeneutic.

The Law of Homicide

2011 ◽  
pp. 97-112
Author(s):  
David Novak
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter argues that the law prohibiting murder is the Noahide commandment most immediately and rationally evident. The rabbis considered its prohibition from two distinct points of view, the theological and the political. In theological terms, murder is the intentional taking of another human life, a life created in the image of God. In political terms, murder wrecks social life. Regarding murder at the individual level, the rabbis differentiated criteria for the punishment of Jews and gentiles. For Jews who commit murder, the death penalty is employed only under the strict standard of “hatra'ah,” or forewarning. Such a dispensation was not available to non-Jews. The law of homicide also deals with the morally knotty issue of abortion. Rabbinic Judaism permitted abortion only when the mother's life was in danger, but for Noahides, abortion was proscribed in every case.

scholarly journals KONSEPSI DAN APLIKASI PIDANA MATI DALAM PERADILAN DI INDONESIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 711
Author(s):  
I Made Pasek Budiawan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Psychotropic Substances ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process

Imposition of the death penalty by the judge in the criminal justice process Indonesia still remains a debate among groups that agread with the group that oppose it. But in some laws for special crimes such as terrorism, corruption, narcotics, psychotropic substances, and a human rights capital punishment is still regulated, as well as of the criminal code and the concept of the criminal code by 2015 capital punishment is still based. The  existence of the group that did not agree with the conception and application of this dying, argued that human life bussiness, my God, not the man to lift the perspective of the scientific criminal law that a death penalty still exists in all criminal acts by perpetrators of crimes with widespread impact as well as detrimental to the wider community the research for criminal santions was important to examine the existence of the norms of law as a basic for corrector by maximum capital punishment in Indonesia. Penjatuhan pidana mati oleh hakim dalam proses peradilan pidana Indonesia masih tetap menjadi perdebatan antara kelompok yang setuju dengan kelompok yang menentangnya. Namun dalam beberapa undang-undang tindak pidana khusus seperti terorisme, korupsi, narkotika, psikotropika dan peradilan hak asasi manusia pidana mati masih diatur, begitu juga KUHP dan konsep KUHP tahun 2015 pidana mati masih tetap dicanangkan. Adanya kelompok yang tidak setuju dengan konsepsi dan aplikasi pidana  mati ini berdalih bahwa nyawa manusia menjadi urusan Tuhan, bukan menjadi kewenangan manusia untuk mencabutnya. Perspektif keilmuan hukum pidana bahwa pidana mati masih eksis untuk diberlakukan sepanjang tindak pidana yang dilakukan pelaku menyangkut kejahatan luar biasa dengan dampak luas serta merugikan masyarakat luas. Penelitian terhadap sanksi pidana mati penting dilakukan guna meneliti keberadaan norma hukum sebagai dasar pembenar dijatuhkannya pidana mati ini di Indonesia.

Executing the Innocent

1998 ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Linehan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Decisive Objection

The risk of executing innocent persons is a decisive objection to the institution of capital punishment in the United States. Consequentialist arguments for the death penalty are inconclusive at best; the strongest justification is a retributive one. However, this argument is seriously undercut if a significant risk of executing the innocent exists. Any criminal justice system carries the risk of punishing innocent persons, but the punishment of death is unique and requires greater precautions. Retributive justifications for the death penalty are grounded in respect for innocent victims of homicide; but accepting serious risks of mistaken executions demonstrates disrespect for innocent human life. United States Supreme Court decisions of the 1990’s (Coleman v. Thompson and Herrara v. Collins) illustrate the existence of serious risk and suggest some explanations for it.

scholarly journals CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL LAWS GOVERNING CRIME

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (72) (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263
Author(s):  
S. G. Ol’kov
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Policy ◽  
Criminal Penalty ◽  
Criminal Penalties ◽  
The Law ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Prevention Of Crime ◽  
Physical Laws

The purpose of the article, based on the mathematical model of criminal responsibility and the fundamental laws of criminal policy, is to prove the necessity of applying the maximum criminal penalty in the form of a death penalty. Scientific methods: methods of mathematical analysis, probability theory, and mathematical statistics. Scientific results obtained by the author: the necessity of using the maximum criminal penalty in the form of the death penalty is proved on the basis of the law of increasing marginal utility of criminal penalties and the law of demand for goods of crime at a price, because this punishment provides a strong deterrence of crime, both at the level of General and special prevention of crime by criminal penalties. It is shown that in 2019 in Russia, the elasticity of real crime was 3.22%, the latency multiplier for General crime was 3.38, with the minimum latency for robberies of 1.03 and the maximum for fraud of 11.26. Equation of demand for a product crime by price for real crime in 2019 in Russia

scholarly journals DIKOTOMI PIDANA MATI SEBAGAI HAK ASASI MANUSIA DI INDONESIA MENURUT HUKUM POSITIF DAN HUKUM PIDANA ISLAM

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 15-33
Author(s):  
Muhammad Afif
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Difference

Eksekusi hukuman mati dalam hukum positif Indonesia dilakukan dengan cara hukuman mati, yang berarti bahwa eksekusi hukuman mati tidak dilakukan di depan orang banyak atau tidak dipublikasikan. Dalam hukum pidana Islam, dieksekusi dengan cara dipenggal, dilempar dengan batu (Rajam) dan dieksekusi di depan umum, artinya eksekusi hukuman mati disaksikan oleh publik. Jenis penelitian merupakan penelitian normative.Pokok bahasan dari artikel ini adalah bagaimana eksekusi hukuman mati memberikan efek jera bagi masyarakat? karena salah satu tujuan hukuman mati adalah memberikan efek jera kepada seseorang / masyarakat agar tidak melakukan kejahatan. Tidak ada perbedaan antara eksekusi hukuman mati dilihat dalam hukum positif Indonesia dan hukum Islam, pada dasarnya kedua tindak pidana tersebut sama-sama memberikan efek jera berupa ketakutan kepada publik untuk melakukan kejahatan atau tindakan yang melanggar hukum. Perbedaan antara hukum positif Indonesia dan hukum Islam, hanya dalam hal prosedur eksekusi. Abstract The execution of the death penalty in Indonesian positive law is carried out by means of a death shot, meaning that the execution of the death penalty is not carried out in front of a crowd or unpublished. In Islamic criminal law, the execution is executed by beheaded, thrown with stone (Rajam) and the execution is executed in front of the public, meaning that the execution of capital punishment is witnessed by the public. this type of research is normative research. The subject matter of this article is how the execution of capital punishment theoretically gives more deterrent effect to society? because one of the objectives of criminalizing, especially capital punishment is to give deterrent effect to a person / society in order not to commit a crime / crime. The execution of the death penalty between two criminal sides namely the positive crime of Indonesia and Islamic crime, basically the two criminal act equally give a deterrent effect in the form of fear to the public to commit a crime or a crime that violates the law. It's just possible to see the difference between positive criminal Indonesia and Islamic crime in terms of the procedure of execution execution.  

scholarly journals The Shadow of the Gallows: The Death Penalty and the British Labour Government, 1945–51

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Pregnant Women ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
British Labour ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law

The punishment prescribed by English law for murder in the first half of the twentieth century was death. A judge had to pronounce this sentence upon a person convicted of murder, except in two special classes of cases: persons under eighteen years of age at the time of the offense and pregnant women. He had no discretion to impose any less severe sentence. While retribution survived only in a symbolic form elsewhere in the criminal law, capital punishment, as Oxford criminologist Max Grunhut maintained, was a “powerful relic of retaliation in kind.” The law still reflected the ancient concept that every murderer forfeits his life becauce he has taken another's life: “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.”

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