The death penalty is a situation where an individual arraigned in a court of law for a certain crime is sentenced to death. Due to the seriousness of this sentence, it is apparent that the evidence provided in court for such cases must be beyond reasonable doubt. It is for this reason that almost all the cases which end with a death sentence are referred to the Supreme Court for appeals. This essay looks at the case of Atkins v Virginia (2002). It will give the details of the case and the sentence thereon. The essay seeks to assert the fact that capital punishment in this case was not the best way out. The argument will be supported with evidence which will seek to assert the opinion.
A brief overview of the case can is given by Oyez (2009). The facts of the case are that Daryl Renard Atkins committed the acts of abduction, armed robbery and capital murder. During the trial, the defense heavily relied on a forensic psychiatrist who argued that Atkins had a slight mental retardation. Despite his argument and the defense’s attempt at proving his innocence, Atkins was eventually sentenced to death by the lower court. The matter was referred to the Virginia Supreme Court on the appeal. This was so because the trial court had used a wrong verdict form. In the hearing, the defense still used the same witness to argue that Atkins was mentally retarded, so he could not be held accountable for his actions. In rejecting Atkin’s argument that he could not be sentenced to death on the basis of his mental retardation, the court referred to the case of Penry v. Lynaugh. Eventually, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the ruling by the trial court, sentencing Atkins to death (Supreme Court, 2002).
In arguing for the position that the sentence was not served right, there is the need to look at the broader perspective, before narrowing down to the details of the case. It is well known that America is a country that is governed with truth and justice; with the equality of all the people being upheld. All the people are under equal protection of the law. In order to make sure that this is achieved, the country strongly holds onto the values embedded in its constitution. There are the 14 Amendments of the Constitution which are commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights. The Amendment VIII has it that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (Free Dictionary, 2012). Going by this argument, then sentencing Atkins to death is an act against this provision. Even the court in its ruling agreed that passing the death sentence was a violation of the provision. Therefore, there is a question as to why with this understanding, the court had to go ahead and rule in favor of the capital punishment; it just does not add up. In as much as Atkins had gone against the law, it still holds that he deserved a fair trial. Sentencing him to death was a pure violation of his constitutional rights as an American citizen.
There would be an objection to this where the opponents would argue that the practice of one’s rights does not extend to the violation of another’s rights. In this case, it is argued that by committing murder, Atkins had acted against the victim’s right to life. This cannot be denied; it is true and fully acceptable. However, it has to be noted that capital punishment is not the only way through which an individual can be corrected. There are other better ways of doing the same. As such, this essay does not argue that Atkins was innocent; no. the argument is that in correcting him, there was a better way which could have been more effective as compared to the death sentence.
Arguing in favor of the ruling, the judges of the Supreme Court further indicated that the provision of the Eighth Amendment would only hold “if the punishment is not graduated and proportioned to the offense” (Cornell.edu, 2002). Well, they argued that in this case, the crime had graduated and therefore the defendant deserved being sentenced to death. This essay tends to divert from this assertion, citing the reason stated below.
First of all, the courts in both rulings failed to accept the evidence provided by the forensic psychiatrist who argued that Atkins had slight mental retardation. There is no reason as to why the courts could just choose to brush off the argument by the psychiatrist who was well qualified and skilled at his work. There is no reason as to why his evidence was rendered inadmissible. Based on the witness’ argument, there has to be an argument in relation to the responsibility to the crime. This where an individual can be held accountable for the crime committed, when it is clear that the individual was in a stable state of mind as at when the crime was committed. This brings in the issue of mens rea. According to Duheim (2012), this is defined as “criminal intent.” It is that state of mind which indicates culpability. This is required by statute as one of the pillars in crime. In expounding on the issue, it can be termed as the mental liability to a crime committed by an individual. In order to argue that an individual was guilty of a given crime, the prosecution has to provide evidence, beyond reasonable doubt, which asserts that the individual was in a stable state of mind as he committed the crime. in this case, it would have been very important to justify that when Atkins committed the assault, he was in his own mind. This would be the only way through which such a ruling would hold. This argument, coupled with the court’s dismissal of the psychiatrist’s evidence, serves to indicate that the sentencing was not fair.
The court fully agreed with this during its ruling, comparing the case to that of Penry. They argued that the mentally retarded individuals were not likely to be fully culpable. For instance, due to their failure of understanding on the implications of their confessions, they might own up to serious crimes, some of which they did not even commit. Due to their mental instability, they are likely to be quite a headache to even the counsel or their defense. As such, it would be quite out of virtue to sentence a mentally retarded individual to the capital punishment. Based on this argument, the court should have considered this position and sought for a better remedy for the situation. Sentencing Atkins to death was not the ethical thing to do.
One of the methods used in the American Law Courts is looking at the preceding cases. Based on how the cases were handled, it would be possible to argue for a present case and tune it to the past one. In relation to this, the defense in the Atkins case sought to use the past rulings to try and persuade the court of law to steer away from the death sentence. In order to cite these past cases, there is the need for detailed research to determine the facts of the cases, how they map to the present case and how the ruling can be applied.
In relation to this issue, Atkin’s defense team did their assignment quite right. They presented a study based on the McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) (Oyez, 2012). This case generated quiet a hot debate through the manner in which it was handled. During the trial, the jury was able to prove two things beyond reasonable doubt; the murder was committed in course of an armed robbery. It was also committed against a police officer who was going on with his duty. The Supreme Court, again, upheld the ruling of the lower court when the matter was taken before it. However, the defense could not rest at that. They produced a study that had been carried out by Baldur, a professor at the University of Iowa, School of Law. He had looked at the issue of capital punishment and came up with very interesting findings; it was administered on a racial basis. Having looked at a total of 39 variables in relation to the rulings, Baldur argued that all the individuals who were convicted of having murdered white received the capital punishment. It was also indicated that the defendants charged with killing the whites were 4.3 times as much more to be sentenced to death as compared to individuals who had killed whites. Bottom line is that the death penalty tended to be racially discriminative.
Armed with this evidence, this essay seeks to take the position that the capital punishment should not be upheld. This is not only in relation to the Atkins v. Virginia case, but also in relation to the overall process of the law. Going back to the American constitution, all individuals are equal before the law and they are entitled to protection by eth law. As such, there is no reason as to why some people should seem to be favored by the law; where crimes against them are punished more severely than crimes against the other people. The judicial arm of the government is the arm which is responsible for making sure that the provisions of the constitution are not violated. By adopting the capital punishment, this arm goes against the very constitution that it is supposed to defend. Due to this assertion, this essay takes the position that capital punishment should not be an option, and that is why it should not have been applied in this case.
There would be possible arguments against their assertion where it would be argued that the provision on capital punishment only comes about when the courts prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that an individual is actually guilty of the crime committed. There would also be the argument that if the capital punishment would be eliminated, then the people would not fear committing crimes such as armed robbery since they would be assured of not loosing their lives as well. in as much as this assertion is true, it has to be noted that there are other equally punitive measures which make an individual pay for his crimes, but which do not involve much abuse of human rights. It is well known that humans, being social creatures, like the feeling of freedom. This is the reason as to why the constitution has a provision on the freedom of choice, movement and the like. As such, if an individual knows that committing a crime would be a way of loosing the freedom for life; this would be enough reason to steer away from the crimes. After all, if the capital punishment is carried out, the individuals tend not to pay so much for their crimes as they are simply eliminated. Life sentence or hard labor would do better. This is the reason as to why the capital punishment should not be an option.
Lastly, there is the need to look at the philosophical arguments in relation to the capital punishment. According to Murtagh (2005), punishment involves the “deliberate infliction of suffering on a supposed or actual offender on offense such as moral or legal transgression.” Philosophers argue that punishment is justifiable, but there are some circumstances under which the argument tends to differ. There is also no clear way in which the punishment can be justified. There are various arguments put forth in relation to this issue, but this essay will only take on the utilitarian as well as the retributive philosophical arguments in relation to punishment. According to Martugh (2005), utilitarian argue that humans live in pursuit of happiness. As such, when there is an upset in the balance between happiness and unhappiness due to an individual’s acts, the balance has to be restored in one way or another. They argue that punishment is one of the ways through which the balance can be restored. In the utilitarian argument, a crime serves to upset the balance. As such, if the individual is punished, there is a possibility that the balance would be retained, and happiness would be restored. In relating this to the Atkins v. Virginia case, there is no way that the happiness would be restored. The victim had already died and the defendant was also going down the same way. There was no element of restoration of happiness in this case. What the state managed to do is to eliminate two lives; whereas they could have saved one and helped it reform so as to be more useful to the society. As such, it also has to be noted that one objection to utilitarian argument for punishment is that the punishment would at times be employed in situations where it is morally and ethically wrong. In relaying this to the Atkins v. Virginia ruling, the defendant in this case was a mental retard. As such, he might have not understood the seriousness of the crime he committed, nor the consequences thereon. He might also not be in total understanding of the reason as to why he deserved to die as well. in as much as he had committed the crime, the manner in which the case was handled was not beyond any moral retribution; there is a lot more than meets the eye.
The second philosophical argument on punishment is the retribution. This goes very much the same as the utilitarian argument, only that in this case, justice - and not happiness – is the subject. An individual committing a crime tends to upset the justice balance by going against the rights of others. As such, in order to bring back the justice equilibrium, the individual also has to be punished. In other words, his rights also have to be broken just as he broke the rights of others. The argument against this course is that the punishment does not rehabilitate nor reform the criminals. Rather, it can even make them vengeful where they want to take revenge on those that passed the sentence on them. In relation to this, it can be argued that the punishment is not the best way put. In the current case, passing the death sentence did not do much to restore the justice balance. Rather, it only went as far as breaking the rights of another individual.
In conclusion, this essay has looked at Atkins v. Virginia, a case in which the defendant was charged as guilty and sentenced to death. The essay sought to prove that capital punishment was not the best option in this case. In order to assert this opinion, various arguments and evidence has been presented. This has been on two levels; first of all, there was an analysis of the details of the case itself, which revealed the issues that were not handled right during the trial. These led to the conclusion that the defendant did not deserve the sentence passed on him. On the second level, the essay looked at the issue of capital punishment as a whole. Here, there was the need to look at the dynamics of the mode of punishment in general. The aim was to prove that capital punishment should not be applied as a legal way of punishment. In so doing, the argument would be that since the capital punishment is not justifiable, then it should not have been included in this case. Based on these two arguments, the essay has come to the conclusion that the death sentence was not the best ruling for this case.
References
Duheim.org. (2012). Mens Rea Definition. Retrieved on 8th Dec. 2012 from
Murtagh, K. (2005). Punishment. Retrieved on 7th Dec. 2012 from
Oyez.org. (2012). McClensky v. Kemp. Retrieved on 8th Dec. 2012 from
Oyez.org. (2002). Atkins v. Virginia. Retrieved on 7th Dec. 2012 from
Supreme Court. (2002). Atkins v. Virginia. Retrieved on 7th Dec. 2012 from
The Free Dictionary. (2012). The Eight Amendment of the U.S Constitution. Retrieved on 8th Dec. 2012 from
