Discussion # 1
Discussion # 1
Discretionary death penalty laws are considered more just, fair and reasonable than mandatory penalty laws because it allowed the jury the option to impose life imprisonment instead of death (Bohm, 2012, p.9). Mandatory death penalty can be considered as contrary to justice, fairness and morality because of the theory that criminality was not freely chosen by the criminal, but the criminal behavior of such individual was a consequence of biological and environmental factors that are beyond such person’s control (Bohm, 2012, p.9). Based on this premise, the motivation and causation that influences an individual to develop to a serial killer can be either of these factors including biological, sociological and psychological influences. Hence, it can be presumed that biological circumstance such as the genetic make-up of an individual which he or she acquires at birth has the propensity to incite a person to become a criminal. In addition, there are other features that may drive on to become a criminal based on personality, environment, traumatic experiences and lack of human socialization. These are contributory factors that arouse the deviant behavior among criminals. If this presumption is true, it will be unfair to hold the criminals completely responsible for their criminal behavior that is completely beyond their control.
Unlike in discretionary death penalty laws, the criminal shall have the chance to reform to be cured from circumstances such as mental illness or insanity since the deviant behavior was already inherent the moment such person was born. This has become one of the common defenses being used in order to avoid the imposition of death penalty. This presumption is leaning towards the rationale that it will be unfair to execute an individual for a crime that was completely beyond his or her control to begin with.
This can be best illustrated in the case of the Powell Vs. Alabama, involving seven White boys who were on a train on their way to Alabama, who reported to the station master that “a bunch of Negroes” picked up a fight with them and so the while males were thrown off the train except for one. Two white female train passengers accused 9 young African American boys of raping them. All of the defendants, except Roy Wright were sentenced to death after one day of trial. The defendants appealed their conviction where the Supreme Court ruled that they were not afforded the right to a counsel before the trial, which was a violation of the right to due process (Acker, 2008). The Civil Rights movement in the US has affected the decision as the people clamored for application of the rule of law and to observe justice and equality, which are fundamental rights found in the Constitution. Hence, death penalty in the case of the 9 black African-American boys was unfairly imposed and considered discriminatory. In the interest of fairness, equality, reasonableness and justice, no degree of racial or ethnic discrimination shall take place at any point in time in the criminal justice process and the imposition of death penalty is included.
Death penalty has not been proven as an effective means to deter commission of crimes. Since death penalty is unconstitutional and is open to abuses, it is best that it should be abolished since there is insufficient evidence to prove that it lower the rates of capital crime. In fact, it has been imposed discriminatorily against certain identifiable classes of people and caused a transgression of the Bill of Rights to guard the people against cruel and inhuman punishments, as shown in the case of Powell vs. Alabama.
References
Bohm, R. M. (2012). Deathquest, 4th edition: An introduction to the theory and practice of capital punishment in the United States. Waltham, MA: Anderson Publishing Inc.
Acker, J. R. (2008). Scottsboro and its legacy: The case that challenged American legal and social justice. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
