Some Arguments Against Capital Punishment
The planned execution in Singapore of Nguyen Tuong Van on Friday, 4th December raises once again the issue of capital punishment. Can it be justified? This particular case raises some special issues which will be considered later. Note that capital punishment has been abolished in Australian law, by the Commonwealth in 1973 and by all the states in different years. Yet the issue reappears from time to time. And of course in a democracy the death sentence can be made part of law at any time if the voting public demand and vote for it.
Five arguments against capital punishment
- The danger of executing innocent people. Cases in the UK such as the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six are strong reminders of the danger of executing innocent people. Both groups were wrongly accused of carrying out pub bombings in 1975 and 1974 respectively. The Guildford bombs killed 5 people and the Birmingham bombs killed 21 people. Both groups spent over 15 years in jail before being released and exonerated. In the case of the Birmingham Six, the trial judge stated that had capital punishment been available it would certainly have been used.
- Unlikely to deter. There seem to be a large number of cases of murder, for example, where it is unlikely that capital punishment would serve as deterrence. Hit-men, psychopathic killers, serial killers and terrorists would not be deterred by the threat of capital punishment. Indeed terrorists may welcome execution as a form of martyrdom and would be recognised as such by their supporters. This may well be counterproductive by increasing the support of terrorism in many cases.
- Cruel and unusual punishment. Firstly, capital punishment involves the killing of a person which is to repeat the offence, even if judicially. Thus, for example, arsonists are not punished by having their houses burned down and someone who is convicted of assault is not punished by being assaulted. Secondly, in the United States prisoners condemned to death often have to wait for 10 years or more before the sentence is finally carried out. This is extremely cruel.
- Gradation of punishment. Prison sentences usually reflect the severity of the crime. For example, an assault may be punished by a one year jail sentence. A more serious assault may receive a two year sentence, a more serious one may receive three years and eight months and so on. A death sentence for a certain murder, for example, suggests a sharp break in the severity of the crime with a crime which receives only a prison sentence. However, no such sharp break exists. The severity of murders (and crimes in general) comes in degrees – crime A may be just a little worse than crime B which is a little worse than crime C and so on. Why impose a death sentence for a first degree murder but not for a brutal bashing which leaves the victim paralysed for life? There seems no clear dividing line between capital and non-capital crimes.
- Moral progress. In connection with the third argument, capital punishment seems a barbaric form of punishment in the same vein as stoning to death, beheading, the rack, cutting off limbs and other forms of torturing prisoners to death. Just as societies aim for progress in science, technology, agriculture, medicine, etc societies should aim for moral progress. In other words, there should be progress in the way a society and its institutions treats people such as the mentally ill, the aged, the invalid and prisoners. The condition of prisons has improved since convict days. Also, prisoners are no longer placed in solitary confinement in total darkness – visit some of the convict prisons in Tasmania to see examples of this. Nor are prisoners given 200 (or more) lashes. This is moral progress. Likewise abandoning capital punishment would be moral progress.
The current case in Singapore has difficulties of its own. There was no trial judge – the sentence was a mandatory one. This means that the death sentence was imposed automatically. The crime of drug trafficking is punished by death without considering the details of the case. Thus, extenuating circumstances such as, for example, it being a first offence, are not taken into account. In any case, the crime of drug trafficking does not warrant the death penalty.