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Capital Punishment: The Only Defense - School Essays

Capital Punishment: The Only Defense

In an average year about 20,000 homicides occur in the United States. Fewer than 300 convicted murderers are sentenced to death. But because no more than thirty murderers have been executed in any recent year, most convicts sentenced to death are likely to die of old age. Nonetheless, the death penalty looms large in discussions. The death penalty is our harshest form of punishment. It's final. It ends the life of those punished, instead of letting them live through imprisonment. Capital punishment is not intended to cause physical pain like those who commit murders inflict on their victims, but be the only corporal punishment we apply today to adults in our society.
Consideration ...

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innocent. Maldistribution of any punishment among those who deserves it is irrelevant to its justice or morality. Punishments are imposed on a person, not a race or economic group. Guilt is personal. The only question that needs to be asked is, does the person who is to be executed deserve the punishment? And that is up to our justice system.
Equality in short seems morally less important than justice. The ideal of equal justice demands that justice be equally distributed, not that it be replaced by equality. Justice requires that as many of the guilty as possible be punished, regardless of whether others have slipped through and avoided punishment. To let these others escape the deserved punishment does not do justice to them, or to society.
Despite precautions, nearly all-human activities involve the lives of some innocent bystanders. We do not give up these activities because the advantages, moral or material outweigh the unintended losses. For those who think that ...

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Capital Punishment: The Only Defense. (2007, February 4). Retrieved January 11, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Capital-Punishment-The-Only-Defense/59799

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 2/4/2007 07:03:08 PM
Category: Legal Issues
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 614
Pages: 3

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