The death penalty

¡¦The death penalty is one of the most controversial issues in the world. Both the pros and

cons are convincing, so it is difficult to conclude which is better. I am favorable to it, so

I¡Çd like to write an article which justifies it.

¡¡Deterrent Effect of death penalty
¡¦The origin of the death penalty is an execution as a lesson to everyone. It is often said

that the death penalty doesn¡Çt work as a deterrence to criminals. It is true that the

statistics of criminal rates support this opinion. The number of cruel crimes are increasing

as if criminals didn¡Çt fear punishment. I admit that it is a bad point against the death

penalty. This is one disadvantage compared to opponents.

Innocent victims
¡¦It seems that this point is the most advantageous for anti-death penalty, because if

innocent victims are killed, it is homicide by the government. However, every system has

its defects. For example, even though policemen might kill criminals by shooting, is there

anyone who insists that they shouldn¡Çt have guns? These types of opinions are so

applicable that you would be forced to criticize anything dangerous.

Moreover, opponents often overlook the fact that authorities abuse their power.

The main cause of innocent victims is that policemen don¡Çt have to take any responsibility

for their mistakes. If there were any articles that punish innocent victims, they can¡Çt

arrest people without a lot of evidence first.

Under the current law, there are many mis-arrests or imputation cases. The most terrible

case is that of a policeman arrested a suspect speculatively. It turned out that the suspect

was innocent, but the police imputed a crime to him and forced him to accept a plea

bargain. Not only couldn¡Çt they resolve this incident but they also created an innocent

victim intentionally. Some may argue that my proposal could make policemen less powerful

that they can¡Çt handle dangerous situations, but speculative arrests seldom guarantee to

resolve incidents and the innocent victim problem can¡Çt be resolved without a deterrent to

authorities.

Cruelty standard
¡¦ Opponents don¡Çt think cruelty standard justifies the death penalty, because killing is

the worst thing for human beings. If there were such a standard, non-cruel homicide would be

justified. As a result, it could violate human rights.

However, there is a supreme court decision that death penalty by hanging isn¡Çt cruel in

terms of article 36, so it is constitutional to its extent. (However, the electric chair or

neck cut is unconstitutional.) If there weren¡Çt any such standard, government could

perform any death penalty to criminals. I think it is effective to restrain power abuse at

least.

Criminal¡Çs human right
¡¦If a criminal wanted a death penalty from his heart, what should we do? Without the

death penalty, it would violate his last desire. It is rare such cases, however it is better

that they have choice. It is well known that criminals who were announced to be

killed try to reform themselves to make their short life significant. We don¡Çt overlook the

fact that a death possibility makes life worth.

Government responsibility
¡¦Some Islamic country sentences women who have affairs death penalty. They take

responsibility against their fail to control the crime by death penalty. As I wrote above, a

deterrence effect isn¡Çt strong, but it is important for government to maintain peace and to

declare unacceptable values or crimes to people at least. Opponents would criticize that

death penalty is extreme, so the imprisonment will do instead of it. In this point, both of

them are even. I think it is responsible for the government to get rid of unrehabilitated

criminals from usual people, so there is no way except for the death penalty.

A dialog with a friend
¡¦ My friend once said ¡ÈIf I were a criminal and you were a judge, would you be reluctant

to sentence me to death ?¡É I replied ¡ÈNo, absolutely not¡É. He smiled, ¡ÈYou are the best

friend. But I would choose suicide over the death penalty, because it is shameful to be

killed by others¡É. ¡ÈIf all of criminals were noble as you, we wouldn¡Çt have to think about

this problem¡É. ¡ÈYou can say that again. This topic tends to be complicated. The basic

principle is how to take the responsibility for our crimes¡É. ¡ÈWe need to think about the

punishment itself before going to death penalty. But it is very tough. I¡Çd like to avoid

it¡É. ¡ÈIf I were a person in the Edo era, I wouldn¡Çt have to take life into consider¡Ä¡É

¡ÈStop,stop. Human rights regulate us and gives me interesting problems. Ethical problem is

the beauty of possibility¡É. ¡ÈYou¡Çre right¡É.