Retribution and the innocent

But the issue of the execution of innocent persons is also a problem for the retribution argument - if there is a serious risk of executing the innocent then one of the key principles of retribution - that people should get what they deserve (and therefore only what they deserve) - is violated by the current implementation of capital punishment in the USA, and any other country where errors have taken place.

Uniqueness of the death penalty

It's argued that retribution is used in a unique way in the case of the death penalty. Crimes other than murder do not receive a punishment that mimics the crime - for example rapists are not punished by sexual assault, and people guilty of assault are not ceremonially beaten up.

Camus and Dostoevsky argued that the retribution in the case of the death penalty was not fair, because the anticipatory suffering of the criminal before execution would probably outweigh the anticipatory suffering of the victim of their crime.

Others argue that the retribution argument is flawed because the death penalty delivers a 'double punishment'; that of the execution and the preceding wait, and this is a mismatch to the crime.

Many offenders are kept 'waiting' on death row for a very long time; in the USA the average wait is 10 years. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

In Japan, the accused are only informed of their execution moments before it is scheduled. The result of this is that each day of their life is lived as if it was their last.

Capital punishment is not operated retributively

Some lawyers argue that capital punishment is not really used as retribution for murder, or even consistently for a particular kind of murder.

They argue that, in the USA at least, only a small minority of murderers are actually executed, and that imposition of capital punishment on a " capriciously selected random handful" of offenders does not amount to a consistent programme of retribution.

Since capital punishment is not operated retributively, it is inappropriate to use retribution to justify capital punishment.

This argument would have no value in a society that applied the death penalty consistently for particular types of murder.

Capital punishment is not retribution enough

Some people who believe in the notion of retribution are against capital punishment because they feel the death penalty provides insufficient retribution. They argue that life imprisonment without possibility of parole causes much more suffering to the offender than a painless death after a short period of imprisonment.

Another example is the planner of a suicide bombing - execution might make that person a martyr, and therefore would be a lesser retribution than life imprisonment.

Failure to deter

The death penalty doesn't seem to deter people from committing serious violent crimes. The thing that deters is the likelihood of being caught and punished.

The general consensus among social scientists is that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is at best unproven.

In 1988 a survey was conducted for the UN to determine the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates. This was then updated in 1996.

Brutalising the law

Capital punishment is said to produce an unacceptable link between the law and violence.

But in many ways the law is inevitably linked with violence - it punishes violent crimes, and it uses punishments that 'violently' restrict human freedoms. And philosophically the law is always involved with violence in that its function includes preserving an ordered society from violent events.

Nonetheless, a strong case can be made that legal violence is clearly different from criminal violence, and that when it is used, it is used in a way that everyone can see is fair and logical.

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