We try to punish in a manner proportionate to the offense. Ordinary, premeditated murder would get a sentence of life with the possibility of parole. With some aggravating factors, it would get life without parole. My argument is that there are some crimes so heinous that life without parole would not satisfy the requirements of justice. Killing is okay if it is just, as, for example, when we kill in self- defense. If execution is an appropriate punishment, then it is just.
The fact that other industrialized nations have given up on capital punishment is not very strong evidence that it is wrong. We are in advance of most of them in things like immigration, the treatment of minorities, and civil liberties. Maybe we are the one's who know better about capital punishment.
The state takes over the administration of justice in order to ensure justice and keep the peace. Citizens give up claims to private vengeance trusting in the state to be effective in apprehending and punishing most criminals. If we refuse to execute for any reason, it will damage the credibility of the justice system in the minds of many citizens, and make them that much more likely to take matters into their own hands.
Further, the state uses punishment as cultural instruction, to make clear what will be tolerated and what will not be, and to register degrees of gravity and/or guilt among various crimes. Refusing to execute heinous crimes introduces a note of moral confusion into the process, suggesting a sort of indifference to the circumstances of the crime that is at odds with the heinousness of it. |
