Argument against Death Penalty

Running Head: DEATH PENALTY 1
LEGAL PHILOSOPHY
Student’s Name
Course
Professor’s Name
University
Date

2
Task 1 Argument against Death Penalty
The death penalty is a form of sentence that ought to be repealed. It is important to
ask the question: Should we replicate whatever a criminal did to a victim? To answer this
question, it is important to consider the possibility that the accused might be innocent. This
would clearly shows that the criminal justice system has never been 100% accurate .Judges
and juries might convict the innocent in cases such as that of Donald Marshall, who was
jailed for more than ten years for a murder he never committed. We shall apply a number of
Jeremy Bentham’s Theory of Punishment to explain why the sentence ought to be repealed.
Social Contract theory
The first argument by Jeremy Bentham is the social contract theory. The most
traditional defence of the death penalty is that it is applied to preserve peace. However,
citizens establish government contractually agreeing to set aside their hostilities and punish
anyone who breaks the laws, including executing them if it’s considered necessary. As
Jeremy Bentham describes, before the creation of governments, humans were living in hostile
natural conditions which everyone competed for survivals. As a result lives were nasty, short
and solitary (Tonry, 2011). Since then, the natural desire of every humanity in the modern
age is to live long and be productive.
Life motivates us to seek the best means of having a peaceful life with our fellow
humans, a social contract is a mechanism that allows us to seek peace even if it’s through
capital punishments. However multiple factors work against capital punishment (Mill, 2016).
For instance: The exorbitant cost of executions includes the lengthy appeals and retrials ,
the challenges to purchase drugs for use in the execution process and the ever-more
reluctant pharmaceutical companies among others. Even if we seek peace it is appropriate
we seek using other options such as life imprisonment and rehabilitation.