Need help for Speech

[Alec Rife]

Hello, I'm Alec Rife a student of Century High School. I'm doing the death penalty for Speech class and if willing to let me quote them, i would like a paragraph or 2 of thoughts from a expert on the death penalty . If it would be easier for you, you may also e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thank you for your cooperation and hopefully i hear from you soon

[Donnie]

Even though the pursuit of justice is primary duty of government, our Constitution does not define justice for a murderer or for anyone else. That shouldn't surprise anyone because the purpose of the Constitution is not to define justice. However, the Constitution does acknowledge that the DP for crimes is just. That was no surprise to anyone at the time and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone today.

Determining what is just in the punishment of a criminal involves many factors. Those factors include fairness and equality of treatment of the criminal and victim, the capability to restore the victim to her condition before she was harmed by the criminal, recompense to the victim for her suffering prior to her restoration, the harm the criminal imposed on other members of society, restitution to society for the costs that the criminal imposed on the criminal justice system, and recompense for the degradation of society that the criminal contributed to by initiating the crime.

Those factors are not unique to defining justice for murder. For example a conspiracy to commit a crime is justly punished, even though the crime was never carried out and no specific victims were harmed. Also, if a criminal steals $100 from a person, punishment is still required even if the criminal later gives the victim $100.

We see this also in the concept of punitive damages in civil cases. A jury may award a plaintiff $100 for the actual damages that the plaintiff suffered. They may than award the plaintiff one million dollars or more in punitive damages.

Of course, in a case of murder, the victim can be awarded nothing, since the murderer has intentionally prevented the victim from ever receiving anything in recompense. The victim has been so profoundly harmed that she cannot even give up some of what she is due and accept some unjust result. So our system of justice automatically gives the murderer an unearned and improper benefit with respect to factors associated with restitution or recompense.

So let us then return to the main factor in justice: the fair and equal treatment of the two parties, the murderer and the victim. Before the murderer's intentional alteration of their relationship, the murderer and the victim were equal in their life-or-death status. With respect to their lives, society was treating them both fairly; it was protecting, to some degree, the lives of each party. After the murderer's intentional act tips the scales of justice in the murderer’s favor, the murderer and the victim are as unequal as they could possibly be. The murderer is alive and the victim is dead. The murderer has gotten what he wanted, something to which he was not entitled. The victim has had something taken from her, her very being, to which she was absolutely entitled. Moreover, as long as the murderer remains alive or the victim remains dead, the unfair advantage taken by the murderer continues to increase. One day after the murder, the murderer has another day that the victim does not have. At the same time, the murderer continues to enjoy the fruits of his crime, whatever they might have been. But the murder victim enjoys nothing. Furthermore, the murderer is secure that his stolen prize cannot be taken from him. He will never be forced to relinquish the pleasure he enjoyed in murdering his victim. His pleasant memories may also include other activities, such as rape or torture. Thus society can never restore equality between the victim and the murderer. For example, if the victim were to be restored to life two weeks later, she has still lost those two weeks. Some penalty must still be awarded to the murderer to restore the two parties to equal status. Or likewise, were the murderer to be placed in the same current condition as the victim, some additional penalty must still be awarded to the murderer to restore the two parties to equal status. As for the fair treatment of the murderer and victim by society, it is clear that society has treated the parties unfairly, with the advantage going to the murderer. Thus with respect to fairness and equality of treatment, the minimum practical outcome to pursue justice would be the death of the murderer. The achievement of justice with respect to these two factors alone would require some forfeiture by or punishment of the murderer in addition to death. Thus we see that even for the simplest and most kind of murders, we fail to provide justice between the victim and the murderer. But rather than try to achieve full justice, if we were to simply execute the murderer we would be tempering justice with mercy for the murderer. We don't have to worry about the victim protesting her inherently unfair and unequal treatment because she has been rendered silent.

Thus justice for a murderer would involve more than we ever demand of the murderer in any case and execution represents only a "pursuit of justice" rather than actual justice.

Justice for a murderer would involve execution after the imposition of some other additional significant punishment.