Capital Punishment Vs Corporal Punishment

The death penalty has always been a controversial topic across the United States when it comes to the 8th amendment disallowing cruel and unusual punishment. So far, eighteen out of the fifty states have made executions illegal, while three others have halted it under their current governors. Corporal punishments should be made illegal in the remaining thirty-two states. The reasons for this include the execution of potentially innocent victims, the racism involved in deciding who is guilty, and the unreliable consistency of the use of corporal punishment. The use of corporal punishment has never been fair or trustworthy and is not worth the risk that it causes. One of the main reasons that the death penalty should no longer be used as a …show more content…
It is unfair to the murderers, who still have rights, even if criminals, when some of them are executed and others simply are sent to prison. Not all states use the death penalty either because it is very controversial, meaning that criminals in some states are safe while others, are not. Corporal punishment is also not always used because it is difficult to execute and is expensive. Many of these problems would be solved if it was put out of use. Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, discusses this issue in his article Use of the Death Penalty Is Rare and Decreasing “If the death penalty is being used by only a small number of states, and if there is a clear national trend away from capital punishment, the Supreme Court could find that it has become cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment” (Dieter). This quotation states that as the number of states using the death penalty decreases, it becomes more and more unfair for the criminals in the states that still put it to use. This unfairness goes against our Eighth Amendment and therefore gives reason to abolish the death sentence. Khalilah L. Brown-Dean also makes this point in her statement that “The arbitrary way in which we decide which crimes are most heinous and which lives most valuable leaves us with a system of capital punishment that is cruel, unusual and irreparably broken” (Brown-Dean). This quotation explains that one cannot just decide whose life is more valuable and who should be punished with death. If not all murderers are going to be executed after committing the crime, then none should be. Robert Blecker, the author of “The Death of Punishment” and professor at New York Law School argues that “[Murderers] once captured, become perfectly well behaved “inmates”... they get transferred from maximum- to medium-security prisons where they can visit, hang