Cruel and unusual punishment

Dustin Cox:

The strongest argument against using capital punishment for retributive purposes, is the argument that capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, condemning cruel and unusual punishment, is used to protest capital punishment. The fallacy of this argument is that it appears to be a red herring argument, one that takes attention away from the facts of the case. When the constitution was drafted, capital punishment was practiced widely in this country, yet it was not specified as wrong or as cruel and unusual. Many of the framers of the constitution endorsed capital punishment, as did philosophers from which the constitution draws from. John Locke went as far to say that murder is not intrinsically wrong. "Everyone, as he is bound to preserve himself and not quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind" ( Locke p57). How can murder not be immoral? Citizens under a social contract, agree not to kill only because others also agree not to kill. It is the function of penal laws to prevent murder by demonstrating to everyone that it is not in their best interest to murder. So how can the constitution be brought into this argument, since it makes no mention of capital punishment?


Leslie Cantu:

Even though the retentionists pose some interesting arguments, I myself feel that the abolitionist perspective contains much stronger backing and more reasons for opposition, the first of which is that the death penalty is wrong morally because it is the cruel and inhumane taking of a human life. The methods by which executions are carried out can involve physical torture. "Electrocution has on occasion caused extensive burns and needed more than one application of electric current to kill the condemned" (Amnesty 6). To many opponents, capital punishment is a euphemism for legally killing people and no one, not even the State, has the authority to play God.


Xavier (Frankie) Yanez:

Officials often defend this punishment as not being cruel and unusual, but how can they defend this opinion in the case of John Evans who was executed by electrocution in 1983? According to witnesses at the scene Mr. Evans was given three charges of electrocution over a period of fourteen minutes. After the first and second charges Mr. Evans was still conscious and smoke was coming from all over his body as a result of his flesh burning. An official there even tried to stop the execution on account of it being cruel and unusual punishment, but was unsuccessful. Witnesses later called the whole incident a "barbaric ritual."