Ethical and Legal Arguments
Key Ethical Arguments
This document summarizes the most important traditional and contemporary ethical arguments for and against the death penalty.
Justice Stephen Breyer’s Dissenting Opinions
A Supreme Court Justice from 1994 to 2022, Stephen Breyer was an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. He published the 2016 book Against the Death Penalty, which states:
Today’s administration of the death penalty involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty’s penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use.
PEW Survey Finds Majority of Americans Support the Death Penalty in Murder Cases
A 2021 PEW Research Center survey found that a majority of Americans - 60% of those questioned - favored the death penalty in cases involving murder. Despite this support, 78% of survey respondents felt there was a risk of an innocent person being executed. Should public opinion sway states’ use of the death penalty? Read the full survey.
Lethal Injection Concerns
Mississippi, along with other states that execute prisoners by lethal injection, has had a hard time acquiring lethal injection drugs in recent years. There have also been concerns over the humanness of lethal injection as a method of execution. Learn more at Death Penalty Information Center’s article on Mississippi and Alabama and their page on lethal injection.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Takes Pro-Life Stand
That the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty is not surprising, but their 2017 publication A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death codifies their reasoning, which includes:
When the state, in our names and with our taxes, ends a human life despite having non-lethal alternatives, it suggests that society can overcome violence with violence. The use of the death penalty ought to be abandoned not only for what it does to those who are executed, but for what it does to all of society.
Mississippi Adds Additional Methods of Execution
In July 2022 the Mississippi Department of Corrections gained the power to decide whether a death row inmate would be executed by lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia (a type of gas chamber that uses pure nitrogen), electrocution, or firing squad. Although developed as a way to ensure executions can occur if lethal injection drugs become unavailable, it does raise the question of giving a small group of individuals control over how condemned inmates die. Read the full article.
What Does it Take for the Governor of Mississippi to Grant Clemency?
There have been 312 instances of governors granting death row inmates clemency since 1976. Not one has been in Mississippi. Learn the political, legal, and social intricacies of clemency in the American Bar Association’s “Mississippi Capital Clemency Information Memorandum”.
Does Capital Punishment Deter Crimes?
It does not according to the ACLU. “The Case Against the Death Penalty” argues that:
A punishment can be an effective deterrent only if it is consistently and promptly employed. Capital punishment cannot be administered to meet these conditions.
Persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence often do not premeditate their crimes.
If, however, severe punishment can deter crime, then permanent imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime.
Audio of Gregg v. Georgia
Audio of G. Hughel Harrison arguing Gregg v. Georgia to Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Warren E. Burger. Gregg V. Georgia was the case that brought the death penalty back in 1976.
Audio of Furman v. Georgia
Audio of Anthony G. Amsterdam arguing Furman v. Georgia to Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Warren E. Burger. Furman V. Georgia was the case that outlawed the death penalty in 1972.