This document discusses various philosophical and practical issues surrounding the death penalty. It addresses questions about justice and whether the death penalty can achieve its purported goals. It notes that over 130 people have been exonerated since 1973 due to newly discovered evidence proving their innocence. It also discusses concerns that the death penalty is applied in a racially biased manner and that inadequate legal representation contributes to wrongful convictions. Several quotes are presented that are critical of the death penalty.

1. By Saeed Marandi
Humanities 25
November 24, 2012
The Death Penalty
Reconsidered: Purpose and Consequences

2. Questionnaire
• Who is for/against?
• Why do we have the death penalty?
• Proposition 34- success and failure

3. A Matter of Philosophy
• What is justice? How can we understand how a uniform notion of justice could apply to
the death penalty. Can it?
• Are justice and revenge the same thing?
• Civilized or barbaric? A legislative nightmare?
• Does anyone have the right to decide who dies? Should anyone have the privilege to
decide this?
• How do we define “punishment” and “penalty?”

4. Our Constitution.
• 8th Amendment
• William J. Brennan (23:25)
• Furman v. Georgia
• Gregg v. Georgia
• Atkins v. Virginia
• Roper v. Simmons
• Constitutional muster.
• What is the future of the death penalty in regards to The Constitution?

5. Deterrence
• States with the Death Penalty don’t have lower crime rates than states that do not use it
(ACLU).
• Is there hard, empirical evidence suggesting that it does?
• A more honest question.
• Can Capital Punishment fulfill its purpose?

6. Race and The Death Penalty
• Out of 257 instances of murder victims, 19 whites were put on death row.
• In a broad perspective, race is an ambiguous factor.
• Socioeconomics- who’s at risk?
• How much is life worth?
• Appeals process.

7. Guilty until proven innocent?
• Since 1973, over 130 people have been released from convictions due to newly-surfaced
evidence proving their innocence (Amnesty International).
• Factors that influence an outcome wrongly accusing the innocent:
• Inadequate legal representation
• Police and prosecutorial misconduct
• Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
• Racial prejudice (Coretta Scott King)
• Community/political pressure to solve a case
• Can Capital Punishment honor its purpose?

8. Quotes
• "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders."
-Albert Camus, French philosopher
• "To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice."
-Desmond Tutu
• "I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-
execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People
who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty."
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• "I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We
cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row
have been exonerated."
-John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.” –Harry
Blackmun, Supreme Court Justice