Death Penalty

 CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT

 

Death  Penalty

 

RAMA  PRASAD  T.

 

Dr. T. Rama Prasad,

Formerly:   Medical Superintendent (Special)  of  RTS & IRT  Perundurai Medical College and Research Centre,  

Perundurai, Tamil Nadu.           Presently:  Director of ‘PAY WHAT YOU CAN’ Clinic, Perundurai, Erode District, TN – 638052.   

 

 

Introduction

 

            Human mind is a highly heterogeneous one.  It visualises diverse scenarios from the same setting.  A broad spectrum of compelling factors come to the fore from various angles.  In the annals of history and in the current times, death penalty is one of the most debated subjects both in the realm of judicial perspective and the public discourse.  The perceptions varied from era to era, country to country, society to society, and ruler to ruler – in a country, picking pockets attracted capital punishment;  in another, journalists were marched to gallows for writing the truth; and yet in another, terrorists were honoured.   Even the execution of the penalty varied a lot – from a painless killing through injections to a barbarous and grisly method like ‘quartering’ (done in England in 1283).  Quartering means tying each of the four limbs to a different horse and spurring them in different directions to divide the body into four parts.   In the recent decades, the debate is about abolishing death penalty on humanitarian grounds.  There are three options to deal with a criminal who deserves death.    (1)  exonerating the repenting culprit and bringing him / her back into the main stream of the society through reformation;  (2)  awarding death penalty;  (3)  sentencing to rigorous imprisonment for the rest of the life.   Which is right ?  It has been an endless debate going on for a long time.

 

Factual defaults

 

            Judiciary goes by the rules of the book and the facts presented.  How factual are the facts ?  How factual is the evidence presented in courts of law ?  It often depends on the strength of the culprit.  Rich and influential criminals wipe out evidence, buy evidence and foist blame on the victims.  Sometimes, the vicious murderer escapes due to “lack of sufficient evidence” and the innocent poor is hanged due to fabricated evidence and lack of funds to get expensive advocates.

Proponents

 

            It is argued that life can only be seen to be protected if those who take it away are proportionately punished.  Death penalty acts as a strong deterrent against heinous crimes.  As a result, murder rate has declined continuously since 1991 in India.  Why abolish this proved deterrent ?  Even the bastion of liberal democracy, the US, is firm about continuing capital punishment.  And it is awarded only in the rarest of rare cases – since 2005,  only four criminals were hanged in India.  Out of one lakh murderers, death penalty was awarded to only five persons.  This can’t be but freakish.  The criticism based on arbitrariness of judgments is a reflection of bad syllogism.  The judgments come out of an elaborate judicial process.  The violent criminals who are vile and wicked deserve to be killed.  This is how the proponents of death penalty put forth their views, citing the Judo-Christian tradition of “eye for eye; tooth for tooth.”

 

Opponents

 

            This group argues that death penalty is arbitrary, irreversible, cruel and error-ridden.  The poor and the marginalised are unfairly targeted and are at the mercy of law enforcing personnel who are not widely known for probity or efficiency.  Statistical evidence suggests that the burden of death penalty falls upon the poor and underprivileged.  Penurious prisoners can’t afford to get strong legal defence.  During the twentieth century,  more than 400 people were erroneously awarded death penalty.  Judgments depend overwhelmingly on the adjudicator’s personal beliefs and arbitrariness.  More than anything else, it is the human right to live.   Compassion and reason demand abolition of the unfair and cruel capital punishment.  This is how the opponents to death penalty argue, emphasising New Testament admonitions to “turn the other cheek,  and love thy neighbour.”

 

The third option 

 

            If some future evidence proves that the hanged person was innocent, a revised judicial order can’t get back the person alive.  Law is ‘blind’ – the “Lady Justice” is a metaphorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems … her attributes are a ‘blindfold’, a balance and a sword.  This apart,  hanging makes a person suffer only a very brief spell of pain after which he is “liberated” forever.  This brief pain can’t be as painful as the suffering from rigorous imprisonment for the rest of the life.  Think about it.  Which punishment is more severe ?  Killing in a minute or enforcing a miserable life for decades ?  Moreover, the punishment can be stopped in case some evidence comes forth in favour of the victim at a later date.  Hanging is irreversible.  This ‘third option’ may be better than the ‘second option’ (death penalty),  as this punishment is more 'humane' and more severe than the option of death penalty.  It is very doubtful that the present world has reached that level of humanity to consider the ‘first option’ (exoneration and reformation).

Debate

            As in October 2023, the debate is still going on as can be seen in the photocopy below.  The idea that death penalty would be a deterrent against future crimes may well be past its sell-by date.

 

 

 

“LADY  JUSTICE”