Ironically enough, one of the most prominent things throughout everyone’s life is death itself. Humanity gets constant reminders to live life to the fullest, yet the inevitable end overshadows all. However, even with this being one of the most prominent things that everyone on earth has in common, it is not a real connection. The only connection between every living thing on Earth is life itself, and to take that away from anyone is to break the connection from yourself completely. In doing so, taking matters of death into one’s own hands is basically consent to sever oneself—as well as others—from a shared life.
An example of this crime against humanity is actually a pretty major aspect of life and has been instilled into society under the cover of justice. This being none other than the death penalty itself. As much as ancient traditions and years of contentment have tried to justify this, the truth is that it just isn’t. The death penalty is a complete self-contradiction that goes against basic human rights. Society is simply not established enough to make such a concrete decision so flippantly, despite the years of conditioning that have made it so normalized.
“ Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1776) Declaration of Independence
These are the words that started America off with a fresh start. This new age was marked by a world where most people were free to express themselves and live however they wanted to live. Even if this change only benefited a few groups of men, future generations understood the actual message, and growth persisted until everyone was free to live how they wanted to live. For the most part.
Most criminals aren’t sentenced to death unless they murdered a ton of people, meaning it’s the consensus that the decision to live your life by taking someone else’s is never the correct answer. So why was it only ever justified when a noose was tied around the perpetrator’s neck in the middle of the town square? There are only so many ways to justify such an obvious display of inhumanity.
Two possibilities would be the goal to serve the injustice’s family a sense of clarity or the much more graphic reasoning: to send a message. And honestly? Either possibility sounds way too morbid to be fair. While it is understandable why the family of a victim whose life was taken from them would think that watching the offender’s own life be taken from them is relieving, that should not be the message that the justice system strives to send to heartbroken families. Filling the hole that one act of inhumanity created cannot be filled with another act of inhumanity. Trying to justify this is arguing that more fire is the only thing that can stop fire.
And as for the other message that the death penalty strives to send, it could only be one thing: “No one has more power over your life than the gavel, not even you.”
While the death penalty may seem like a reprimand for unspeakable acts, it just proves the point that double standards are only okay when put into the hands of those with power. But the tricky part here is that those with power are not always the ones who should have power. Obviously, a country cannot function without a strong legal sense; no one can deny that fact. However, there have been far too many instances where the system has been proven to be corrupt. A corrupt system with that amount of power is way too powerful in itself, and it should not be trusted with the lives of millions. Even if two million judges had genuine intentions, the risk of exposing civilian lives to some corrupt judges with way too much power is too much of a risk to take.
When it comes to the law, certain crimes are treated with certain punishments. It’s not as if someone would be sentenced to death for stealing a candy bar, that would be completely unethical. But the problem here is not just the penalty in itself; the problem is that it gives the person with the gavel the power to strip people of their life. It should not be in any way justified that anyone should have that kind of power over civilians, not even when there are more bad apples than good ones in society.
From the day we are born, we are told we have a purpose in life. The irony in looking for something to fulfill ourselves implies that there is a piece of us missing. However, everyone is born with value, even if not everyone dies as if they have value. Through everyone’s differences and similarities, we only have a few things in common. Our deaths, our rights in life, and the hunger we all have for something real. Murder is never justified, not under the law nor under someone’s own prerogative. If society were to ever expect any rule to be concrete, consistency and lack of bias would need to be heavily improved.
The world needs a lot of things to function. An unclear and self-contradictory set of laws is not one of them.
