What Capital Punishment Is

The Potential Impact of These Ideas for Society's Understanding Of Capital Punishment. It is a fact that the standpoint and ideas being advanced by Jackson, Jackson Jr. and Shapiro have far-reaching and pervasive standpoints in the ratification or abolishing of capital punishment. First and foremost, the indictments by Jackson, Jackson Jr. and Shapiro against the US judicial system are to be thoroughly investigated. The fact that one out of every eight death row inmates is found innocent after appeal is a factor that must be weighed by the US Supreme Court. The onus can therefore be said to be upon the US congress and House of Representatives and the US Supreme Court to make concerted efforts to restructure the legal channels and systems to ensure that there is fairness, equity, morality, logic in the dispensation of justice (Jackson, 2001). 

It is needful to ensure that the US judicial system is rid of racial profiling. Making the judges answerable to a higher authority such as the US Supreme Court must be expedited up. This effort must also be complemented with the need to make the US Supreme Court and courts of appeal be headed by a council and not individuals, as an artifice to ridding the judicial of conflicting interests. It is this aforementioned judicial council or commission that is to look at ways in which the bureaucratic structures and hurdles that impede the dispensation of justice are flattened out. 

The attorneys who serve as personal attorneys (especially those who serve suspects likely to serve capital sentence) are to be vetted by the council or commission before being accepted into the bar, with serious heed being paid to qualifications, experience and conduct. This is especially the case, given the need to have suspects likely to serve death sentences have access to an attorney during a court trial. This development comes in respect to the Miranda Rights which sought to strengthen the rights of the suspect. 

Nevertheless, as far as Jackson, Jackson Jr. and Shapiro’s arguments go, it is most important that it be remembered that the frailties of the legal justice; the resultant welfare of the executioner; and racial profiling in themselves, are not reasons that are cogent enough to discount the legitimacy of capital punishment.

The place of capital punishment is based on very fundamental tenets and precepts that cannot be wished away. That human life is too sacrosanct to be appeased with any other element other than it is one of these tenets. This is a matter that is well underscored by Thomas Jefferson’s standpoint that all men are equal and have certain unalienable rights. It is pejorative to surmise that a murder should pay for the life of the deceased, his victim, by paying bail, or by continuing to live after serving life in prison. The validity of this standpoint, apart from the fact that human life is sacrosanct, is also confirmed by the socio-economic distress that the deceased are subject to, especially if the murder victim was the family’s breadwinner.

In another wavelength, the argument posed by Jackson, Jackson Jr. and Shapiro that Christianity or the Christian God does not support the administration and maintenance of capital punishment is a very controversial stand that is neither here, nor there. The pointing of the Sermon on the Mountain by Jesus Christ that human beings ought to be forgiving and touching the other cheek remains applicable to interpersonal but not civil relationships. The extension of the principle of ‘turning the other cheek’ cannot be extended to a state’s civil life and relations, as human beings must remain accountable for their actions, being rational beings (Jackson, 2001). The postulation by political philosophers such as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes that the life of the individual belonged to the state underscores the fact that crimes such as homicide cannot be settled out of the court of law.

The fact that most world societies in the world are demographically and culturally variegated due to globalization, makes the ratification of the principle of ‘turning the other cheek’ unfeasible. This principle is best feasible to those who like Christians; live under high ideals, being not being able to carry out debauchery on fellow man, deeming his goodness and patience as weakness. Indeed, the fact that America is a melting pot of many cultures makes it difficult to carry out these high ideals outside the provisions of the law. It is the law that would make Americans common, all being under one law (Jackson, 2001).     

On the contrary, it is needful that St. Paul acknowledges the importance of law enforcement as a socio-economic and political value that is vital for the sustenance and smooth running and administration of a state.  St. Paul’s standpoint is well elaborated in the 13^th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Therefore, the spelling out of divine injunctions by God as found in   

A just community is one where each person has equal rights and freedom and in such punishment should be structured regarding to such lines. Considering the work of Jesse Jackson, the structure of capital punishment has been found to be in just and destructive to people’s rights therefore invalidating the perpetrator’s rights of life and membership to the community. The presence of capital punishment has gotten rid of the right for a person to live and enjoy life in the society making it absolute.

From Jesse Jackson’s work’ it is clear that there is a lot of interesting information regarding to the consequences of capital punishment.  From the book, it is clearly stipulated that the type of sentence given will greatly be determined by some aspects. Some of them include race, gender and the part of the crime (Jackson, 2001). Jackson illustrates how the issue of capital punishment has been received by the society and the reactions towards it. In the book, the issue of racism and discrimination is clearly brought out regarding to capital punishment. For instance, when those supporting death sentences declared that there was a decrease in the number of murders during the weeks that followed the supreme courts moratorium, it is indicated that this reduction only took place in the eastern parts and this was because of the blizzards that occurred at the period (Jackson, 2001).

Legal lynching has resulted to the death of numerous innocent people as the quest for justice is being sought. Jacksons considers mistakes to be inevitable and once they occur they can never be reversed. The author shares stories of individuals who were wrongly accused and who almost faced the noose but were luck to be spared. The sentence given by the court has been found to be affected by the gender, race and the region where the crime took place. This is a blatant illustration that people will never trust the judicial system due to the biasness it possesses.

Each and every day innocent persons die annually as the states makes its self busy in hasty rush to execute those whom it believes to be guilty and hence deserve to face the noose. Surprisingly enough, instead of the system involved in executing death penalties being left to professionals who value and respect human life, it is left to incompetent attorneys who are underpaid and hence booze or sleep their heads through trials.  Just as Jackson underscores the place of capital punishment is left to over ambitious prosecutors who see executions to be just another notch to their belts.  Convictions and death sentences are passed on defendants based on unsubstantial evidence, unreliable confessions in the jail house and biased identifications from witnesses.

Appeals are surrounded with a lot of restrictions which decrease the hopes of defendants on the Supreme Court’s softening their hearts on the last pleas of inmates who have been sentenced to death-row. This is in spite of the fact that the making of decision in these courts is infected with documented racism which extends to every level of the systems of justice. As Jessie Jackson reveals teachings of the Holy Scriptures have that call for the sanctity of human life has been forsaken in civil relationships while at other times they are misinterpreted. Human beings have been denied their human rights to life such that one wonders where is the logic of taking a human life to pay for the life of another deceased victim. Legal Lynching should therefore be abolished as it offers no just punishment to those who are subjected to it.