Zuniga 1

Jonah Zuniga

Instructor McCann

English 1302.203

23 March 2022

Death Penalty

To start off, there are criminals around the world and some criminals are significantly

worse than others. With that being said, with some criminals committing worse actions than

others the government sometimes goes with the idea of capital punishment or also known as the

death penalty. The current conversation going around with the death penalty is that should it be a

thing and if so is it morally or ethically correct to take someone's life by the hands of the

government? According to Cattani, Kent E., and Paul J. McMurdie, “Murder is one of the "most

deserving of the death penalty." meaning that they as two people support the death penalty. This

author Mamczarz, Katarzyna states that “Waiting for death is a kind of torture. Worse than death

itself.” This means that she herself does not believe in the death penalty, but “why?” is the real

question. Some people do not know if they even support the idea of the death penalty, and they

are confused to a point. For example, Gross, Samuel, R went to law school and the topic of the

death penalty gets stated and he goes on to say that he did not know whether or not to support the

death penalty in California. The conversation going on with the death penalty is all over the

place and does not have certainty with any one group of people. Even religion can be brought

into the conversation saying that the Bible supports it and others do not so it does not have a

clear answer. Even with all this uncertainty going around with the death penalty there are some

people that are clear with their answers and some that are not. Furthermore, the death penalty has

many different opinions on it but is it ethical and moral, or is it completely in the wrong?
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Ethical VS Wrong

First of all, the death penalty is one of the most controversial topics around the world and

especially in the United States where there is a lot of division in many topics. Firstly, what do

people think about the death penalty and why do they believe what they believe. According to

Mangum, Maruice, “persons with higher social capital are less likely to favor government action

to kill convicted criminals”. With this, we are able to tell that people with a higher social capital

favor the death penalty more than people with less social capital. According to Thompson,

Rebecca R., et al, they believe that,” People are more likely to accept and respect choices made

by legal authorities in order to stay in line with the society in which they live.” This means that

people are more than likely to follow the death penalty because of what the government says.

The people do this in order to stay in line with the government and the society that they are in.

Japan’s Death Penalty

Furthermore, with that being said about the death penalty in the United States, in Japan it

is a bit more different than it is in the United States. For example, as stated in the first paragraph

by Mamczarz, Katarzyna, “Waiting for death is a kind of torture. Worse than death itself.”

Meaning that in Japan the death penalty is not necessarily accepted. It is completely in the wrong

because they believe that death itself is not something any one person should have to come to

terms to. While this is the belief of the people of Japan, again stated by Mamczarz, Katarzyna, “

Japan, on the other hand, has a surprising amount. In 2017, four people were executed and three

were condemned to death, leaving a total of 134 people facing the ultimate penalty. Three people

were executed and three more were sentenced to death the previous year.” Although the death

penalty is not accepted by many people in Japan there is still a high number of deaths caused by
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the death penalty. In 2018, Japan executed more than thirteen people which was the most it had

ever had since 2008 in which ten people were executed.

Corruption in Death Penalty?

Many people believe that the death penalty has to do a lot with corruption than it does

with people actually deciding whether or not the death penalty should be used or not. According

to Hulpke, John F, “Corruption still exists. The wrongdoings continue. If there have been any

penalties, they have been minor. Corporations that consistently fail to fulfill accepted ethical

standards should be forced to close their doors. Companies who employ corruption to attain their

objectives, cause permanent environmental damage, cause physical agony and death, or violate

basic human rights should face the death penalty.” He is stating that the death penalty should not

be used whatsoever.

Arizona Death Penalty

Because this article discusses whether Arizona's death penalty should be applied at the

state or local level, the author supports the use of the death penalty. Two former prosecutors who

are now judges on Arizona's Court of Appeals propose changing the state's death penalty process

so that the decision to charge someone with capital punishment is made at the state level rather

than the county level. Murder is one of the "most heinous crimes deserving of the death penalty."

It would also make it easier to restrict the types of cases in which the death penalty is sought to

those in which such a sentence is more likely to be imposed at trial and upheld on appeal. In the

end, the death penalty in Arizona has been used inconsistently through out the state and making a

reform allows for it to be consistent.

Death Penalty In General

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A number of factors have contributed to the disparity in public opinion in the United

States regarding the use of the death penalty. While many studies have examined public opinion

on the death penalty, none have examined the role of social capital in determining whether

people support or oppose the death penalty. According to this paper, social capital explains why

some Americans oppose the death penalty while others do not. While this article discusses what

some Americans say about supporting or opposing the death penalty, the author does not make a

clear statement about whether or not they oppose the death penalty. Finally, people with higher

social capital are less likely to support government action to execute convicted criminals. This

hypothesis was proven to be correct. According to the findings of the logistic regression

analyses, which used data from the 2008 American National Election Study, social capital is

inversely related to support for the death penalty.

Opinions on Death Penalty

To begin, humans desire that their internal thoughts and the outside world be in sync.

People are more likely to accept and respect legal authorities' decisions in order to fit in with the

society in which they live. Few studies have looked at these biases in a real-world context. We

investigated the relationship between Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's (the Boston Marathon bomber)

sentencing and Americans' views on his punishment in a natural quasi-experiment. In accordance

with the legitimization literature, we anticipated that Tsarnaev's sentencing would be associated

with an increase in support for his death penalty sentence. In this article, the author also does not

make a direct claim about whether or not they oppose the death penalty, but rather discusses why

people support it. They rely heavily on secondary data, numbers, and statistics to determine

whether or not people support the death penalty.

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Work Cited

Cattani, Kent E., and Paul J. McMurdie. “Death Penalty 101: The Death Penalty Charging

Decision in Arizona. Is There a Better Way?” Arizona State Law Journal, vol. 53, no. 3, Fall

2021, pp. 793–803. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lgh&AN=155174311&scope=site.

Gerwig-Moore, Sarah. “Death Penalty.” Mercer Law Review, vol. 70, no. 1, Fall 2018, pp.

73–80. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=134567440&scope=site.

GROSS, SAMUEL R. “The Death Penalty, Public Opinion, and Politics in the United States.” St.

Louis University Law Journal, vol. 62, no. 4, Summer 2018, pp. 763–79. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lgh&AN=136685001&scope=site.

Hulpke, John F. “If All Else Fails, A Corporate Death Penalty?” Journal of Management Inquiry,

vol. 26, no. 4, Oct. 2017, pp. 433–39. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492617706545.

Lee, Jason, and Ryan Hall. “The Death Penalty and Mental Illness: An Evolving Standard?”

Psychiatric Times, vol. 34, no. 6, June 2017, pp. 1–4. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=123799948&scope=site.
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Mamczarz, Katarzyna. “The Death Penalty in Japan.” Japan Mission Journal, vol. 72, no. 4,

Winter 2018, pp. 234–40. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=133747478&scope=site.

Mangum, Maruice. “Testing the Influence of Social Capital on Support for the Death Penalty.”

Social Justice Research, vol. 32, no. 4, Dec. 2019, pp. 431–44. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-019-00341-9.