Is capital punishment morally justified? Essay

In 1998, Timothy Lee Hurst was convicted in for murdering his co-worker Cynthia Harrison with a box cutter was put on trial on January 12th, 2016. He discarded her body in a freezer at the restaurant. The Supreme Court ruled Florida's justice system unconstitutional for sentencing people to death because it allows too much authority to judges especially since the jury was divided 7-5 showing that there was doubt among jurors. The jury as a whole was not in favor of death (Martinez, 2016). However, who has the rights to decide the death penalty?
Capital punishment is the act of ending one's life for an explicit crime one has committed after a legitimate authorized trial. It is usually only used as a punishment for, especially serious offenses. However, it is morally questionable and insufficient in conceptualization and its proceedings. The death penalty is not morally justified because it is used as a means for revenge. How can one practice of killing be wrong and another be right? Is there a distinction between a murder and an execution? The evil established from capital punishment outbalance the welfare to society as claimed by consequentialism through deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation and alleviation and the non-consequentialist assertion of Lex Talion. It doesn't bring justice instead it diminishes a society's receptiveness to human affliction.
The utilitarian theory states that punishment is justified by the good it promotes to society even to those who are innocent as long as it brings good. Kant rejects this because he believes that criminals are treated as mere means to an end. His categorical imperative
prohibits this because he regards human life as valuable. To him, this kind of unfair treatment is without question unacceptable. Everyone has inalienable individual rights to live, even those who commit murder. Being put to death violates those privileges. What if those murders were actually innocent people who have been wrongfully accused and are executed for the sake of improving general welfare? That is a problem of injustice. The death penalty is irrevocable, even if proven blameless later on. They can't be given another opportunity since their life has already been lost. Everyone makes mistakes and when this is integrated with flaws in the justice system, it is certain that innocent people will be convicted of crimes.
In order to deter those same or future murderers from killing others, it is thought to be condoned through eliminating the convicted as stated by consequentialists. However, the lack of evidence to support that it prevents he or she from performing the crimes shows that it doesn't actually inhibit their actions. Neither does it obstruct them from carrying out serious violent crimes. We have a prima facie duty to give an assailant the retribution they deserve it, but sometimes it is permitted to dismiss that duty depending on the situation. It can support the actions of what criminals would take and their contemplation to why they would commit a crime or not, rather than just fact that they opposed a law.