Essay competition: "The Death Penalty not only takes away the life of a person strapped to the table,it takes away a little bit of humanity in each of us" - Clint Smith.
Joint winning essay by Kylie Au
Introduction
Clint Smith's statement speaks of two deaths: the death of the condemned, and the subtler erosion suffered by society.[1] It is this second dimension, the collective moral cost, that makes the statement both philosophically and politically significant. The most serious counterargument to Smith is the utilitarian claim that executions may deter future murders, framing capital punishment as a regrettable but necessary life-saving instrument. However, as this essay will show, this argument collapses on its own empirical terms. Smith's claim is therefore correct to a very substantial degree. Capital punishment imposes a collective moral cost on every society that sanctions it, eroding the equal human dignity on which legitimate justice depends, and that cost is never offset by any benefit the evidence can reliably confirm.
International Law and Human Dignity
The framework of international human rights law has moved decisively in Smith's direction. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits capital punishment only for the most serious crimes and under the strictest procedural safeguards.[2] The Human Rights Committee's General Comment No. 36 (2018) goes further, declaring that the right to life encompasses an entitlement to enjoy life with dignity and that, once abolished, the death penalty must be treated as legally irrevocable, an advance that cannot be undone.[3] Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights is blunter: 'The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed.'[4] The reasoning behind both instruments is rooted in the incompatibility of execution with the inherent dignity of all human beings. By 2024, 130 UN member states had voted in favour of a moratorium on executions, up from 104 in 2007.[5]
Retributivism
The moral philosophical approach is more divided on capital punishment, but upon close inspection, it converges in the same direction. Retributivism, the intuition that a murderer deserves to die as his victim died, has always been capital punishment's most emotionally compelling justification. Yet even on its own terms, retributivism is in tension with execution. Justice Brennan, dissenting in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), argued that the fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded, thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.[6] If the purpose of punishment is to affirm a shared moral order, then a punishment that places the condemned categorically outside that order is self-defeating. Retribution, to be legitimate, cannot itself be an act of radical dehumanisation.
The Utilitarian Deterrence Argument
The utilitarian case for execution is paradoxically both the most serious and the most empirically vulnerable challenge to Smith's position. Sunstein and Vermeule argued in 2005 that if capital punishment deters even a modest number of future murders, abolitionists must confront a genuine ‘life-life tradeoff’: refusing to execute one guilty person may cost the lives of several innocent ones.[7] The answer comes not from philosophy but from social science. The National Research Council's landmark 2012 report concluded categorically that existing studies are not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates.[8] Donohue and Wolfers demonstrated further that the statistical models purporting to show a deterrent effect are so methodologically fragile that minor specification changes entirely reverse their conclusions, swinging estimated outcomes from hundreds of lives saved to dozens of lives lost per execution.[9] If there is no reliable deterrent effect, the utilitarian tradeoff is a tradeoff against nothing. The dignity cost remains, while the supposed benefit does not.
Wrongful Convictions and Racial Bias
Empirical evidence reveals that capital punishment, as actually practised, is not the precise and proportionate instrument its defenders imagine. Samuel Gross and colleagues estimated in 2014 that if all American death sentences were carried out, at least 4.1% of those executed would be innocent, a figure described by the authors as a conservative lower bound, since wrongful convictions that are never discovered cannot be counted.[10] Each wrongful execution demonstrates the state’s willingness to accept the killing of innocents as a tolerable administrative cost. A society that sanctions such a system gradually internalises that some deaths are bureaucratically acceptable.
Racial and socioeconomic bias compounds this damage further. The Baldus study, examined in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), found that prosecutors in Georgia sought the death penalty in 70% of cases involving black defendants and white victims, compared with only 32% of cases involving white defendants and white victims.[11] The Supreme Court, acknowledging the statistical validity of the finding, nonetheless held it insufficient to prove discrimination in any individual case, a ruling that implicitly tolerates systematic racial distortion in the application of the ultimate sanction. When the state kills in patterns that correlate with race rather than the severity of the crime, it communicates to its citizens that lives are not equally valued. That message, absorbed and normalised over decades, is perhaps the most insidious mechanism by which the death penalty takes a little bit of humanity from those who live under it. It teaches a nation that its deepest commitments to equal human worth are, when under sufficient pressure, negotiable.
Institutional Effects
Beyond individual cases, execution as an institution reshapes societal attitudes at scale. The European Court of Human Rights identified, in Soering v. United Kingdom (1989), that indefinite exposure to the looming threat of execution constitutes inhuman treatment in its own right, the so-called death row phenomenon, causing extreme mental anguish entirely apart from the eventual execution.[12] Meanwhile, the bureaucratic machinery required to sustain capital punishment institutionalises a culture in which the deliberate killing of a restrained human being becomes a routine administrative function. Research on corrections officers and executioners documents significant rates of post-traumatic stress and moral injury. When killing is routinised by the state, it fosters a culture in which the taking of life becomes more thinkable and less rarefied.
Restorative Alternatives and Abolition
One objection remains: that the foregoing is an argument against the biased application of capital punishment rather than against capital punishment itself. But this objection underestimates the structural problem. The racial disparity, the wrongful conviction rate, and the psychological harm of death row are not aberrations to be corrected. Rather, they are predictable features of any system that assigns such colossal, unreviewable power to fallible human institutions. The experiences of abolitionist jurisdictions further undermine any case for retention. Restorative justice frameworks, formally recognised in ECOSOC Resolution 2002/12, demonstrate that societies can pursue accountability and healing without state killing.[13] Abolitionist countries across Europe and Latin America maintain lower homicide rates than many retentionist states, demonstrating that societies can protect their citizens without recourse to state killing.
Conclusion
Smith is correct. Capital punishment is not merely a policy with costs and benefits to be weighed like any other. It is an assertion, made in the name of the whole community, that some human beings may be deliberately killed by their government. Every time that assertion is acted upon, the community that authorised it becomes, by a fraction, less than it was. The death penalty offers no reliable deterrent; guarantees a percentage of innocent deaths; operates with systematic racial bias; and institutionalises a culture of state-sanctioned killing. To agree with Smith is the only conclusion the evidence permits: the death penalty diminishes us all, and to the very substantial extent he claims, it takes a little bit of humanity from each of us who sanction it.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by UNGA Res. 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171.
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).
Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, CETS No. 187, Vilnius, 3 May 2002.
Soering v. United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439 (European Court of Human Rights).
UN Economic and Social Council, Resolution 2002/12, Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters, 24 July 2002.
UN General Assembly, Resolution 62/149: Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, 18 December 2007.
UN General Assembly, Resolution 79/170: Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, 2024.
UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 of the ICCPR: Right to Life, CCPR/C/GC/36, 30 October 2018.
Secondary Sources
Donohue, John J. and Justin Wolfers, 'Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate' (2005) 58(3) Stanford Law Review 791.
Gross, Samuel R., Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu and Edward H. Kennedy, 'Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death' (2014) 111(20) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 7230.
National Research Council, Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty, Deterrence and the Death Penalty (Daniel S. Nagin and John V. Pepper eds., National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2012).
Smith, Clint, 'The Death Penalty Kills More Than the People on Death Row', The Atlantic (2019).
Sunstein, Cass R. and Adrian Vermeule, 'Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? Acts, Omissions, and Life-Life Tradeoffs' (2005) 58(3) Stanford Law Review 703.
[1] Clint Smith III, 'The Death Penalty Kills More Than the People on Death Row', The Atlantic (2019).
[2] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6(2), adopted by UNGA Res. 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171.
[3] UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 of the ICCPR: Right to Life, CCPR/C/GC/36, 30 October 2018, paras 3 and 38.
[4] Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, CETS No. 187 (Vilnius, 3 May 2002), Article 1.
[5] UN General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty: A/RES/62/149 (2007) and A/RES/79/170 (2024).
[6] Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), Brennan J. dissenting at 229.
[7] Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, 'Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? Acts, Omissions, and Life-Life Tradeoffs' (2005) 58(3) Stanford Law Review 703, at 705.
[8] National Research Council, Deterrence and the Death Penalty (National Academies Press, 2012), p. 2.
[9] John J. Donohue and Justin Wolfers, 'Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate' (2005) 58(3) Stanford Law Review 791, at 797-803.
[10] Samuel R. Gross et al., 'Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death' (2014) 111(20) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 7230, at 7234.
[11] McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) at 286-287.
[12] Soering v. United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439 (ECtHR), paras 100-111.
[13] UN Economic and Social Council, Resolution 2002/12, Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters, 24 July 2002, Principle 2.
Joint winning essay by Chloe Bungaroo
The legitimate nature of capital punishment has long been debated within the spheres of criminal justice and moral philosophy. The assertion that the death penalty not only extinguishes the life of the person ‘strapped to the table’ but also chips away at the collective humanity shared by society suggests that the consequences of a criminal’s execution transcend beyond a single individual and permeate the broader character of society. Rather than operating as an uncontested response to serious crime, the death penalty has perennially raised concerns as to the morality of societies that permit its use and whether such a practice institutionalises violence within legal systems of justice.
This essay considers how the death penalty unjustifiably erodes society’s moral conceptions through the normalised killings of those deemed less worthy of living. The institutionalised and premeditated nature of capital punishment unearths its inherently paradoxical nature, and the severity of such punishment further contradicts principles of proportionality and human dignity which modern legal systems aim to protect. However, there will also be deliberation as to the merits of capital punishment and how retributive justice possibly affirms the value of human life by delivering equivocal punishment to the most severe of crimes. Ultimately, this essay contends that whilst such arguments operate in favour of the death penalty, this does not resolve the corrosion of moral foundations within society.
It can be argued the death penalty does not simply operate as a legal consequence but rather as the ritualised act of state sanctioned murder. Such a mechanism of brutality is considered to not only punish the condemned but also reshape society’s moral standards to view some lives as disposable. The death penalty is said to depart from humane legal principles and represent the disproportionate and irrational response of punishment to crime. Camus describes capital punishment as the most premeditated of murders, characterised by carefully planned and scheduled executions. [1] In a weakened bid to claim moral superiority, the state lies in wait to deliberately end a life. This description bears an uncomfortable similarity to the same crimes which are heavily penalised by the very same state. Such an account unearths the paradoxical nature of capital punishment. Executions are shielded away from the public eye, revealing an implicit awareness of the moral discomfort the death penalty provokes. This cements the existence of an underlying awareness of moral shame which is hidden in a futile attempt to retain humanity. The ritual like nature of these executions enables its social acceptance as a bureaucratic process rather than permissible violence. Distancing ourselves from the inherently immoral termination of life slowly shifts the death penalty from an extraordinarily radical act to a necessitated and normalised practice. Camus’ moral critique of the death penalty as institutionalised killing is strengthened by support from earlier Enlightenment philosophy. Beccaria’s texts establish the foundations of modern criminal justice, rejecting excessive methods of punishment. Beccaria asserts that punishment need only be necessary and proportionate to the crime committed. In his early works on penology, Beccaria warns that when the state exceeds ‘necessity’ in its deliverance of punishment, this serves as an act of tyranny. Justice ceases to be served and instead society’s culture is desensitised to hostility.[2]
Ritualisation and the normalisation of publicly staged execution reframe killing as a justificatory route of taking life. Both Camus and Beccaria’s arguments are grounded in social contract theory and utilitarianism whereby punishment is only justified to the extent necessary to produce security and order, allowing individuals to enjoy the greatest possible liberty that is left.[3] As no individual would rationally waiver their life to the state, the death penalty bears no legitimate grounds to be an extension of the social contract. Consequently, execution violates the principles upon which modern legal systems attain authority. The brutality of the death penalty remains clothed in legal proceedings and formality; an act of violence is rewritten as an act of justice. Disposability of human life becomes a response to wrongdoing and society becomes conditioned to forget the complexity of human life. Smith’s assertion becomes alarmingly evident as the loss of humanity does not solely occur in the moment a life is snuffed out but in the gradual normalisation of cruelty within society’s moral conscience.
However, in opposition to these abolitionists’ commentary, perhaps there must be consideration that the death penalty affirms the value of human life. Execution does not dehumanise the life of the person ‘strapped to the table’, nor the humanity of society but rather affirms the value of innocent life. This consequence is argued to be morally resolute by inflicting the gravest of consequences when human life is violated. Arguably, the death penalty serves the interests of the public by demonstrating an unwavering commitment to justice for if the life of a murderer is spared, the lives of the innocent are sacrificed. [4] Insistence on the strongest deterrence to crime possible instils confidence that society is protected. Beccaria pleads that the death penalty is inhumane and excessive however the Biblical standard argues otherwise. Capital punishment relies heavily on the prospect of retributive theories of justice whereby the degree of punishment should closely mirror the severity of the crime committed. Lex talionis, or ‘an eye for an eye’, suggests that the dignity of a victim is resolved through the termination of the offender’s own life. The degree of punishment is deemed equivocal to the initial sufferings of the victim which does not strip us of our humanity but rather restores balance between the innocent and guilty. Otherwise, leniency in punishment risks pleading in favour of a ‘miserable portion of the human species.’ [5]
However, the death penalty remains an archaic mechanism as a retaliation to crime. It serves as a mere duplication of the act the law wishes to condemn in the first place. The law of retaliation is rooted in more theocratic interpretations of justice and has weak foundations in the machinations of modern criminal law. Such a principle promotes the embedment of inhumane violence within the structure of law itself. Justice cannot imitate or be reminiscent of the crime it seeks to punish as this risks eroding, rather than strengthening, society’s moral foundation of crime and its punishment become indistinguishable. Therefore, the death penalty does more than extinguish the life of the condemned but also reshapes the moral conscience and imagination of those who authorise such a practice. By framing killing as justice and ignoring the inherent value of human life, empathy and forgiveness which characterise society’s humanity becomes quashed. As a result, Smith’s claim is ever more persuasive in that the death penalty does not merely constitute the ending of one’s life but also incrementally shifts society’s moral boundaries away from humanism and the assertion of individual rights.
Ultimately, the nature of the death penalty invokes questions as to the moral nature of societies which permit its use. Whilst retribution and the death penalty acting as the strongest form of deterrence operate as justifications for capital punishment, one cannot ignore the deeper ethical concerns raised. The death penalty becomes increasingly difficult to justify when brutality and the erosion of society’s humanity is permitted. Therefore, Smith’s claim remains compelling and relevant whereby the death penalty does not merely end the life of a perpetrator but inevitably sacrifices the moral conscience of society, diminishing the collective humanity it claims to preserve.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Camus A, ‘Reflections on the Guillotine’ https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-reflections-on-the-guillotine
Harcourt BE, ‘Beccaria’s “On Crimes and Punishments”: A Mirror on the History of the Foundations of Modern Criminal Law’ (2014)
Lehtinen MW, ‘The Value of Life: An Argument for the Death Penalty’ (1977) Crime & Delinquency 23(3) 237–252
Vouglans M de, Réfutation des Principes hasardés dans le Traité des Délits et Peines [Refutation of the Principles Advanced in the Treatise on Crimes and Punishments] (1767)
[1] Albert Camus, ‘Reflections on the Guillotine’ (1957) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-reflections-on-the-guillotine accessed 1 March 2026.
[2] Bernard E Harcourt, ‘Beccaria’s “On Crimes and Punishments”: A Mirror on the History of the Foundations of Modern Criminal Law’ (2014) https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/faculty_scholarship/article/2817/&path_info=Harcourt_Beccarias_On_Crimes_and_Punishments.pdfaccessed 1 March 2026.
[3] Harcourt (n 2)
[4] Marlene W Lehtinen, ‘The Value of Life: An Argument for the Death Penalty’ (1977) Crime & Delinquency 23(3) 237–252 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/001112877702300301 accessed 2 March 2026.
[5] M de Vouglans, Réfutation des Principes hasardés dans le Traité des Délits et Peines [Refutation of the Principles Advanced in the Treatise on Crimes and Punishments] (1767) 5.
