Is Death a Just Punishment for Murder?

Can you imagine knowing the exact day, time, and place you were going to die, not to mention how your death was to come about? Day after day of mental pain just knowing that days, hours, minutes and even seconds from now you are going to be killed. The night before, tossing and turning, playing through your head just the way you imagine your death is going to be, asking yourself heaven or hell, suffering or short? If only you can take that one moment of sin back or maybe there was never a moment of sin at all. After what seems like a hundred of years, the day finally arrives. You slowly walk into the chamber, your heart is racing, your hands are clammy, and you are shaking not because it is cold, but out of fear. Your assistants lead you to your position, and prepare you for your execution. You sit and think about all the wonderful things in life you are thankful for and then what seems like a dream finally fades to black. Immanuel Kant’s retributive theory of punishment states that “punishment is justified not by any good results but simply by the criminal’s guilt and that criminals must pay for their crimes otherwise an injustice has occurred.” He also feels that whoever has committed a murder must die. The death penalty must inflict an unimaginable amount of guilt on the criminal. Given certain circumstances I can see why the death penalty is used, however I do not think that it is always a just punishment even if the crime committed was murder.

Kant’s Retributive Theory of Punishment was published back in the 1800’s and looking at it now in the year 2006, the ideas do not seem to be as appropriate as they once were. Today our court system should take the situation into account before jus talionis, the right of retaliation. This right states that “if you slander another, you slander yourself; if you steal from another, you steal from yourself; if you kill another, you kill yourself.” If a court of jurors were to take this right as their “bible” to judge a criminal, then the death penalty