Exam 18: Capital Punishment

Suppose there is strong scientific evidence showing that the execution of criminals deters serious criminal behavior better than lesser punishments such as imprisonment. This data would suggest that the deterrence argument is

For many retentionists, the only necessary justification for the type and degree of punishment is what the criminal deserves.

Those who oppose capital punishment are known as ________.

A common utilitarian argument in favor of capital punishment is that the death penalty

Punishment by execution of someone officially judged to have committed a serious crime is called ________.

A man does not plan to kill his wife and has no intention of doing so, but one night he becomes enraged at her for insulting him, and he stabs her to death. He would therefore be guilty of

Suppose a friend of yours says that she's glad a murderer was recently sentenced to the gas chamber, because murderers deserve to die. Her comment implies that she accepts the ________ theory of punishment.

Suppose the state of Ohio wanted to execute a boy who was fifteen when he murdered his parents. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, such an execution would be unconstitutional.

A utilitarian who wants to argue against the death penalty might be expected to say that

A man plans to kill his wife, waits for the right opportunity, and does the deed. He would therefore be guilty of first-degree murder.

Consider this assertion, common in debates on capital punishment: the unjust administration of a punishment does not entail the injustice of the punishment itself. This view is most likely espoused by

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that if a jury were to impose the death penalty without any legal guidance, the practice would constitute

The idea that the punishment should match the crime in kind-that justice demands "an eye for an eye, a life for a life"-is called ________.

Underpinning many retributive views of capital punishment is a Kantian emphasis on respect for persons.

________ are those people who want to continue the policy of capital punishment.

Consider these two premises in a well-known argument: (1) everyone has a right to life (a basic moral principle), even hardened criminals; (2) the death penalty is a violation of this right. The conclusion to this argument is

The issue of forgiving a criminal (for example, commuting a death sentence to life in prison) forces us to confront a contradiction between mercy (giving someone a break) and

A study released in 2014 suggests that an untold number of innocent people have been executed since 1973. Retentionists would reply to these statistics by insisting that this does not show anything intrinsically wrong with capital punishment, but only how it is administered.

Delma Banks Jr. was charged with murder; his lawyer failed to vigorously cross-examine an informant testifying against Banks or to investigate the case. Consequently, Banks may not have received a fair trial because of poor representation. If so, a retentionist would argue that the injustice in the conduct of the trial would

The view that offenders deserve to be punished, or "paid back," for their crimes and to be punished in proportion to the severity of their offenses is known as ________.