Is Capital Punishment An Appropriate Penalty For Murder? Legal professor Ernest van den Haag believes that the death penalty is the good as in a punishment for terrible crimes that are committed. On the other hand professor of philosophy Hugo Adam Bedau thinks that the death penalty is not appropriate, do to it takes the lives of people that can not afford a good defense. I would have to agree with Ernest van den Haag. When a person commits a serious crime like murder, the only fitting penalty is death. "Maldistribution inheres no more in capital punishment than in any other punishment." (Haag 274) Fear of the death penalty can be a good deterrent. Many people also try to abolish the death penalty by talking about the suffering a convicted murderer has to go through, but what about what the victim had to go through. Further, if we get rid of the death penalty it will show that we are not willing to impose our punishments on people who brake our laws.Some maldistribution of the death penalty is unavoidable, but that does not mean we should throw out the death penalty. When the death penalty is imposed on an innocent person that is a serious miscarriage of justice. However, when people talk about the maldistribution of the death penalty they are not referring to when it is imposed on an innocent person rather when the death penalty is imposed on guilty minorities, or low income whites, who can not afford a good lawyer. Even if maldistribution occurs among people who should receive the death penalty that is irrelevant to the morality of the death penalty. It is really too bad that if you have money you can get your way out of the death penalty, but money talks in this country. Yes, we should change this policy, but will it ever change? It will probably never change. Still with these problems in our justice system when a person murders another he or she should receive the death penalty. "The only relevant question is: does t...
