If Australians are caught and found guilty of smuggling illegal drugs into another country that has the death penalty as the standard punishment for such a crime, then it is not morally right that they are sentenced according to that country’s laws. To prove this statement, I am going to focus on two ethical theories. Retributivism is an ethical theory of punishment focusing on the idea that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires him or her to suffer in return (Frey & Wellman, 2005). The consequentialist theory holds that the morally right act is one that will generate a good result or consequence (Frey & Wellman, 2005). I am going to argue three arguments throughout this essay, the first being that the death penalty has no positive effect in deterring crime, the errors in the system surrounding the death penalty are too frequent and severe and that execution is an inhumane and unjust act and is too cruel a punishment for the crime being discussed (Frey & Wellman, 2005).
Firstly, there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than a prison term (Frey & Wellman, 2005). Many criminals don’t get caught, many can also not receive the death penalty in the end, and those who do are usually on death row for a long time, at least a decade and occasionally more, so for other potential criminals it is not a major threat to them and the connection between a crime they intend to commit and the death penalty is often completely irrelevant in their minds (Frey & Wellman, 2005). It appears that to gain a deterrent effect, countries with the death penalty rely on media coverage to deter criminals, however, in the heightened media coverage, it seems to have had the effect of simply becoming a “spectacle” that diverts the public attention from other significantly worse issues such as policy problems and corruption, and displaying an image of coherent legal sovereignty in many third world countries at a time when the rule of law is in fact diminishing (Frey & Wellman, 2005). The consequentialist theory responds to this argument with appeals to common sense as it is suggested one is most deterred by what one fears most. It is understood all humans have a great fear of death, even greater than that of loss of liberty, thus, the death penalty must deter more strongly than imprisonment (Frey & Wellman, 2005). However, in response to this rebut, researchers have compared murder rates in jurisdictions before and after they abolished the death penalty and it seems there are too many uncontrollable factors that influence the homicide rate that it is hard to be confident that the results of the comparisons accurately reflect a direct effect of the death penalty rather than other factors, for example, varying ages and employment rates (Frey & Wellman, 2005). There is a large possibility that the threats of life imprisonment are enough to significantly suffice any potential killers who could be deterred at all (Frey & Wellman, 2005). It is also largely debated whether a perceived small risk of death deters better than a risk of life in prison. Even if the observed dispute over death deterrence insufficiency were resolved, a normative issue would remain (Frey & Wellman, 2005). At the core of many beliefs is that deliberately murdering a human who is no longer in a position to potentially threaten someone’s life is so inherently immoral that it must be banned.
The death penalty always conveys a strong risk that innocent people could be convicted of the crime of smuggling drugs to another country, sentenced to death, and eventually executed. Recently a Filipino woman Mary Jane Veloso had been on death row (Howard, 2019). Mary was a poor migrant worker and believed to be a victim of human trafficking by her employer whom she was understood to have murdered in an attempt of self-defense. Despite Mary eventually being able to reprieve the punishment the psychological effects she, her friends, and her family suffered were indecipherable (Howard, 2019). Consequentialists provide two disputes in rebuttal to this argument. The likelihood of the suffering of innocent people on death row is supposedly exaggerated and the numerous layers of review and process protections built into the capital punishment systems within each country that entertain capital punishment are thought to make it extremely unlikely an innocent person will be wrongly convicted and executed as systems are able to wean out wrong convictions before mistakes occur (Howard, 2019). For example, more than 90 prisoners have been released from US death row since 1973 under evidence they are innocent (Howard, 2019). Secondly, the risk of a mistake is only one minor moral deliberation relevant to whether execution is morally acceptable and can be outweighed by competing moral considerations such as by doing justice by giving the worst crimes a severe punishment (Howard, 2019). Retributivists challenge both of these responses as factually the execution of the innocent is not so minute a possibility, as approximately twenty-four mistakes occurred in the 1900s in which innocent people were executed (Howard, 2019). The so-called protections and reviews appear to be more apparent than real, given what have been appalling legal representations of capital defendants on trial and the frightening legal barriers to post-conviction review (Howard, 2019). As for the benefits outweighing the risk of mistakes, it must be evoked first that there is little evidence of the death penalty having a significant effect on the deterrence of the same and similar crimes.
The execution of humans by humans displays a morally flawed attitude towards human life that makes it as unsuitable a penalty for even the worst crimes as torment or mutilation would be (Leechaianan & Longmire, 2013). Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalization of society and ultimately demonstrates an increase in the murder rate (Leechaianan & Longmire, 2013). In the United States of America, it appears that there is an increase in murder rates in states that comprise the death penalty as a punishment (Leechaianan & Longmire, 2013). In 2010, it was measured that the murder rate in states where the death penalty had been abolished was lower at 4.01 percent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was higher at 5 percent (Leechaianan & Longmire, 2013). Lex talionis is a principle argued by retributivists that dictate offensive, obscene punishments for some crimes whilst not even suggesting a penalty for a host of other offenses. For example, murdering murderers and raping rapists versus the punishment for drug smuggling which would suggest no punishment at all. However, Retributivists claim that a crime could be so heinous and serious that the death penalty can be the only appropriate punishment and criminals should suffer an insult to the dignity and humanity of the victims, equivalent to the crime they committed (Frey & Wellman, 2005). Lex talionis is a principle used by this theory that demands criminals be punished by suffering the very fate they inflicted on their victims (Frey & Wellman, 2005). However, this is a principle that cannot be applied to all crimes and is left drastically unclear and almost impossible (Frey & Wellman, 2005). Especially in the case of smuggling drugs into a foreign country, there Is no punishment suitable for this crime based on the principle of lex talionis (Frey & Wellman, 2005). At the core of many beliefs is that deliberately murdering a human who is no longer in a position to potentially threaten someone’s life is so inherently immoral that it must be banned, and the crime of smuggling drugs cannot be justified via the use of the death penalty.
Ultimately, If Australians are caught and found guilty of smuggling illegal drugs into another country that has the death penalty as the standard punishment for such a crime, then I do not believe it is morally right that they are sentenced according to that country’s laws. I have proved this through disputing the ethical theories of Retributivism and partly of consequentialism as I believe that the death penalty is ineffective in deterring crime, the risk of errors in implementing the death penalty is too high and that execution-only brutalizes human culture, and is unnecessary in which execution is not the right punishment.