|  Capital punishment,otherwise known as death sentence which is usually meted out to offenders only in extreme rare and predefined cases.Its application in any case is predicated on meeting some stringent conditions of the law,for it is embedded in the grundnorm of most countries of the world that all citizens shall have right to life.To deprive any citizen of this right,this jurisprudential view argues,all necessary conditions of the law that make such killing just,must have been completely met.
This brilliant proposition of the law excusing deprivation of citizens’ right to life notwithstanding,the issue of capital punishment has generated debates in virtually all the climes where it had been or is still being applied.The contention in every case always rests on the justness or otherwise of such action taken by the State.
Ethymologically speaking,capital punishment can be succinctly defined as the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating a criminal law .The means of execution both in recent and ancient times include crucifixion,stoning,drowning,burning of the stake, impaling and beheading; death through lethal gas or injection, electrocution,hanging or shooting.However,electrocution and death by hanging appear to be more popular in recent times.
When viewed from the standpoint of law,capital punishment appears to be sound in all respects:justice-being a tripod apparatus-believes that an action taken in law is just if justice is apparently done to the accused,the complainant and the society at large.But the ultimate moral question which must not be glossed over in the realm of jurisprudence is: how effective is the use of capital punishment vis-à-vis the prevention of further crimes or in serving as a deterrence to other criminals?
Those for capital punishment contend that the threat of execution is,in itself,sufficient deterrence to others.On the other hand ,those against it argue that capital punishment is ineffective since it does not in anyway reduce the rate of murder in our society .The overall evaluation of the two sides to the argument reveals that the pendulum of the argument swings in favour of abolition for lack of effectiveness.
For instance,researhes have shown that the quest for the abolition of capital punishment has been in existence since time immemorial. In Europe ,the practice of capital punishment started attracting torrential criticisms from social commentators in mid-18th century,when people started appreciating the worth of human lifes.Social critics such as the Italian jurist-Cesare Beccaria ,the French authors-Voltaire and Denis Diderot,David Hume of Britain ,Adam Smit of Scotland and Thomas Paine of America all launched vitriolic campaign against this practice ,arguing that the practice is brutal and degrading.
In West Africa for instance,when death penalty by firing squad was being practiced in Nigeria in the early 80s towards early 90s ,there were reported cases of “pick-pocketing “ at the scene of execution of criminals.This is sufficient to underscore the futility of the practice of death penalties.In fact,the mindset of most criminals is that the worst thing that could happen to them is that they would be killed.
Indeed,many of these armed robbers in West Africa for instance see execution after arrest as a panacea for their ever-tomenting problems of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and the likes.Death they say ,will end their sufferings.
Having experimented with capital punishment and discovered its total fiasco,the appriopriate authorities are expected to choose better and more just end.To this end,one may want to consider the alternative option of life imprisonment and see how effective it will prove Beccaria{supra} gave us a clue into the effectiveness of life imprisonment when he said “the certainty of punishment,rather than its severity ,was a more effective deterrent.”
Thus,an alternative punishment such as imprisonment could effectively isolate criminals from the community,deter other potential offenders from committing offences ,and express the community’s condemnation of those who break its laws .The option of execution even encourages more crimes in the sense that criminals often argue that it is only one bullet or the tightening of the noose that will end their lives .This way,they claim,they would not feel the pain of death.
If the application of death sentence is continued,innocent people will continue to suffer more for it.They will be raped of justice.This arises from the fact that so many errors may occur during prosecution.
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