Critical Factors On Human Dignity And Capital Punishment

Antiepa Munatsi S00150701 This discussion is going to investigate and evaluate the critical factors in relation to human dignity and capital punishment utilising the case study of Andrew and Myuran. A discussion would be made on the issues surrounding the unfair forms of punishments that are used to deal with those who committed unimaginable crimes in the eyes of society. I believe this is an issue where human dignity is a critical factor because there is no respect for individual autonomy and Andrew and Myuran were not given the chance and hence their humanity and dignity violated. Perspectives 1 and 2 would be outlined and an analysis would be made to each in relationship to the case study. Also, understanding of human dignity in each†¦show more content†¦Question 1 Dwight Conquergood wrote about how the legal system in America tried to normalise capital punishment to make it seem less cruel by introducing other ways of execution. This was done by using the lethal injection as in McVeigh?s case (Conquergood, 2002). He advocates against the use of capital punishment and in his discussion highlighted that he attended many demonstrations with those against capital punishment. In addition, he highlights that there is bias from authorities when handling death cases. In one of the cases, the police lost documents which would have been given to the defense lawyers to fight against the sentence. However, the individual was put to death and he considered that death penalty to be unfair and unjust and that there has been instances of innocent people being on death row. He highlighted that minorities make up the largest number of prisoners on the death penalty despite representing a small percentage of the small population and argued that there was bias ag ainst certain minorities. The author indicated that African-Americans are 19% more likely to be put on death row as compared to other races even though they might have committed the same crime (Conquergood, 2002). His view can be put into quadrant 1A which refers to dignity obtained by being a human being (Kirchhoffer, 2013). However, when one is on death row, this dignity is taking away and therefore he argues that offenders