Is Capital Punishment Justly Administered?

Although the support of capital punishment is on the decline, 60 percent of Americans still support the death penalty for certain crimes. Capital punishment is not legal all over the United States, but it is still legal in 32 states in America. Both sides of the issue concerning the just administration of capital punishment were examined during this research. The analysis of previous work by other scholars, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, was used to make further findings and evaluations for each claim. The affirmative side of the argument, which supports the contention that capital punishment is justly administered, stand firm on the fact that jurors are to rely purely on legal instructions for the decision-making process and that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed that the death penalty itself is not cruel and unusual, but is “an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme crimes.” The negative side of the argument, which opposes the contention that capital punishment is justly administered, is grounded on the fact that 117 men have been exonerated while on death row since it was reinstated in 1976. To them, this makes the justice system unjust, and in many of these exoneration cases there was insufficient evidence to convict the defendant, let alone send them do death row. To each side of the issue, protecting the lives of people is of utmost importance. The division lies within which people they are protecting: the accused or the innocent. Each side of the issue was further analyzed using Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation. These conclusions show that capital punishment is a prevalent issue in society, and both sides continue to believe that they are correct because, ironically, the argument for each is warranted by the protection of life. Each side of this issue presents itself with evidence of what makes the death penalty both just and unjust. This is an abstract from on-going research as a part of COMS 3331 Argumentation. At the time of the conference, additional analyses and evaluations will have been made, in addition to the propositional argument for each case, the arguments that constitute each case