By Gabriel Patrick Lagu
An idealistic retrospection sigh is worth the current constitution daily claiming lots of innocent lives.
How strong to uphold, who really has the right to take another’s life? Whose son is he? Who, for God’s sake, gave the authority to legalize being subjected to a death penalty?
Many moons ago, in the 1940s, Caryl Chessman, an American criminal accused of kidnapping and robbery, was subjected to his ultimate death penalty. According to famous Little Lindbergh’s law, it’s a no-objections case for such issues; hence, a death penalty is more of a payment check for the crime. This issue has roared lots of debates to a constraint of a national level, citing what the law has stated and the gravity of the minor offense made.
As experts know, one who is subjected to a death penalty is one who has been convicted of performing a homicidal act. In the case of Mr. Chessman, who was accused of non-homicide, he was put to death after several court appeals in 1967. Unfairly falling a target to the unjust laws.
This brutal punishment derives its footage right from ancient paganic nations, the great Babylon of King Darius II citing the code of Hammurabi, an ancient scroll of law used in the old days of Babylon right from the light of the 18th century BCE. Ancient Greece and Rome alike performed public executions at their city gates to make sure victims were served as outcasts.
Taking one’s life was a punishment for a homicidal act, spanning several religious beliefs, social norms, and political reasons.
As stressed out, the constitution of our country strikingly holds onto such punishment as the “death penalty” as a practice of high regard to offenders, gaining popularity from a past civilization to modern times. Whether it be public executions where one head is fetched for the case of Ancient Rome, stoning, or casting one with no food and several options to make life ebb from man in one way or another, they have been used in different regions of the world and, to some explicable extent, in our beloved country, South Sudan.
In other extremities, a victim is smeared with honey and sealed on a boat left to float on the ocean just to feel the torments of slow death by stinging insects attracted by the honey and slowly rotting up, exposing the inner flesh chambered with the foul smell of rot to mark as an invitation to scavenger birds.
This was a common tactical approach in the ancient world; surely criminals during those days suffered a lot on their way to death. The crosses at Mount Golgotha are a tribute to the great Roman rule. The scriptures give an open clue to the situation of Jesus Christ (the Son of God), who was crucified alongside two other mates.
Victims of crucifixion had to deal with the pains conceived by the nails protruding through their flesh, attaching it to the cross, a deadly punishment ministered to make one feel the pain of the chaos they have caused in the community. Then, after spending some time on the cross, victims had their legs amputated to hasten their death in a remorse with blood draining fast from their body.
The present-day crucifixion site of Jesus Christ—Calvary—has gotten an eye-catching number of 1000+ crosses, a testimony to law and ancient morality deeply grounded.
Our current days present developed weapons such as guns to officiate the penalty, things to deal with electric chairs, and many others to mention, are popularly used across multiple regions.
To have a logical glance at how this has shaped the world and affected histories, a question arises: How does the death penalty really help in reducing crime rates? Or how does it profit a nation upon killing a citizen who hasn’t been rightfully upheld by the rule of law for just a single scandal committed?
This is a sensitive part for sparking a legislative debate. Why should there be a need to step it down and move forward to engaging in personal transformation?
If all the suspicions of the death penalty as a fuel to reduce crime rates in the city are right, still the hard reality lies in the analysis of before and then. From the old ages of deadly persecutions, criminals have never ceased to exist.
If indeed these sentences have helped, criminology would have been buried a long time ago, not finding a bridge to contaminate this present era.
Therefore, the reality is that all the death penalties that ever existed haven’t solved a mind puzzle yet.
Considering the unjust dealings of Mr. Chessman, as far as today is concerned, has never reduced the number of robbers and kidnappers, not even by a small fraction. All these are done to claim justice, justice that is not worth it. There is no need for a fair constitutional dealing when one citizen is killed over a small scandal, abusing the essence of life itself. Not to talk of human rights first, but the moral view on justice.
Perhaps, there is much need for more philosophers than the world has such that they can uncover the driving force behind crimes in modern times and how to go about it in a humane manner.
Great thinkers who rise up and mentor the minds of the people to recreate a new modern constitution excluding a punishment of death.
However much this law has acted in shaping our past from the ancient civilizations, a full mystery lies to unravel. It’s time to get on with what really matters and do away with what doesn’t matter. It’s time to reconsider the transformative aspect of man, a vital part to deal with, to eradicate pointless executions. It’s a beneficial element to keep a close eye on change; a psychosocial element is inevitable in a human being.
There lies a huge gain when victims of executions are enrolled for transformative studies, an investment that would help the government control crime rates.
It’s a better idea when governments borrow the idea of Portugal, where inmates read books to reduce their sentences. This is a silent growth method meant not to be realized, with surprisingly excellent results of a transformed life.
Some victims are just psychologically perturbed leading to their extremes in approaching life, such patients should be recommended for a therapeutical advise. Not just to tie a rope on their necks and hang them. Rather, those convicted should attain education for the case of one who didn’t go to school, vocational training programs including carpentry, welding, auto mechanics and several varieties of manual skills, Religious fellowships is also a primal factor for a change in man.
These transformative measures should be seriously taken into consideration, avoiding the killing of more citizens, the same citizens with the potential to raise our country when treated of their diseases.
Since religion for lots of centuries has shaped the world’s morality, in our days all world regions have gotten a religion legalized. The Christian world will not be a favorite for entertaining death.
Jesus Christ teaches about love for one another and, above all, judging others, for God is only the fair judge.
No one has the right to take away someone’s life, not even the handwritten constitution. The society has come to live in the times in which Christianity lost its essence in definitely almost all world regions; pagan cultures from the past are drawn and incorporated into our constitutions. These open breaches should come to an end and cease to happen; morality taught by all religions, so long as life is valued, is the target of a perfect dwelling environment.
Life should be celebrated, not abused.
The author is a student from Kings Academy Digital Secondary School.