Question 1: Are there any circumstances under which you would support the death penalty? If you answer "no," explain your categorical opposition to capital punishment. If you answer "yes," identify those circumstances and explain why they make the death penalty morally permissible or morally obligatory
The death penalty has its good aspects and its bad aspects. There is always the chance no matter how small that an innocent person would be put to death. For many this is a valid reason as to why the death penalty should be done away with. English jurist William Blackstone said, "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This quote demonstrates the seriousness of sending an innocent person to jail. Imagine just how much more serious it would be to accidently sentence an innocent person to death.
The justice system of the United States has embraced the concept of innocent until proven guilty. This leaves it up to the prosecution team to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is guilty. While this may seem to be an easy task in cases where one person looks to be guilty it is not always that easy. One must keep in mind that with every valid point that is made by the prosecution the defense has the chance to cast the shadow of doubt on their point. With the justice system, the way that it has become it is very difficult to prove a guilty person guilty and much more difficult to prove an innocent person guilty. In theory, with fewer people going to jail for crimes that they did not commit there is less of a reason to oppose the death penalty.
In my opinion, the death penalty should be a sentencing option for a multitude of violent crimes not just murder. Violent crimes, while they do not always bring forth the death of the victim, cause a death of a part of a person. Violent crimes such as rape can result in a rape victim being unable to trust anyone, or in extreme cases develop a fear of leaving their "safe place", usually their home. Someone who is a victim of a violent assault can also have the same reaction as a rape victim, or as a victim of attempted murder. Any violent crime that changes the victim in a radical and negative way should have the death penalty as one of the sentences available. I do believe that there are crimes that are truly crimes of passion and those should have a lesser sentence than crimes that cannot be classified as a crime of passion. A crime of passion could be defined as but not limited to, a person comes how to find their spouse in bed with another person, if the person who discovers them has a psychotic break and harms or in extreme cases kills one or both of the offending parties. Violent crimes that cannot be classified as crimes of passion are crimes such as rape, attempted murder, or assault with a deadly weapon, or any other extremely violent crime that involves no provocation from the victim.
The death penalty is underused in my opinion, and possibly, if it were used more it would become a deterrent to others. As stated in the book if there were days of the week designated as death penalty days and days designated as life sentence days there would be fewer murders committed on death penalty days. Yes, I do believe in the death penalty and think that it should be used more.
Question 2: Under what circumstances, if any, is it morally permissible to break the law? Explain how your position relates to the one King puts forward in his "Letter."
Since there are unjust law makers there are unjust laws. Unjust laws are permissible to break as long as they are broken in a just way. There are even some just laws that under certain circumstances they too can be broken. It all comes down to individual circumstances and the laws that are being broken.
As mentioned by Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter that was written while he was in a Birmingham jail, unjust laws are ethical to break. In Hitler's Germany, it was illegal to harbor or protect the Jews. While it was breaking the law to do these things, it was still ethical. While Hitler and his constituents were working towards the eradication of the Jews it did not make it unethical for someone to protect them. Alternatively, look back even further into history at the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a system that aided in moving slaves from the south to the free north. If someone were caught, doing so they would be punished and the slaves they were trying to save would go back to their owners.
While it may seem to be very clear as to what laws are unjust and should be broken it is not always so. If you were raised to believe a certain way then the laws that kept things that way would not seem unjust. However, if you were a part of the groups that the laws were persecuting the rightness or wrongness of breaking the law were much clearer.
There are still other laws that fit into the gray area of whether or not it is permissible to break them. One that immediately comes to mind is theft. If you steal because you are starving then yes it is more permissible to break that law, although still illegal and if caught you will still be punished. Even if you are caught and punished, there is the possibility that you would be given a lesser sentence because of why you were stealing. This is not true if you say you are stealing to feed your family but the items you steal are not food related. This being said there are organizations that feed the hungry, which, if you have access to these organizations, could nullify your argument about stealing to feed your family.
Self-defense shows even more laws that are just to break. If you are being attacked by someone and in order to save your life or the life of someone else, you assault or kill the offender, you have committed a crime. However, it is less likely that you will convicted of the crime because you were defending another life. If you catch someone breaking into your home and in order to protect yourself and your property that person is harmed in the removal from your property you should also not be convicted for harming him or her.
It is my opinion that life overrides the law. Regardless of the law that is being broken, if it is being broken to preserve life then it is permissible to break it.
