The Death Row

Every time a convict is sentenced to death, we hear the same debates about the death penalty - should it be legal or not. I recently watched the critically acclaimed legal drama 12 Angry Men , and that brought forth all the old questions about the practice of execution.

According to Amnesty International, India is one of the 33 or so countries that still carry out executions. Over 140 countries have made it illegal over the years. The United Nations, Amnesty International and many other organisations are against it. Religious leaders condemn it. So why continue the practice?

One answer given by those who support the use of death penalty, is that one who has murdered and is unrepentant, may well commit the crime again. So the death penalty is a way to rid the society of the menace. That may well sound true, but the number of crimes in India shows no sign of falling.

The Supreme Court, in Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab(1980) , made it clear that the death penalty can be handed out in only the rarest of rare cases. Moreover, if the convict's mercy plea is delayed inexplicably for a few years, the death penalty shall be commuted to a life sentence. This was upheld by a Supreme Court ruling in 2014.

Therefore, it may be safe to assume that those who are hanged are definitely guilty and deserve death. However, that may not always be the case. The famous Timothy Evans case in UK is a good example of how the death penalty may be misused. Timothy Evans was, in 1950, hanged for the murder of his wife and daughter. Three years later, it emerged that John Christie, Evans' downstairs neighbour, was a serial killer, and had killed at least six women. He also confessed to having killed Evans' wife and daughter. Christie was hanged in 1953. There was widespread condemnation at the miscarriage of justice and the alleged inefficiency of the police in handling the case. This led to a string of anti-execution campaigns that finally culminated in the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom in 1969.

This goes to show that the life of a convict should not be taken from them, as it cannot be given back. But what about the other side of the picture? The famous Nirbhaya case lasted nearly eight years, at the end of which four men were hanged. Several lawyers and other prominent citizens spoke out against the death penalty awarded to the four. But here's an important question to them: would you be saying the same things and holding the same protests if your own daughter was raped multiple times, and thrown from a moving bus? Wouldn't you work tirelessly for ensuring that the guilty are hanged?

It therefore looks like there is no perfect solution to this question. It is right that no one has a right to take any other's life. Those opposing the death penalty say that the criminals should be sentenced to imprisonment for life. But that works down to the fact that government money is being used for them. So a lot of people maintain that the death penalty is the best form of punishment for highly serious offences. But, as we have seen, that too cannot be perfectly justified.