Deck 18: Capital Punishment

Question 1

A man does not plan to kill his wife and has no intention of doing so, but one night he becomes enraged at her for insulting him, and he stabs her to death. He would therefore be guilty of

A) second-degree murder.
B) manslaughter.
C) third-degree murder.
D) first-degree murder.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Most retentionists believe that, in a large majority of cases, wrongdoers should not be punished at all.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

For many retentionists, the only necessary justification for the type and degree of punishment is what the criminal deserves.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

A study released in 2014 suggests that an untold number of innocent people have been executed since 1973. Retentionists would reply to these statistics by insisting that this does not show anything intrinsically wrong with capital punishment, but only how it is administered.

Question 5

Consider this assertion, common in debates on capital punishment: the unjust administration of a punishment does not entail the injustice of the punishment itself. This view is most likely espoused by

A) abolitionists.
B) utilitarians.
C) retentionists.
D) natural law theorists.

Question 6

Suppose the state of Ohio wanted to execute a boy who was fifteen when he murdered his parents. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, such an execution would be unconstitutional.

Question 7

Consider these two premises in a well-known argument: (1) everyone has a right to life (a basic moral principle), even hardened criminals; (2) the death penalty is a violation of this right. The conclusion to this argument is

A) executing criminals is wrong.
B) executing criminals is permissible.
C) executing criminals is costly.
D) executing criminals generates less happiness than life in prison.

Question 8

Some argue that the death penalty could encourage violent crime instead of deterring it, that violent criminals who know they are likely to get the death penalty may commit murder to avoid being captured. This argument is put forth by utilitarian abolitionists.

Question 9

A man plans to kill his wife, waits for the right opportunity, and does the deed. He would therefore be guilty of first-degree murder.

Question 10

The idea that the punishment should match the crime in kind-that justice demands "an eye for an eye, a life for a life"-is called ________.

A) abolitionism
B) paternalistic retributivism
C) proportional retributivism
D) lex talionis

Question 11

Suppose a friend of yours says that she's glad a murderer was recently sentenced to the gas chamber, because murderers deserve to die. Her comment implies that she accepts the ________ theory of punishment.

A) utilitarian
B) deterrence
C) retributive
D) preventive

Question 12

Suppose there is strong scientific evidence showing that the execution of criminals deters serious criminal behavior better than lesser punishments such as imprisonment. This data would suggest that the deterrence argument is

A) weak.
B) strong.
C) irrelevant.
D) logically sound.

Question 13

A utilitarian who wants to argue against the death penalty might be expected to say that

A) capital punishment has a civilizing effect on society.
B) more net happiness is created in society by executing criminals than by sentencing them to life in prison without parole.
C) life in prison without parole is not a better deterrent than capital punishment.
D) more net happiness is created in society by sentencing murderers to life in prison without parole than by executing them.

Question 14

Suppose a utilitarian abolitionist argues that the death penalty is too costly to implement in a democratic society. A plausible nonconsequentialist reply is that

A) the death penalty is indeed too costly and should be abolished.
B) if the death penalty is a just punishment, then the costs involved don't matter.
C) justice doesn't matter; only cost does.
D) more net happiness is created by getting rid of the death penalty.

Question 15

The issue of forgiving a criminal (for example, commuting a death sentence to life in prison) forces us to confront a contradiction between mercy (giving someone a break) and

A) justice (giving someone what he deserves).
B) utility (giving someone what will make him happy).
C) love (giving someone unconditional acceptance).
D) fallibility (the tendency to err).

Question 16

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that if a jury were to impose the death penalty without any legal guidance, the practice would constitute

A) a legal prerogative.
B) deserved punishment.
C) a legal precedent.
D) cruel and unusual punishment.

Question 17

Evidence conclusively shows that the death penalty is recognized by would-be criminals as a more severe punishment than life in prison. It therefore follows that the death penalty indubitably deters murderers better than life in prison does.

Question 18

Delma Banks Jr. was charged with murder; his lawyer failed to vigorously cross-examine an informant testifying against Banks or to investigate the case. Consequently, Banks may not have received a fair trial because of poor representation. If so, a retentionist would argue that the injustice in the conduct of the trial would

A) show that capital punishment was also unjust.
B) be irrelevant to the justice or injustice of capital punishment.
C) be relevant to the injustice of capital punishment.
D) be strong evidence against the death penalty.

Question 19

A common utilitarian argument in favor of capital punishment is that the death penalty

A) prevents the criminal from striking again.
B) reduces the severity of crimes.
C) makes the general public feel safe.
D) is endorsed by all religions.

Question 20

The deliberate and authorized causing of pain or harm to someone thought to have broken a law is known as

A) vigilantism.
B) punishment.
C) legalism.
D) attributivism.

Question 21

________ are those people who want to continue the policy of capital punishment.

Question 22

Underpinning many retributive views of capital punishment is a Kantian emphasis on respect for persons.

Question 23

Some retentionists contend that if the administration of the death penalty is biased against blacks, then the death penalty itself is unjust, because there is no way to apply the death penalty fairly.

Question 24

Those who oppose capital punishment are known as ________.

Question 25

The view that offenders deserve to be punished, or "paid back," for their crimes and to be punished in proportion to the severity of their offenses is known as ________.

Question 26

Punishment by execution of someone officially judged to have committed a serious crime is called ________.