The Hypocrisy of the Death Penalty If there is a desire on the part of the American people to maintain the death penalty, at least let us be spared the hypocrisy of a justification by example. The death penalty is certainly a punishment, a frightening torture, both physical and moral, but it provides no other safe example than a demoralizing one. It punishes, but prevents nothing; indeed, it can even arouse the impulse to murder. It almost seems to exist, except for the man who suffers it: in his soul for months and years, in his body in the desperate and violent hour in which he is cut in two without suppressing his life. Let's call it by the name that, in the absence of any other nobility, at least gives the nobility of truth, and let's recognize it for what it essentially is: revenge. A punishment that penalizes without preventing is in fact called revenge. It is an almost arithmetic response that society gives to those who break its primordial law. This answer is as old as man; It's called the law of retaliation. Whoever has harmed me will have to suffer harm; who put out my eye m...