Death Penalty Debate

The Death Penalty Debate:

     This morning a convict was executed after he was given all fair options to exhaust all legal avenues of escaping the gallows till the final minutes. This case was especially widely reported by media in the last few weeks after it became public that the convict was induced to surrender which ought to be considered as mitigating circumstances to his execution. Snuffing out life from any living being is sad, be it of a convict or those hundreds of innocent victims on whom the convict unleashed diabolic violence. Worldwide, more than 90 countries have abolished death penalty; however it is part of the statute in India presently.

     If the mitigating circumstances, as disclosed recently by a dead top sleuth are true, then it calls for a serious consideration of plea bargain in Indian jurisprudence. In many other democracies, plea bargain is resorted to secure arrest & conviction of other co-conspirators in lieu of a lighter sentence to the plea bargainer. Plea bargain ensures that more number of criminals are apprehended and the society is all the more safer. ‘Plea Bargaining’ can be defined as pre-trial negotiations between the accused and the prosecution during which the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the prosecution. Since 2005, it  is part of Indian law, but the present convict was tried under  in different times when plea bargain provision didn not exist.

     The Judicial reforms committee headed by Justice V.S. Malimath had the task of examining the fundamental principles of criminal law so as to restore confidence in the criminal justice system in India by reviewing the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860. It began its work in November 2000 & submitted its report in 2003.

     The 158 recommendations of the committee, arrived at after examining several national systems of criminal law, especially the continental European systems, essentially propose a shift from an adversarial criminal justice system, where the respective versions of the facts are presented by the prosecution and the defence before a neutral judge, to an inquisitorial system, where the objective is the "quest for truth" and the judicial officer controls the investigation of offences.

     However, in the present case, prosecution was well within its right to secure maximum conviction in the absence of such a plea bargain provision. To apprehend a perpetrator of a crime by whatever means is the legitimate job of security agencies and they did exactly this.

     News reports are also suggesting that Rajya Sabha may debate the pros & cons of death penalty today. The benefits or otherwise of death penalty on the crime rate in a society is not a settled argument as yet. On one hand, the rising crime graph in India over the past decades in spite of death penalty reflects that capital punishment is not having its desired deterrent effect on the society. On the other hand, if such a strong deterrent is absent, who knows how much more heinous crimes the criminals would resort to.

     The advocates against capital punishment miss the point that keeping alive a proven heinous criminal at the expense of people perpetually in jail also is a travesty of justice, more so towards those victims who are denied a bona fide closure to their trauma. Awarding of capital punishment on the other hand opens the debate of bloodthirst in a civilized society and the right of any human being howsoever bad, towards a fair chance to remorse and reform.  

  

     Considering the above two possibilities, and also the fact that world over, capital punishment is being abolished over the years in other societies as being a inhumane way of dispensing justice, our lawmakers would do well to dwell on a third option in the meantime. Without abolishing capital punishment, it can be considered to give an option to the convicted to donate his eyes, voluntarily go blind and be on parole.  The capital punishment is not revoked, rather deferred based on the good conduct of the now blind convict on parole. The convict can always choose gallows to blindness in which case his wish would be carried out.

     Our lawmakers and civil society can consider this issue and the debate can even come up with better ways to dispense due and fair justice in an evolving yet civilized society like India.