Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Our third point, unlike the two former ones, does not belong to the sphere of the statistically factual and the immediately verifiable. Thus, it is not so easily observable. This does not mean that it is in any degree more negligible or lacking in urgency. It appeals to our sense of what is and what isn't morally proper, and stems from the ability to feel empathy towards other people, no matter who they are. It boils down to the conviction that it is not the same to be murdered unawares in some dark wood or street and to be put to death in prison. A victim of a murderer might have hoped that he or she would be saved miraculously or would manage to escape, and this hope may be cherished almost to the very end. He or she does not know when exactly (if at all) they will be dead. This is a blessing; it saves an enormous amount of distress that comes from expectation and certainty in these matters. But the prisoner sentenced to death is not spared this knowledge and consequently has to bear the anguish resulting from it. He or she knows for sure that (and when) their execution will take place. This must be unendurable. The position of the prisoner waiting on death row is therefore incomparable with that of, say, somebody who is shot down in a hold-up or knifed or strangled in a marital quarrel. The state must consider carefully what it does to its citizens, even if those in question happen to be criminals. Naturally, wrongdoers have to be punished. But punishing them one must avoid all pain and suffering that is unnecessary, superfluous. And the practice of death penalty causes far too much of such suffering.