The death penalty and the Forfeiture Thesis

Opponents of the death penalty argue that judicial executions violate the condemned prisoner's right to life. Death penalty retentionists often attempt to counter this argument by asserting that persons convicted of capital crimes have forfeited their right to life. This paper examines the logic of the Forfeiture Thesis, and a related assumption, the State Authority Thesis, in relation to the properties of the human right to life of inalienability, waivability, defeasibility, and derogability. A new argument for the inalienability of the right to life is presented that refutes the Forfeiture Thesis. Further, it is argued that it is implausible and unnecessary to believe that the human right to life is alienable under any circumstances, and, in particular, it is dangerous to allow sovereign states, no matter how their governments are constituted, the power to alienate a person's human right to life, but that it is justifiable to allow governments to define specific conditions under which claims made under this right can be defeated. The upshot of this argument is to discredit one of the more popular reasons for retaining the death penalty, and to clarify the conditions under which various other retentionist arguments for its continued use can possibly be successful.