The Death Penalty: Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right

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“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice,” stated Desmond Tutu. In 2011, studies found out that in the state of California, they’ve spent over four billion dollars on capital punishments since 1978. Trials that can result in the death penalty are 20 times more expensive on tax payers than those that can’t. The death penalty should be abolished world-wide. There are plenty of reasons that the death penalty should be outlawed. Cost, wrongful convictions and executions of innocent people, and the suffering of the accused are the main reasons (EJUSA, n.d.). To begin, most people do not realize that carrying out one death penalty costs roughly 20 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for their life. The reason it is so expensive is because of the pre-trial and trial costs, endless appeals, and the basic cost of being incarcerated. In California, 1.9 billion dollars were spent just on death penalty trials since 1978. In Texas, each death penalty case costs taxpayers roughly two million dollars. Another shocking statistic is that in Maryland, five executions costs them about 186 million dollars. Another reason it is so expensive is because the judges, attorneys, court reporters, clerks, and all of the court facilities require a very large investment from the taxpayers (Death Penalty Focus, n.d.). As of December 26th, 2012, there have been 142 exonerations in 26 states. Florida has the highest exoneration count, (deathpenaltyinfo.org, n.d.) Although not all of those exonerations resulted in death penalty, some did. There have been at least ten people wrongfully executed since 1976. There have been many cases where huge pieces of evidence have been missed. The well-known Casey Anthony case had a huge... ... middle of paper ... ...y-botched-executions/ Hall, C. (2012). Methods of execution. Retrieved from http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/methods.htm Human Rights Watch (2006). So long as they die. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/us0406/index.htm New York Times Upfront. (2013, October 7). Should the death penalty be abolished?. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?vid=9&sid=7c807180-f77d-4fe6-aba1-8fd13c659681@sessionmgr114&hid=102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU No author. (2010, September ). Jimmy lee gray. Retrieved from http://www.executedtoday.com/2010/09/02/1983-jimmy-lee-gray-gas-chamber/ Tutu , D. (2013, October 11). Global conversations. Retrieved from http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/ianhughes/2013/10/11/to-take-a-life-when-a-life-has-been-lost-is-revenge-not-justice-desmond-tutu/ USA, E. (n.d.). Wasteful and inefficient. Retrieved from http://ejusa.org/learn/cost

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