Californias Death Penalty

¿California’s Death Penalty?

What are we mad about electricity rates, gasoline prices, traffic congestion and crowded schools? We’re missing the point here. What were missing here is some good, old and honest anger about an issue that has been a concern for decades – California’s Death Penalty. The Death Penalty has long been a problem in California from costs, deterrence, overcrowded prisons, execution of the innocent and so on. Then if were having all these problems why should we continue using this system?

The death penalty is the sentence of execution for murder and other capital crimes. Which are punishable by death? The death penalty is used only in 38 states (www.deathpenalty.org). The state of California is home to the nation’s most clogged death row, housing 641 men and women pending lethal injection. Having to house all these criminals is costing tax payers millions of dollars. Capital punishment in California, as in every other state, is more expensive than a life imprisonment sentence without the opportunity of parole. These costs are not the result of careless appeals but instead the result of constitutionally mandated safeguards (www.deathpenalty.org). Even with the careless appeals and mandated safeguards were having to take a closer look into convicted felons’ cases and by doing so we have saved a large number of wrongfully convicted people. Capital punishment, the death penalty, is a highly controversial method used in punishing people who kill another human being. It has raised difficult moral, practical, and legal issues. The debate over capital punishment continues to be pursed in both courts and the political arena (Capital Punishment, pg.3). The debate can be sorted out around several questions:

ﻢ Is it morally right to deliberately take the life of any person, even a person who has killed another?

ﻢ Is the death penalty actually effective in deterring crime?

ﻢ How often are innocent persons executed by mistakes? Is the execution of innocent a necessary price to pay for the security of society?

ﻢ Does the importance of capital punishment excuse its cost and the diversion of lacking resources from efforts to fight crime...

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...use we sentenced innocent people to death. The death sentence is irreversible. There are a lot of flaws in the system when it comes tot California’s death penalty. Also, as new DNA analyzing technology becomes available, it’s frightening to see the numbers of crimes overturned. Generally our system is good, fair and just. However, imperfect – What do you think?

Works Cited

California Department of Correction “History of Capital Punishment in California” California Department of Corrections www.corr.ca.gov December 20, 2004. January 2, 2005.Http://www.corr.ca.gov/Communicationsoffice/capitalpunishment/historyofcapital.asp

Death Penalty Focus “Facts” Death Penalty Focus www.deathpenalty.org. November 30, 2004. December 15, 2004. Http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=facts

Death Penalty Info Center “Death Row” Death Penalty Information Center www.deathpenaltyinfo.org July 1, 2004. December 15, 2004. Http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=9&did=188

Death Penalty Info Cntr “Death Penalty Sentencing Info” Death Penalty Information Center www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. February 6, 2004. December 15, 2004. Http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=67&did=895