Capital punishment is an unnecessary practice in America that should be abolished. There are many reasons that prove this to be true. It is more expensive to execute a person than to keep them in prison for life. The deaths of innocent people can never be taken back. There is no solid evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Capital punishment is unfair. “That law is a stain on our conscience” (Cuomo 1).
Many people believe that it is better and cheaper for criminals to receive the death penalty so taxpayers don't have to pay for their expensive prison commodities. This is incorrect. “There is a penalty that is...millions of dollars less expensive than the death penalty: true life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole under any circumstances” (Cuomo 3). Death penalty trials are twenty times more expensive than life without parole (LWOP). From charging a criminal all the way to the final sentence, LWOP cases take an average of 526 days while death penalty cases take about 1,902 days. That is almost a difference of four years. Studies have shown that since 1978, the cost of the death penalty in California is over $4 billion. If those on death row were moved to LWOP, California would immediately save $170 million a year.
One major flaw in the death penalty is how many innocent lives are taken. There is no excuse for this. “Yet proponents of the death penalty continue to assume that the criminal justice system will not make a mistake, or they simply don't care” (Cuomo 2). This is entirely wrong. America's justice system will always have imperfections. “There's no such thing as absolute certainty in our law” (Cuomo 2). In the United States, 314 people have been exonerated due to DNA testing. Eighteen of those 314 people we...
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...ive. Justice will be served just as well with LWOP. Capital punishment serves as an unnecessary,
Works Cited
“Costs of the Death Penalty.” Death Penalty Information Center. 19 March 2014 .
Cuomo, Mario. “Death Penalty is Dead Wrong- It's Time to Outlaw Capital Punishment in America- Completely.” Daily News. 2 October 2011. 3 March 2014 .
“DNA Exonerations Nationwide.” Innocence Project. 19 March 2014 .
“Executed But Possibly Innocent.” Death Penalty Information Center. 19 March 2014 .
“Facts.” Death Penalty Focus. 31 March 2013. 19 March 2014. .
Gibson, Kyle. “Death Penalty Repeal: It's Necessary to Use Capital Punishment in a Free World.” Policy Mic. July 2013. 3 March 2014 .
Many people are led to believe that the death penalty doesn’t occur very often and that very few people are actually killed, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,359 people have been executed as a result of being on death row since 1977 to 2013. Even though this form of punishment is extremely controversial, due to the fact that someone’s life is at stake, it somehow still stands to this very day as our ultimate form of punishment. Although capital punishment puts murderers to death, it should be abolished because killing someone who murdered another, does not and will not make the situation any better in addition to costing tax payers millions of dollars.
Notwithstanding issues of morality, the death penalty process of California is financially inefficient and ineffective. At the current rate of executions, “it would take 1,600 years to execute everybody on death row.” [The Death of the American Death Penalty, 122] The average delay in implementing a death sentence calculates out to be 25 years, at an added cost of $90,000 per year over normal incarceration. [Guy, 2] This is a “premium that currently totals more than $60 million a year” [Guy, 2]. When you take the added costs of death row incarceration and total them up with the additional costs of prosecution and the handling of the many legal appeals death row inmates are entitled to, the unnecessary amount of spending is significant. We could eliminate “$126 million a year” in additional costs by simply sentencing death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [Guy, 2] Because of the afo...
Unlike popular belief, the cost of sentencing someone to death is actually more expensive than a life sentence in prison. In Washington, since the death penalty was reinstated 5 people have been put to death costing taxpayers roughly $120 million, that's roughly $24 million per case (Seattle University, 2015). A reason that people advocate strongly for the death penalty is because they believe that they should not have to pay for the costs to keep criminals fed, sheltered and imprisoned. In fact, 56% of Canadians surveyed believed that the one time cost of a lethal injection is cheaper and will allow their money to go towards something more advantageous like healthcare or education (Angus Reid). This is actually quite different from the truth, in fact is estimated that it costs $740 000 on average to put someone in prison for life. It is also estimated that it costs roughly $1.26 million to sentence someone to death (Seattle University, 2015). (There seems to be a discrepancy between how much a single case costs and how much Washington spent since the death penalty has been reinstated, but I could not find evidence to why that is). Among the reasons why the death penalty is so expensive is the fact that the time in courts is quite lengthy. Jury trials averaged 40.13 days in cases where the death penalty was being sought, but only 16.79 days
A report from the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice stated that, “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without 69 possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate.94 With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually. Reducing the
Capital punishment in the United States is a highly debated topic. Arguments that want to get rid of this method of punishment usually mention the many problems that capital punishment is plagued with. The death penalty has many issues that cannot be resolved, and since these issues can’t be solved, the death penalty should be abolished. “The irrevocable nature of the death penalty renders it an unsustainable and indefensible remedy in an imperfect justice system.” (Evans 3) Even though the death penalty has been around since the 18th century, capital punishment has many issues such as wrongful convictions and high costs, proving it should be eliminated.
In conclusion, capital punishment is an unjustifiable act used to punish criminals. The death penalty is not only expensive, but it also lowers our morality. Desmond Tutu once said, "To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice." America is meant to be a country that symbolizes justice and the act of the government killing people, regardless of whatever reason, contradicts that. Therefore, the United States should outlaw capital punishment and convert to an alternative punishment, such as life imprisonment without parole, where the criminal can spend the rest of his life locked in a cell and living with what they did, to become the justifiable country it’s known as.
...l punishment as a just and morally sound method of justice. After all, "An eye for an eye" seemed to be a rationale that many embraced as fair. Now there is an era of closer examination of what is truly just and morally ethical, as well as economically sound. A consequence needs to be fair, humane, and effective. Does capital punishment meet these criteria? There are compelling reasons to change the system we have blindly acclaimed. Hopefully we are in the process of implementing a new way of dealing with an age-old dilemma.
The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases. If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an mistake, the money saved could be spent on programs that actually improve the communities in which we live. Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime anymore than long prison sentences. Moreover, states without the death penalty have much lower murder rates. The South accounts for 80% of US executions and has the highest regional murder rate (Death Penalty
If an error occurs in the procedure, the criminal will face a painful and cruel death. Even more horrifying, an innocent person can be placed on death row. “The reality is that there are few innocent people on death row; the vast majority of these inmates did, in fact, commit the crimes for which they were found guilty. These killers brutally took the lives of innocent victims. By not recognizing the lives of their victims as sacred, they cannot claim their own lives are sacred. In the end, the death penalty is an individual punishment for an individual crime” (Bowman and DiLascio). Although this quote tries to offer a counterpoint to the argument that the death penalty should be abolished, it still admits that there are innocent people on death row. An innocent man placed on death row results in two casualties of innocent men while the brutal murderer sleeps peacefully each night. Errors in the death penalty can destroy families, terminate friendships, and disintegrate love and companionship. Since there is no guarantee that every person on death row is guilty, it is too dangerous to risk more innocent
Many people, including some higher educated people, tend to believe that executing someone is a lot cheaper than the alternative, which is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Indeed, this thought seems like common sense. However, extensive research has been conducted that contradicts that belief. For instance, a study conducted in Maryland, in 2008, found that the state spends roughly 1.9 million dollars more per capital case, compared to non-capital cases (Warden, 2009). But how can this be some may ask. Well, the reason capital punishment costs more than life without the possibility of parole, is because death penalty cases are longer and more expensive. Because the capital punishment is an irreversible sentence, the state, or government, is required to heighten the defendant’s due process in order to decrease the chance of the defendant being innocent (DPIC). Furthermore, not only is it more expensive for the trial phase, it is also a higher price for a state to imprison death row inmates compared to other
The death penalty is legal in thirty-two states. I shall argue that capital punishment should be abolished in our country because it is never moral to kill a human being no matter what they have done, because it often costs more money to keep someone on death row than to keep someone in prison for life, because of the men and women who are wrongly accused of a crime they did not commit, and because death is the easy way out.
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. The laws in the United States have change drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium. During those years, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, this ended in 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. They stated that the punishment of sentencing one to death does not perpetually infringe the Constitution. Richard Nixon said, “Contrary to the views of some social theorists, I am convinced that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent against specific crimes.”1 Whether the case be morally, monetarily, or just pure disagreement, citizens have argued the benefits of capital punishment. While we may all want murders off the street, the problem we come to face is that is capital punishment being used for vengeance or as a deterrent.
The death penalty has been around for centuries. It dates back to when Hammurabi had his laws codified; it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Capital punishment in America started when spies were caught, put on trial and hung. In the past and still today people argue that, the death penalty is cruel, unusual punishment and should be illegal. Yet many people argue that it is in fact justifiable and it is not cruel and unusual. Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual; the death penalty is fair and there is evidence that the death penalty deters crime.
A system without the death penalty will save the USA a lot more money rather than having the death penalty because there is a lot more process that takes place in death penalty. According to California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, “In California the current system costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.”
Capital Punishment is awful and inhumane. The Death Penalty is not only unconstitutional, but it is taking away a human life. It is not right to punish criminals by doing to them exactly what they did to their victim. “The penalty for rape cannot be rape. Those who steal are not punished by being stolen from. We should not, therefore, punish the murderer with death... Capital Punishment is a barbaric remainder of an uncivilized society." (Should the Death Penalty n. pag.) A society that respects life should not also be the one who is taking it. You can not kill a murderer to prove that killing is wrong; that is hypocrisy at its best. One can not believe two things at once; a person either believes killing is wrong or they don’t; there is no in between. It is horrible to be the one to decide whether a person lives or dies, so why do it? Not only is the Death Penalty wrong, but in the situation of...