Death Penalty

1115 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: pros and cons on capital punishmeny

First, lets talk about your initial position - no crime deserves the death penalty
This position is an evaluation of moral character, not one of practicality. If we were to discuss practicality, the proper question would be no government is competent to administer the death penalty.
With that in mind, we can move on to your points -
Mistakes can be made regarding who is guilty. No matter how certain the evidence there is a chance that the person is still innocent.
A death penalty trial costs on average of two million dollars around the same as a 40 year prison stay.
The people who sentence people to death don't carry out the act themselves. it is easy to say this person deserves to die, but how many of them would be willing to inject someone.
The reasons for the crime will never be fully understood by the jury, they can not decipher fact from fiction or understand the mind of the criminal.
Opinions can be warped from media propaganda, and the prosecutor.
These are all variations of your final question "What happens when you are wrong?" so I am grouping them as one - these questions are irrelevant to what a person/crime deserves. The question of what a person deserves is not at all the same of whether or not that can be awarded them. I believe, for instance, that teachers deserve to be paid very highly, as their work is foundational to a functioning society. The fact is, however, that teachers are paid a pittance and that is unlikely to change any time soon.
All your concerns about innocence and cost amount to is saying that while some criminals may deserve the death penalty, it isn't practical to actually administer it. I hope you can see the difference between what is deserved and what is practical and affordable to give.
Hypothe...

... middle of paper ...

...oint, which is very similar to the first point I addressed:
Many people are put to death for crimes with a virtually 0% chance to re offend. (A political crime or treason.)
The people who sentence people to death don't carry out the act themselves. it is easy to say this person deserves to die, but how many of them would be willing to inject someone.
This doesn't invalidate the death penalty as a whole - its abuse or misuse doesn't invalidate the concept. The fact that some people run over others with cars doesn't make the whole concept of driving immoral.
Almost all your concerns are about flaws in existing systems, that doesn't make the idea of the system or the idea of the punishment invalid.
This is getting super-long, but I think I've made myself as clear as I can without more specific questions. I'm happy to answer any, or to be downvoted to oblivion. Whatever.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Bryan Stevenson's Close To Death: Reflections On Race And Capital Punishment

    1861 Words  | 4 Pages

    Additionally, capital punishment is absurdly expensive. In the article, “ Capital Punishment: Deterrent Effects & Capital costs” Jeffery A. Fagan discusses how expensive death penalty cases can be. He

    Read More

  • The Case of Billy Frank Vickers

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the minds of the American public and jurors in capital cases the perception of lethal injection is of a clean, clinical, and painless end. As stated in the article, Lethal Injection, seventy-one percent of those responding to a 2001 survey considered injection to be the least cruel form of execution (Lethal Injection). This perception is an advantage to the state because the public is much more willing to accept execution in this form and jurors are more willing to convict and pass the death sentence. At times it is understood why the death penalty would be considered in cases. Maybe the people are a threat to not only society but also to themselves, and need to be put to death so they can do no harm to anyone. Vickers gunned down a grocery store owner who was probably trying to make a living for himself and his family. Now this man is gone; his family is left in agony, and maybe Vickers deserves to die. Some people may say an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but do two wrongs make a right?

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Capital Punishment

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since 1973 there have been a total number of one-hundred and fifty-one death row executions. (10 Reasons…, 1). Out of all of these executions only eighteen of them have ever had any further evidence to show that the guilty party was innocent. Many people argue that this is enough to make it to where the death penalty should not be used. However, that leaves one-hundred and thirty-three death row executions that have not been proven to have been the wrong person. If each individual that is sentenced to be executed has killed only one person than that is one-hundred and thirty-three people that have been killed. The fact remains that if there were no death penalty executions then there would be one-hundred and fifty-one people that have not been justified by their death. Although having eighteen innocent people put to death because they were wrongfully accused is a terrible thing, it does not even begin to oppose the one-hundred and fifty-one people that were killed because of the hate and fear that causes a person to bring this harm upon other people. Also many of these people have affected more than just one person. They may have killed or harmed multiple people. The people who oppose this are simply stating that the murderers’ lives are worth more than the people that they killed.

    Read More

  • Capital Punishment: Costs Of The Death Penalty

    631 Words  | 2 Pages

    Capital Punishment: Costs of The Death Penalty. Let us suppose that killing as a form of punishment is a moral and universally accepted practice. Would it then be acceptable to issue this irreparable sanction to a select few while allowing others, equally accountable, to avoid it? It is acceptable to our criminal justice system for it seems to be standard operating procedure. Many embrace the death penalty based on the "eye for an eye" concept.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Week 3

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the time the first colonists arrived in the late Sixteen Hundreds Pennsylvania executions were carried out by public hanging (Cor.state.pa.us, 2014). In Eighteen Forty Three, Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish public hangings. From Eighteen Thirty Four until Nineteen Fifty Three each county was responsible for carrying out private hanging of criminal within the wall of the county jail.

    Read More

  • Capital Punishment

    1112 Words  | 3 Pages

    Upon examination, one finds capital punishment to be economically weak and deficient. A common misconception of the death penalty is that the cost to execute a convicted criminal is cheaper than to place a convict in prison for life without parole. Due to the United States judicial system, the process of appeals, which is inevitable with cases involving death as the sentence, incurs an extreme cost and is very time consuming. The cost of a capital trial and execution can be two to six times greater than the amount of money needed to house and feed a prisoner for life. "Studies show incarceration costs roughly $20,000 per inmate per year ($800,000 if a person lives 40 years in prison). Research also shows a death-penalty ease costs roughly $2 million per execution," (Kaplan 2). Capital punishment is extremely expensive and depletes state governments of money that could be used for a wide range of programs that are beneficial. As Belolyn Wiliams-Harold, an author for the journal Black Enterprise, writes that county governments are typically responsible for the costs of prosecution and the costs of the criminal trial, including attorney's fees, and salaries for the members of the courtroom. All this money is spent at the expense of the corrections department and crime prevention programs, which are already is strapped for cash (Williams-Harlod 1). These "financial constraints," such as capital punishment, do not promote a healthy, commercial society, but actually cost and harm the public.

    Read More

  • Affirmative Action and Capital Punishment

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...already in there for life, there is nothing to stop him or her from killing other prisoners on a spree. The death penalty ensures more safety in that sense, because the prisoner will most likely consider his punishment of life sentence as bad enough and not want anything worse.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Capital Punishment

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    The cost of one execution is great deal higher than life imprisonment. At a time when state budgets are slim, for some states with cutbacks the high cost of the death penalty makes little sense. The average cost of a single death penalty varies from 1 million to 3 million. This is just not intelligent. Evidence supports it costs so much to fulfill one execution that it is not intelligent to use the death penalty any longer.(Delcour, Julie)

    Read More

  • Should Juries Be Abolished?

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...tood. This problem has persisted through many cases, clearly highlighting the lack of expertise of juries, and if they do not understand the process and basic rules, then they cannot be a reliable body in determining innocence. Jurors incapability of following evidence inevitably leads to guess work with jury’s finding defendants guilty because ‘he looked like he did it’ and ‘he looks like a nonce so he must of done it’. Moreover, cases have been reported of incredulous juries using absurd methods to ascertain a verdict, like in R v Young 1995, where a Ouija Board was used to determine if the defendant was guilty or not. It is clear that it would be better and far more effective to abolish the jury system, and leave the experts and qualified legal professionals to try defendants, as they understand the process and possess the expertise to make balanced decisions.

    Read More

  • Capital Punishment in America

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hopefully I’ve made the point that the death penalty is useless except for delivering some sort of closure to a victims’ loved ones, through this type of closure is morally wrong, and can be achieved through life imprisonment of the murderer. And because capital punishment is not an effective deterrent, because life imprisonment is a better option, and because the innocent wouldn’t have to die; capital punishment should be abolished.

    Read More

  • The Death Penalty

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated in the United States for many years to come. According to Hugo A. Bedau, the writer of “The Death Penalty in America”, capital punishment is the lawful infliction of the death penalty. The death penalty has been used since ancient times for a variety of offenses. The Bible says that death should be done to anyone who commits murder, larceny, rapes, and burglary. It appears that public debate on the death penalty has changed over the years and is still changing, but there are still some out there who are for the death penalty and will continue to believe that it’s a good punishment. I always hear a lot of people say “an eye for an eye.” Most people feel strongly that if a criminal took the life of another, their’s should be taken away as well, and I don’t see how the death penalty could deter anyone from committing crimes if your going to do the crime then at that moment your not thinking about being on death role. I don’t think they should be put to death they should just sit in a cell for the rest of their life and think about how they destroy other families. A change in views and attitudes about the death penalty are likely attributed to results from social science research. The changes suggest a gradual movement toward the eventual abolition of capital punishment in America (Radelet and Borg, 2000).

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Death Penalty

    2435 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Death Penalty

    1561 Words  | 4 Pages

    The cost of the Death Penalty is highly expensive. A case to put someone in jail costs on average two million three hundred thousand dollars on average while to put an inmate in jail for forty years cost on average seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars (Friedman 11). In Texas the death penalty cost three times more money than putting an inmate in the highest security level in a jail for forty years (4). It also takes time for a death penalty case to be processed and a convict to be sentenced to the death penalty. Then it takes more time for the state to act and to administer the death penalty to people on death row. On average it takes ten to twenty years to execute a convicted criminal on death row (Friedman 11). Costs could be lowered by shortening the appeal process but this would only increase the risk of executing an innocent person.

    Read More

  • Criminal Courtroom Visit

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... up with a verdict for the accused person (Lamb, 2013). This is because the jury is filled with laymen who do not have any understanding of the law, and if they are allowed to deliberate on the evidence produced in court, then they may be misguided and may at many times find the accused person innocent while in the real sense they were guilty.

    Read More

  • Speech: Against Capital Punishment

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    It must be remembered that criminals are real people too, which have. life and with it, the feeling of pain, fear and the loss of their loved ones and all the other emotions that the rest of us feel. There is no such thing as a humane way of putting someone to death. Every type of execution causes the prisoner physical suffering, some. methods perhaps cause less than others, but be in no doubt that being.

    Read More

More about Death Penalty

Open Document