The Death Penalty
When a family goes to the penitentiary to see their loved one be placed on a table to soon be injected with a concoction of lethal drugs how do you think they feel? In the words of Associate Justice William J. Brennan “Death is an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, its finality, and its enormity” (Brennan 1976). Across the United States of America there sit around 3,125 inmates on death row. According to “Justice For All” it costs between $1.2 million to $3.6 million per person to house and carry out death sentences across the United States (Sharp 1997). The cost varies from state to state depending on the state and area that the inmate is housed. In the state of New York it can cost up to three to four times as much as in Illinois. In Illinois taxpayers have spent nearly $800 million dollars to send around just 300 men and women to death row in the last 22 years (Edgar 2001). Such a large price to pay to send a very small amount of people to death row seems appalling. Without a justice system that has no flaws how can the death penalty be carried out properly?
Many moral issues have been connected to capital punishment ever since it was instituted in the United States. Capital punishment was reinstated in the United States of America in 1977 and since then 34 states have carried out an execution. Since 1992 there have been at least 15 inmates on death row who have been exonerated when it was discovered they were not guilty. Take the stories of Herman Atkins and Patrick Croy into consideration if you support the death penalty.
Herman Atkins, a tall and poised man, is a blissful newlywed and pursuing a masters and doctoral degree in Psychology from California State University, Fresno. The son of ...
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...ed." The Death Penalty Justified. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.
Even the worst crimes should not be paid with the simple escape of death. The death penalty costs far more than a life sentence, though it seems like the opposite would be true. With the multiple appeals and trials and relocations, it’s millions down the drain. According to deathpenalty.org it costs taxpayers $90,000 more a year to maintain a death row prisoner versus maintaining a prisoner in general population. Add in the cost of execution depending on the method, $24 million for each electrocution in Florida, at least $86 per lethal injection, around $25,000 for a fire squad execution,(deathpenaltyinfo.org) and it’s even more for a quick end.
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
The United States should dispose of the death penalty due to the astronomical price it costs taxpayers to execute a prisoner. It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, as though life imprisonment were obviously more expensive than executions. If one takes into account all of the relevant costs, the reverse is true. The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment. A murderer trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs- including the time of the judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters are all borne by the taxpayer. Florida, with one of the nations largest death rows, is a ...
Latzer, Barry. Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998.
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.
The United States has a long history with the death penalty. The “first recorded execution was in Jamestown in 1608” (“Death Penalty in America” 259). Since then, thirty five states have continued to use the death penalty. Now it can be considered a normal punishment and many people feel strongly about it, but maybe we should forget what we have done in the past and take a second look. The death penalty should not be used in the United States because it is too expensive, affects the poor and minorities more than others, and (even though many people think it is true) the death penalty does not deter crime.
As of present prison networks across the United States have ceased being entities under the control of the government, and have gone into the hands of private, profit-seeking proprietors. Why? Put simply, overcrowding. Prisons have met carrying capacities and have exhausted their resources on individuals, many of whom, should not have been afforded the luxury of life to begin with. However, in hindsight, it is factually and numerically lowered priced to keep a death-row inmate alive rather than proceeding with the expected execution: “A death sentence costs at least twice as much, start to finish, than a sentence of life without parole, according to a Maryland study. The Bar Association study pegged the cost here of prosecution, defense and appeals at nearly $800,000 more for a death penalty. Most of that cost is borne by counties. In King County, taxpayers have spent about $10 million on two pending death-penalty cases — and neither have even gone to trial. Smaller counties have been threatened with bankruptcy by the cost of death-penalty cases. The cost of lifetime imprisonment pales in comparison, and ensures the same level of public safety. The Legislature’s fiscal staff estimated that abolishing the death penalty required adding just two prison beds” (Riley et al. 3). Whilst it may be true that keeping an inmate alive
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).
Is our justice system fair to all? Although the answer to this question is an opinion, there are pieces of evidence and commentary to defend this argument. The process of the legal system itself is all an opinion because in the end, the only person whose judgments matter is the judge himself. Over time, the wrong people have been arrested for the wrong things. Living in the United States, a country where crimes are committed constantly; we count on this system to make the right decisions. It is important that each case is treated equally when carrying out justice to keep the United States a safe place, to form a nation with good education, and to teach people from judging right from wrong. However, sometimes rights are taken from the wrong people. Our legal system is creating a dangerous path for African Americans in our country because of its’ highest per capita incarceration rate, its’ favoritism towards those in power, and its failure to carry out justice to protect people from the dangerous acts of those who are defined as criminals.
The death penalty has been around since the time of Jesus Christ. Executions have been recorded from the 1600s to present times. From about 1620, the executions by year increased in the US. It has been a steady increase up until the 1930s; later the death penalty dropped to zero in the 1970s and then again rose steadily. US citizens said that the death penalty was unconstitutional because it was believed that it was "cruel and unusual" punishment (Amnesty International). In the 1970s, the executions by year dropped between zero and one then started to rise again in the 1980s. In the year 2000, there were nearly one hundred executions in the US (News Batch). On June 29, 1972, the death penalty was suspended because the existing laws were no longer convincing. However, four years after this occurred, several cases came about in Georgia, Florida, and Texas where lawyers wanted the death penalty. This set new laws in these states and later the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty was constitutional under the Eighth Amendment (Amnesty International).
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 an issue of debate for several years. Whether or not we should murder murderer’s and basically commit the same crime that they are being killed for committing. People against the death penalty say that we should not use it for that very reason. They also make claims that innocent people who were wrongly convicted could be killed. Other claims include it not working as a deterrent, it being morally wrong, and that it discriminates.
The first reason why death penalty should be allowed and get more active is life sentence is costly. According to “What is the Average Cost to House Inmates in Prison”, the average cost of housing an inmate in the U.S. was $31,286 in 2012 for per year. According to the “Who, what, where and why”, the United States has roughly 2.4 million people in prisons. Therefore, the money which America pays to keep prisoners who are in prisons is about $75120000000 for per year.
If a criminal is sentenced to life in jail, then the cost of their imprisonment would be many times this. In the USA, the average cost per prisoner annually in jail is $29,000. The cost of the drugs used for the lethal injection is believed to be $86.08. This is far less than the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail, and would save the government money that could be used to try and make the community a better and safer place. Secondly, many believe that capital punishment is right because of the justice given to the victim’s family.
The present system of justice in this country is too slow and far too lenient. Too often the punishment given to criminal offenders does not fit the crime committed. It is time to stop dragging out justice and sentencing and dragging our feet in dispensing quick and just due. All punishment should be administered in public. It is time to revert back to the "court square hanging" style of justice. This justice would lessen crime because it would prove to criminals that harsh justice would be administered.