Persuasive Essay On Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment has been a controversial topic for centuries. The first recorded courted ordered execution was documented in 1608, when George Kendall was caught spying for the Spanish. Since, there has been over 20,000 court order executions in America, and over 6,700 of these have been carried out (Acker 169-187). Why do we continue to kill those who kill others? There are many reasons why we should not, some of which are that it is in violation of the Eighth Amendment, it is no longer necessary, and it is costly. In Oklahoma, on April 28, 2014, Clayton Lockett was scheduled for a lethal injection execution. While lying there, strapped to the table, the doctors struggled to find a decent vein. After a few minutes of searching, they

For example, a life sentence without the chance of parole is roughly eight times cheaper than that same person receiving capital punishment (Von Drehle 26-33). One reason the death penalty costs so much more, is because the suspect has to go through two trials; one of the trials is to decide whether he or she is guilty or innocent, and the second is to determine the degree of punishment (Von Drehle 26-33). According to Nicholas Petersen and Mona Lynch, in their article from 2012, “Prosecutorial Discretion, Hidden Costs, and the Death Penalty: The Case of Los Angeles County,” there is $137.7 million spent on capital punishment costs a year. However, the costs for life sentencing without parole is only $11.5 million a year (Petersen 1233-1274). In the 1980’s, it costed $201,510 more for a capital case than a noncapital case in California (Petersen 1233-1274). At that time, California could have saved $90 million a year if capital punishment were abolished (Petersen 1233-1274). In North Carolina, recent studies show that there is around $147,700 more spent on capital trials than noncapital (Petersen 1233-1274). If capital punishment was no longer an option, North Carolina could save $11 million annually (Petersen 1233-1274). Los Angeles County spent $338 million on capital cases, and out of that $338 million, about $205.2 million was spent on cases that did not result

According to Carsten Anckar, in her article “Why Countries Choose the Death Penalty,” less than half the countries in the world retains the death penalty, and only about 30 percent of those actively use it. To contrast, in 1985, 73 percent of countries in the world retained capital punishment, and around 65 percent applied it (Anckar 7-25). Also, David Von Drehle wrote “Judge Tom Price of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—a red-state Republican member of what is probably the toughest court in the land when it comes to the death penalty: ‘Having spent the last 40 years as a judge for the state of Texas, of which the last 18 years have been as a judge on this court, I have given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished.’” Therefore, capital punishment is losing its popularity among countries, and states, all over the world, and in the near future, it will no longer a form of punishment in