The costs are another argument in the death penalty. Just the fact that it is a death penalty case is going to require a longer trial. Most of the defendants in a death case cannot afford an attorney in the first place. There are two public defenders assigned for their trial. The taxpayers are the ones that end up paying for those defenders. When selecting a jury, it is more time consuming and more expensive than a regular trial. There are expectations of a jury for the death penalty because it goes longer than normal. With a death penalty case, you normally have a pre-trial that is a little more complicated than a normal trial. In the pre-trial, there is forensic evidence that is introduced as well as the defendant’s mental and social history. The actual trial takes at least four times longer than a normal trial. After sentencing, there is a series of appeals that the defendant has a right to, and again this is at the taxpayer’s expense. Finally, for the incarceration, the cost of solitary confinement and the added need for security has additional costs as well. For a life without parole sentence, the average cost would be around $34,200 a year for around 50 years. This along with a trial would add up to be in the millions. The death penalty cases run higher up front for the trials because of all of the appeals and the longer trial in general, but over time the life without parole seems to be at a higher cost. (Spangenberg, 1989)
The public has seemed to always support the death penalty. In 1986, 71% favored the death penalty and 21% opposed it. There has been a gradual decline of the favor possibly due to them coming to a belief that putting someone to death may not be a deterrent for the crime that was committed....
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...eals begin. The appeals process can take all the way up to the execution. (Banner, 2009)
I have found both sides to have some truth to their arguments. While it does seem to violate everything we stand for as Americans, how can we let criminals that have decided to take a life to just stay in prison while we pay for them to live and breathe every day? It is an argument that will go on as long as there is a death penalty. If there was a swifter justice system that handed out the punishments quicker without someone having to wait years on death row to be executed, there may be more that think about their actions before they do them. Criminals know the system is flawed and that is why they take advantage of it every time they can. If we treated the convicted criminals just as they treated their victims, I think we would have less crime all the way around.
Cases in which the death penalty is gone after are more expensive and take more time to solve than non capital cases. “Even when a trial wasn’t necessary, those cases where the death penalty was sought still cost about twice as much as those where death was not sought” (Erb 1). The added money is due to legal representation, enhanced security for death row, and the costs it takes to go through the motions of a trial such as this. "The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate” (The Death Penalty 8). With California’s current death row (670) this would generate $63.3 million dollars per year. This is important because it shows factual stats about how much these cases cost vs regular cases and how much money could be saved if the death penalty was eliminated. These statistics show my thesis is correct because the high costs are one of the reasons why the death penalty might be
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.
Thus, many groups of people are involved in a death penalty case. However, other also equally important factors are also involved, such as money and time. Each state varies in amount expended towards death penalty and life imprisonment. However, in Texas, the state with the highest capital punishment rates in the United States alone, it is stated that each individual in a death penalty case “costs taxpayers about $2.3 million. That is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.” This is one detail that those opposing death penalty implement in their argument to abolish said act. Another factor is time invested in these cases. Most death penalty cases range from 6 to 10 years, factoring death row and other complications. Thus, the more time invested in determining guilt or innocence, the more money of taxpayers are being consumed. However, as depleting as it is, there is a good reason for. They take so long because they are trying to avoid as many mistakes as possible, meaning they don’t wanted to convict or even worse execute an innocent person wrongly accused or framed for a
The death penalty is a very heavily debated upon topic, especially in the US. I am against capital punishment because it is expensive, targets minorities, and is abused in certain states. There are many alternatives that are less expensive and can keep innocent people from being executed for crimes they didn’t
I don’t believe that many people actually sit down and think about what is really going on, or the whole process through it. Crime is becoming more and more of a problem over the years. I don’t think that we should use the death penalty because the cost is hurting the United States more than its hurting that one individual that has committed a crime. Also, if you don’t have the real evidence behind someone then why would you punish them for something that they might have not done. Last, following there innocents, I don’t agree that someone should be put on death row for so long, if you didn’t know what the real story is, because it would cause them to go through so much suffering they’d become crazy. I am against the death penalty because of the cost, innocents, and psychotic effects.
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).
At first glance, it may seem that maintaining a life-term prisoner is more burdensome for taxpayers. However, according to Richard C. Dieter, the cost of a death penalty may amount to or even surpass the expenditures of handling less severe punishments for similar cases. Actually, the imposition of capital punishment requires complicated and numerous trials which can take a great amount of time. During this period, the defendant remains incarcerated and his maintenance is paid for with taxpayers’ money. Additional pre-trial time is needed to impose a death sentence with the involvement law experts, attorneys and additional trials (Dieter). All of these procedures require additional expenditures which make a death trial a costly
The death penalty has been used in the United States since the beginning. America was greatly influenced by Great Britain. They used the death penalty there and when the British colonized America, they continued the practice here.
Julian Ptachin was only 14 years old in October 1997 when a drunk driver smashed into his parents van. His Dad, a physician, had to hold Julian while he died on the side of the road. The drunk driver was a three-timed convicted, repeat offender. He was convicted of second-degree murder and was ordered to serve eight years in jail. Doesn’t something seem wrong with this picture? Repeat crime convicts are running down the streets rapid: endangering our children, our loved ones, and even us.
The death penalty also costs a lot of money to make it happen. Tax payers of the state which it is happening in have to pay for it. Rone Tempest of Los Angeles
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.
Another point that Americans against the death penalty raise is the fact that it is more expensive to have the death penalty than not. This is partially because everything takes longer. It takes longer to select a jury because fewer and fewer people support the death penalty. This costs the taxpayers more because it is longer the government must pay staff, judges and attorneys for that time. Also, defense attorneys spend more time on death penalty cases than other cases, and the time they spend on death penalty cases has only increased over the years. (Chammah) “The 2010 judicial conference report found that attorneys for defendants facing the death penalty spent an average of 1,889 hours per trial between 1989 and 1997. Between 1998 and 2004, the average was 3,557 hours.”(Chammah) Not only does it take longer, it costs more just to house death row inmates. “A 2014 study out of Kansas reported that a death row prisoner costs $49,380 to house per year, whereas a general population prisoner costs $24,690.” (Chammah) This is because death row inmates are in solitary confinement which costs more because of the increased
Should the death penalty be legal throughout the United States? Is it humane or inhumane? The death penalty is only legal in thirty eight of the fifty states in the United States. Lethal injection is also the main procedure that is used. It is the most common form of capital punishment in America. Death penalty by lethal injection should be legal in the United States; the process of lethal injection is better than the electric chair and is more humane.
Virtually every major program designed to address the underlying causes of violence and to support the poor, vulnerable, powerless victims of crime is being cut even further to the bone… In this context, the proposition that the death penalty is a needed addition to our arsenal of weapons lacks credibility…
The death penalty has always been and continues to be a very controversial issue. People on both sides of the issue argue endlessly to gain further support for their movements. While opponents of capital punishment are quick to point out that the United States remains one of the few Western countries that continue to support the death penalty, Americans are also more likely to encounter violent crime than citizens of other countries (Brownlee 31). Justice mandates that criminals receive what they deserve. The punishment must fit the crime. If a burglar deserves imprisonment, then a murderer deserves death (Winters 168). The death penalty is necessary and the only punishment suitable for those convicted of capital offenses. Seventy-five percent of Americans support the death penalty, according to Turner, because it provides a deterrent to some would-be murderers and it also provides for moral and legal justice (83). "Deterrence is a theory: It asks what the effects are of a punishment (does it reduce the crime rate?) and makes testable predictions (punishment reduces the crime rate compared to what it would be without the credible threat of punishment)", (Van Den Haag 29). The deterrent effect of any punishment depends on how quickly the punishment is applied (Workshop 16). Executions are so rare and delayed for so long in comparison th the number of capitol offenses committed that statistical correlations cannot be expected (Winters 104). The number of potential murders that are deterred by the threat of a death penalty may never be known, just as it may never be known how many lives are saved with it. However, it is known that the death penalty does definitely deter those who are executed. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is the alternative to execution presented by those that consider words to be equal to reality. Nothing prevents the people sentenced in this way from being paroled under later laws or later court rulings. Furthermore, nothing prevents them from escaping or killing again while in prison. After all, if they have already received the maximum sentence available, they have nothing to lose. For example, in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court banished the death penalty. Like other states, Texas commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment. After being r...