Death Penalty

Capital Punishment is the ordered execution of a convicted prisoner by jury. Since 1976, there have been over 1,000 executions conducted in the United States. Not only is the Death Penalty morally wrong and should be abolished, but it is useless. Many will argue its use, but every pro-death penalty argument can be countered by statistics; plus the system is too imperfect to leave it instated, even if morality wasn’t an issue.

Supporters of the Death Penalty argue that it deters offenders. That if people knew their lives could be taken if they committed certain crimes then a significant number of people who would normally commit the crimes, would no longer do it due to the fear of being executed. However, this isn’t the case. Numerous studies have found no change in the numbers of people committing these crimes, and that there wasn’t even any relation, in general, between the number of executions and murder rates. This renders the idea of deterrence completely inadequate.

The Death Penalty is also very costly. In fact, in Kansas, in trials for death cost 16 times more than non-death penalty charges while the appeals cost 21 times more. And according to the Palm Beach Post, Florida would have saved $51 million a year if they had punished all first-degree murders with life in prison with out parole.

Not only does the death penalty hurt the economy, its ineffective, and imperfect. How can you base the lives of citizens on an imperfect system. Statistics show the judiciary system, when it comes to death penalty cases, is very biased and racist. In Bob Herbet’s article, it stated that one of the jurors reported some of the other jurors saying racial slurs when discussing the case (Who gets the death penalty?). In the National Crime Victimization Survey it shows that 49% of the victims of murder cases were white, and 49% were of the victims of murder cases were black. Interestingly enough, 81% of the victims of death penalty cases were white. Such a biased system cannot be supported.

Mistakes are another factor that proves the death penalty to be unnecessary. The states are too high to gamble with when mistakes are so common. All it takes is for one piece of information to be left out and the life of an innocent man could be taken away or spared. In the article Technical Errors Can Kill, James Liebman states,

Looking at thousands of death verdicts reviewed by courts in 34 states over 23 years, we found that nearly seven in 10 were thrown out for serious error, requiring 2,370 retrials. For cases whose outcomes are known, an astonishing 82% of retried death row inmates turned out not to deserve the death penalty; 7% were not guilty. The process took nine years on average. Put simply, most death verdicts are too flawed to carry out, and most flawed ones are scrapped for good. One in 20 death row inmates is later found not guilty.

All capital punishment is doing is risking innocent lives to unnecessarily punish the “guilty.” Why are we taking