Lauren Novak Hour 6 Death Penalty Essay

Death Penalty
The death penalty is a controversial issue that has been up for debate for over sixty years. We understand the human desire for retribution, but we need to question whether revenge is equivalent to justice. After gathering professional research, testimonials, and other experiments we will convince you of why the death penalty should be abolished. The main concerning issues of the death penalty are the cost, error rate, constitutionality, and the effectiveness of deterrence. So before we begin this debate, ask yourself these questions: should we be spending more of our tax money for government to pay for the execution of vicious criminals? Should there be a chance that we kill an innocent person for someone elses crime? Lastly, should we be attempting to end violence by perpetrating it? According to the death penalty information center, the average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, which is about eight times the cost of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not present. According to Amnesty International, the death penalty cost totals up to 1.26 million dollars and cases that do not include the death penalty average up to only $740,000. More pretrial time, experts, attorneys, and appeals, are needed for inmates being held on death row, which is how the cost of cases including the death penalty outnumber cases that do not. Why should we be spending more money than needed by executing criminals when a life in prison is debatably a worse sentence for a criminal anyway? Lorrain Taylor is the mother of two twin boys who were murdered while working on their stalled car. Despite her unimaginable pain and grief, she decided to speak out against the death penalty: Revenge is not justice, says Lorrain Taylor, Taking another persons life does not stop violence. Theres a contradiction in responding to murder by executing people. She also stated: If the government really wanted to end the violence, it would take the millions of dollars it is wasting on the death penalty in California and use it for violence prevention for youth, rehabilitation, and victim services. Lorrains testimony shows that the death penalty is not necessary or relevant to gaining justice or relief from the death of her loved ones. In fact, she completely opposes the death penalty because of its hypocriticalness and lack of deterrence. Eighty-eight percent of the countrys top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to a new study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Additionally, eighty-seven percent of the expert criminologists believe that abolishment of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates. According to the ACLU, the death penalty has not been proven to be more effective than life in prison without parole. There has been no reliable research to back up the notion that states with executions lead to reduced crime rates. As the ACLU also mentions, the vast majority of

killers dont think about the consequences of their actions. Usually, it is either a crime of passion, committed while intoxicated, or the individual does not believe he/she will get caught anyhow. The notion that he/she will receive the death penalty rather than life in prison will not typically affect the decision to commit crime. Is the death penalty Constitutional? No. The death penalty violates the eighth amendment stating that no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted and also the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The death penalty is unusual in its pain, its finality, and in its enormity. The fatal constitutional weakness in the punishment of the death penalty is that it treats members of the human race as nonhumans, as obj ects to be toyed with and discarded (William J. Brennan-Justice of U.S. Supreme Court). Contrary to popular belief, studies done by Michigan State University affirm that the death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It almost never applies to people with a lot of money or a higher social rank. This fact makes capital punishment even more cruel and unusual because it targets a specific class of society and the discriminatory aspect adds another unconstitutional factor. The death penalty would be fair if guilt was always guaranteed. However, our legal system is flawed and this leads to wrongful convictions and executions. According to Senator Russ Feingold, theres an error rate of one out of every seven people executed. 87 people have been released from death row because they were found innocent in recent history. Theres no telling for sure how many more of those executed were not truly guilty of the crimes. An article on acadp.org revealed in 2009 that a Texas man had been convicted and executed for arson wrongfully when forensic evidence proved his innocence. It was too late to take back this grave mistake at the hands of the legal system. Frank Lee Smith was sentenced to death based on one witnesss testimony. There wasnt any DNA or evidence to prove his guilt and that same witness later realized she had pointed out the wrong man. It was later reaffirmed by DNA that Smith had been innocent. In conclusion, the support for the death penalty is indefensible. The cost benefit analysis doesnt justify it. It cant be justified for deterrent purposes. Revenge is not justice. Injustice cannot be undone with the finality of the death penalty. Finally, based upon the discriminatory application of the death penalty and the imperfections built within the system, the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and must be outlawed.