Should the United States Keep the Death Penalty? By enrique De Leonardis "Certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the multimedia fair use guidelines and are restricted from further use."
The United States should ban the death penalty because it is inhumane, very costly, and doesn't always serve justice.
History
The death penalty dates as far back as the eighteenth century B.C., in the code of Hammurabi. The death penalty reached the new world with the arrival of the first European settlers. In 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment because it was "cruel and unusual". Then in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia, the death penalty was reinstated by the the Supreme Court because new sentencing guidelines were created. Since the death penalty was reinstated, over one thousand people have been executed.
Morality
The death penalty is a violation of basic human rights. The right to life is taken away by using it. Killing someone because they killed someone isn't right. Two wrongs don't make a right. Killing the defendant isn't going to bring back the victim or make the grieving easier for the family of the victim. It doesn't solve anything and only sends the wrong message. In order for society to advance, we must move on from this "eye for an eye" mentality.
Costs
The cost for executing someone is much higher than that of keeping them in prison for life.
- Defense costs for death penalty trials in Kansas averaged about $400,000 per case, compared to $100,000 per case when the death penalty was not sought.
- A new study in California revealed that the cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4 billion since 1978. Study considered pre- trial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on death row.
- Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution.
- In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.
Fairness
Sometimes innocent people are put on death row and many precious years of their life are wasted because of mistakes by a witness, a false confession, or misleading evidence.
The death penalty should be banned because it would save lives, time, and money
Resources
- http://time.com/deathpenalty/
- http://hubpages.com/education/History-of-the-Death-Penalty-Executions-and-Last-Meals
- https://forcechange.com/4574/abolish-the-death-penalty-now/
- http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/5961
- Ncdeathpenalty.org