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... t surprisingly, defendants represented by court-appointed attorneys are more than twice more likely to be sentenced to death than those represented by private attorneys or public defenders. Furthermore, capital punishment increases the violence in the society. Some people argue that the death penalty brutalizes society, by sending out the message that killing people is the right thing to do in some circumstances.
Statistics show that more murders are committed in some societies than in others. That suggests that society-at-large influences the number of murders and bears some responsibility for some of them. Therefore, it is unfair to differently punish the murderers the society itself has incidentally produced. It denies the possibility of rehabilitation.
Some hold that a judicial system should have the role of educating and reforming those found guilty of crimes. If one is executed he will never have been educated and made a better person. The U. S. justice system has reverted to a strictly punitive method in order to prove tough on crime and in the hope that stronger punishment will some how deter future criminal activity. The reality is that severe punishment is not working.
Younger people and petty offenders under the current system become hardened, violent, and persistent criminals. In a study of young murderers, Cornell University human development professor James Garbarino observes: Epidemics tend to start among the most vulnerable segments of the population and then work their way outwards, like ripples in a pond. These vulnerable populations dont cause the epidemic. Rather, their disadvantaged position makes them a good host for the infection.
The same epidemic model describes what is happening with boys who kill. (Grant 123) Finally, capital punishment is a broken system. It is expensive, executes people wrongfully and flawed. The death penalty is not more cost effective than life in prison. The numerous frivolous appeals and constitutionally mandated safeguards make death penalty more expensive. A single execution costs more than two million dollars and it is $ 800, 000 more than incarcerating a person for life (Hunter 123). It seems to be almost hypocritical of our society to keep spending so much money on the death penalty.
The cost of the death penalty can be measured in more than just dollars and cents. Capital cases take up tremendous amounts of court time, thereby delaying the processing of other important cases. In addition to expense of death penalty, capital punishment can be inflicted upon an innocent person who is wrongfully convicted. There is a possibility of wrongly sending an innocent man to prison, or wrongly fining an innocent man. The death penalty, once applied, is irrevocable. The record of false convictions for those who end up on the death row provides no reassurance that innocent people are not being executed.
In 1999, eight people were freed and declared innocent of their crimes, bringing the total of those exonerated from death row to eighty- four since 1973, or about one-seventh of all those executed (Progressive 62). One other prisoner on death row found innocent in every seven execution and the total innocents since 1976 are 486. (Shapiro 57). Gerald Kogan a former chief justice of Floridas Supreme Court says, If one innocent person is executed along the way, then we can no longer justify capital punishment (Shapiro 57). A 1996 Justice Department report Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial found that in 8, 048 rape and rape- and- murder cases referred to the FBI crime lab from 1988 to mid- 1995, a staggering 2, 012 of the primary suspects were exonerated owing to DNA evidence alone (Progressive 66).
The irreversibility of the death penalty is especially significant in light of the percentage of innocent people on death row. If an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected; all compensation, all reparation for the wrong is impossible. As demonstrated criminal adjudication system is flawed and the use of capital punishment in such a flawed system is irresponsible and indefensible. The risk of errors is troubling to an increasing number of Americans. From Supreme Court justice to Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan, a growing number of Americans are expressing grave concerns about the fairness of the administration of the death penalty, It is not just a question of access to modern DNA testing. A number of factors have resulted in unfair or even wrongful convictions such as incompetent counsel, sleeping lawyers, drunk lawyers, police misconduct, etc.
Governor Ryan of Illinois took a very important first step in 2000 when he had the courage to recognize these flaws, declared a moratorium on executions, and created a blue ribbon panel to review the fairness of the Illinois death penalty system (Feingold 143). Ray Krone walked out of an Arizona state prison in April, 2002 and became the 100 th innocent person to be released from death row in the modern death penalty era. He spent the last ten years of his life in prison for a crime that he did not commit. Krone said upon his release, What if? What if we hadnt caught this mistake? What if an innocent man ate his final meal, took his last breath, said goodbye to his family and was put to death, alone, silenced by a failing system?
What if we dont ask ourselves these questions? What if we could have saved a life and we didnt? What if we acknowledged that the system is unfair, and yet we didnt do anything about it at all? (Feingold 143) Furthermore, as a flawed system, capital punishment does not ensure same treatment for everybody around the country. The death penalty is hardly applied evenhandedly across the country.
Two people can commit the same offense but receive very different treatment, depending on where they live. The percentage of execution in the South (eighty percent) as opposed to the rest of the country (eleven percent in the Mideast, eight percent in the West, and 0. 5 percent in the Northeast) which is striking evidence that geographical distortion mark executions in the United States (Progressive 67). According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in 1999, Connecticut had five people on death row, Kansas had two, while Texas had 443 (Progressive 67). So for many in our current society, capital punishment is an idea which should be permanently and promptly consigned to the historic junk heap. They argue passionately that the state sponsored murder of a human being is wrong on its face and no better than the murder the convicted criminal may have committed.
They argue that even if the act were not immoral, it is so inefficient and ineffective as a deterrent that it just does not make sense any more. Finally they argue that the system of adjudicating criminal cases in this country is so flawed and unreliable that the attachment of a final penalty to such a process is appalling and indefensible because the possibility of an error which cannot be corrected after an execution is too great for a society that prides itself on the rule of law. It is time for the United States to join with the majority of nations of the civilized world in banning the cruel and unusual practice of capital punishment. Works Cited Costanzo, Mark, The Death Penalty Is Discriminatory.
The Death Penalty. Ed. Mary E. Williams.
California: Greenhaven Press, Inc, 2002. 173 - 178 Dutta, Sunil, Capital Punishment Cannot Be justified, Capital Punishment. Ed. Mary E. Williams.
Thomson Gale, 2005. 40 - 45 Feingold, Russ, Capital Punishment Should Be Temporarily Suspended, Capital Punishment. Ed. Mary E. Williams.
Thomson Gale, 2005. 141 - 144 Grant, Robert, Capital Punishment Exacerbates Violence. Capital Punishment. Ed. Mary E.
Williams. Thomson Gale, 2005. 119 - 125 Hunter, Edward, The Death Penalty Does Not Deter Crime. The Death Penalty. Ed.
Mary E. Williams. California: Greenhaven Press, Inc, 2002. 119 - 126 Murray, Robert, Execution Is Inhumane, Capital Punishment. Ed. Mary E. Williams.
Thomson Gale, 2005. 57 - 60 Progressive, the death penalty is unjust, The Death Penalty. Ed. Mary E. Williams. California: Greenhaven Press, Inc, 2002. 63 - 72 Shapiro, Joseph P. , The Risk of Executing the Innocent Makes the Death Penalty Unfair, The Ethics of Capital Punishment, Ed.
Nick Fisanick, Thomson Gale, 2005. 56 - 61 Outline Thesis Statement: Capital punishment should be stopped, because it is unjust, ineffective deterrent, and a broken system. I. Unjust A. Immoral B. Act of torture C. Inhumanity II.
Ineffective deterrent A. A cycle of violence effect B. Racial and economic bias C. Easy escape for criminals III. Broken system A. Expensive B.
wrongful execution C. Flawed IV. Conclusion
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