Opponents also provide evidence that the death penalty is unjust. Data show that death row prisoners are disproportionately low income, minority, and under-represented by the legal system. Thus, we many wonder if those who can't afford the best lawyers are more likely to be sentenced to death, and if so, then we may have effectively put a price on the life of a criminal. Similarly, if the flawed legal system convicts an innocent person and sentences him to death, there is no opportunity for justice to prevail when the prisoner's innocence is ultimately proven. Two states, Maine and Rhode Island, discovered that they had likely executed innocent men and subsequently abolished the death penalty.
Many note that the time and expenses associated with the death penalty are reasons enough to disallow it. Extensive review and judicial process is guaranteed for death row cases, with the intent of ensuring that innocent people do not get executed. In California alone, the cost of keeping an inmate on death row is approximately $90,000 per year more that it would be if that same inmate was sentenced to life in prison with an opportunity for parole (Death Penalty Focus). The aggregate numbers are even more powerful: again, in California the total cost of maintaining inmates on death row comes to $137 million per year. These costs can be broken down into basic food and shelter, plus appeals, medical needs, and the execution itself. Critics note that a lifetime in prison accomplishes many of the same goals as the death penalty: the criminal is removed from society, he will be unable to re-offend, and he has been punished in accordance with his crime. Life terms in prison are not cheap for the state, but they do amount to millions of dollars of annual savings that could...
If we, as a society, agree that
murder is a crime, then committing murder against a criminal is also a crime. We become not only hypocritical and inconsistent, but also guilty of the same
crime that we detest. Our ethical system will become an empty shell if we assign different rules for different people; after all, "it must be remembered that criminals are real people too who have life and with it the capacity to feel pain, fear, and the loss of the their loved ones," (Arguments).
The death penalty not only violates these fundamental ethical principles, but it may also violate the U.S.
constitution. The 8th Amendment explicitly forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Certainly, argue opponents of capital punishment, execution is the very sort of punishment that led to this
prohibition. Much has been said about the relative merits of different forms of execution, from hanging to injection, and researchers have not come to consensus on which methods are inherently more painful than others. Therefore, on principle, we must conclude that death is in fact cruel and unusual.
Conclusion
The United States is one of only a handful of so-called "advanced" countries that still allows the death penalty. This divergence in policy creates international relations challenges, when states refuse to extradite our criminals to their home state for fear of capital punishment. However, within the U.S., there remains strong if not unanimous support for the death penalty. Arguments for deterrence and revenge remain the loudest, and families of victims tend to populate the
interest groups that advocate for a continuation of the policy. Whether or not capital punishment is an ethical breech may ultimately be an individual moral dilemma.
References
Arguments For and Against Capital Punishment. Available at:
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/thoughts.html
Bailey, William C., et.al. (1974). Crime and Deterrence: A Correlation Analysis. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 11 (2): 124-143
Death Penalty Arguments: Pros and Cons. Available at:
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/ornellaspaper.htm
Death Penalty Focus. The High Cost of the Death Penalty. Available at:
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
