Arguments for and against capital punishment

Capital Punishment Debate

The United States is one of the few industrialized nations in the world that still practices capital punishment. Most European nations and our northern neighbor Canada do not have the death penalty and in fact will not send wanted criminals to the United States because of their opposition to capital punishment. Proponents of the death penalty say that it can be a deterrent to crime, that it can be cheaper than life without parole sentences, that it is a viable and just response to murder, that the death penalty is a moral imperative or even a display of divine justice. However, statistics and facts prove otherwise, which is why I am firmly opposed to capital punishment. I base my argument on four major points. First, studies show that the death penalty is costly, more costly than incarceration. Second, the death penalty is irreversible. Many people are wrongfully convicted, and those people will never be able to get their lives back once they are killed. Third, the death penalty is unfortunately linked with racial prejudice. Finally, most criminologists agree that the death penalty is not a deterrent of crime. I am also opposed to the death penalty on humanitarian grounds and am appalled that many states permit the execution of minors. For these reasons, I believe that capital punishment does no good and in fact it may contribute to a violent society and should therefore be ruled as unconstitutional.

The death penalty is gradually falling out of favor in some states because of the reasons I mentioned. For example, in 2004 New York and Kansas ruled that capital punishment was unconstitutional. In New York, that decision was based on cost as well as humanitarian reasons. A New York legislator states, "I have some doubt whether we need a death penalty ... We are spending tens of millions of dollars that may be better spent on educating children," (quoted on "the Death Penalty Information" website). In Kansas, the cost of death penalty cases was as much as 70% higher than non-capital cases ("Death Penalty Information Center"). In spite of these costs, 38 out of 50 states still allow the death penalty; only twelve states do not. In Florida, a state with one the highest rates of executions in the nation, enforcing the death penalty costs about $51 million per year more than it would cost to sentence the same criminals to life without parole. Therefore, the death penalty is costing taxpayers inordinate amounts of money, money that could be much better spent elsewhere, from educating children, to alleviating problems related to health care and homelessness.

Second, the death penalty is irreversible but many people are wrongfully accused and convicted of crimes. Once they are killed these innocent victims of the state have no recourse and neither do their families. In New York, as many as 130 cases since the 1980s have been wrongful convictions ("Death Penalty Information Center"). According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "one person has been exonerated for every eight people executed," ("A Question of Innocence"). In addition to "honest" errors, wrongful accusations can be downright dirty. For example, prosecution misconduct and even being framed accounts for some of the wrongful convictions of people who are given the death penalty. These practices are barbarian and have no place in the modern United States, a nation supposedly founded on concepts like "liberty and justice for all."

The death penalty is linked with race. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, "a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both," has been documented in most states with the death penalty. Moreover, the chief district attorneys in states with the death penalty are overwhelmingly white: 98% of chief district attorneys in death penalty states were white, and only one percent were black. Criminals who are given the death penalty are disproportionately black: some studies show that blacks receive the death penalty 38% more than all other groups, for similar crimes and similar defendants ("Death Penalty Information Center"). According to the ACLU, 80% of all capital punishment cases involve white victims ("Race and the Death Penalty"). In North Carolina alone, the "odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims where white," ("Death Penalty Information Center").