Scott Turow Ultimate Punishment

Ultimate Punishment

There are many topics which are controversial in the modern society. People constantly debate the merits of abortion or women's rights. Perhaps one of the most controversial topics for debate at present is over the ethical right of the death penalty. Some feel the penalty is too severe and inhumane. Others feel the penalty is just and not used often enough in this country. How does each individual feel about this most severe of punishments? Is it right for the government to execute criminals or is it wrong? Presently, 34 of the United States of America have death penalty statutes (Facts 2011). In each state, there are rigorous proceedings which go on when dealing with a death penalty situation. First and foremost, prosecutors must be absolutely certain that they have the right man or woman as defendant. Secondly, they must ensure that there is enough concrete evidence to support their claim that the actions of the defendant were wicked enough that they have no chance for rehabilitation and that the community would be better off if that person were to die. Many of the people who argue against the death penalty site occurrences of wrongful conviction, but in an age of DNA evidence, the innocent convict is becoming far less of an event. In author Scott Turow's non-fiction book Ultimate Punishment, a man reveals how he altered perspectives from being completely against the death penalty to becoming a reluctant supporter of the punishment. The book discusses Turow's experiences as part of the Ryan Commission and how he came to change his position on the death penalty. One of the things that Turow discusses in the book is what factor if any the economy has on the death penalty and if abolition of the process would help the financial scenario of the country.

The death penalty is the legal execution of a convicted criminal as punishment for that person committing either one or a series of very serious or particularly heinous crimes. Many countries in the world have some form of the death penalty for criminals, although some like England have abolished the practice. This form of legal punishment can be documented as far back as recorded history. In the culture of the United States of America, a person must commit an egregious crime to even be considered for this form of most serious punishment. The crime that was committed had to have included the death of another or some other state where the victim is so affected that normal function will be many, many years away if the victim can ever recover. This can include serial rape with other physical assault or treason, wherein the victim is the country. The American judicial system is not arbitrary and the decisions made by prosecutors in various counties are designed to protect the citizenry and only give the death penalty to criminals who have no chance for reform and whose crimes are so vial that the only accepted punishment is death.

One of the most common arguments against the death penalty concerns the conviction and subsequent execution of innocent people. This had been attended to through new technologies and scientific experiments which make it harder to convict criminals based on circumstantial evidence. Second to this argument is the frequently cited idea that the cost of death row is an expenditure which could be better put to other uses. It is said that because of both the extensive experts called to testify and the tests performed as well as the amount of appeals that go into a death penalty case, it costs the state far more money to prosecute and punish a convict than if they were to be given life in prison.

The Ryan Commission was an organization appointed by a former Governor of Illinois. Governor Ryan had abolished the death penalty in the state of Illinois because of an abundance of judicial errors which had affected the outcomes of investigations. At the time of Ryan's decision, more than half of the citizens of Illinois agreed with him (Turow 100). After the inclusion of DNA and other forms of evidence, thirteen convicts on Death Row were exonerated and it was feared that there would be many other men and women who had been convicted of crimes of which they were innocent (Turow 16). The report issued by the Ryan Commission determined that there were things within the system which needed alteration and made more than eighty recommendations (Ryan 39). However, they did not believe that there was any reason to abolish the procedure completely in the state of Illinois.

Among the Ryan Commission's recommendations to the state of Illinois were suggestions for the expansion of DNA investigation and expert testimony. Even though this would increase the expenditures of individual cases, it would also better ensure that no innocent people were wrongly convicted and sent to Death Row (Ryan 20). Additionally, because of the high cost of death penalty cases, it is requiring far more certainty by prosecutors of a conviction before they will seek the punishment.

It has been proven that although the upfront costs of a death penalty case will outweigh those of a non-lethal punishment trial, there is evidence that housing a defendant for a life sentence will actually cost more in the long run (Sharp). Additionally, some experts about legality and economics, like Sharp, claim that the anti-death penalty proponent's position that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison only looks at the cost of the trials. On average, a death penalty case costs more than a life sentence only up the six-year point (Sharp). This is because on average a person spending life without parole will serve between 25 and 60 years in prison whereas a death row inmate will only be imprisoned for around twenty years, if not terminated more expeditiously.

To prove the cost of housing and caring for a prisoner is extravagant in its own right, Turow sites one prison, Tamms. In this prison, each convict costs the taxpayers of the state $52,000 (Turow 86). Each prisoner costs more that some people of the state will make in a year. This seems to be something of a deplorable statistic. It is unaccountably unfair that people who are law abiding are less cared for than members of the population who chose to violate the laws of the land.

There is limited information as to the specific differences in cost between a death penalty case and life without parole (LWOP). This is because costs of such trials vary from state to state and case to case (Ebert 13). Besides the economic factors to consider when inquiring over the differences between the death penalty and life in prison is the quality of life afforded to convicted criminals. While in prison, convicted criminals have access to health and dental care. They have time and means to acquire a high school or college education. Training and hobbies that they acquire within prison can even attain them a degree of fame outside of their criminal history. Money is being paid not only to house and feed these individuals, but also to occupy and entertain them, earning them a quality of life that their victims were not afforded.