On Death Penalty

Controversial Topic Week!

Your typical debate on the controversy of death penalty.

Controversial Research Issue: Death Penalty

by Katy Z. 

24 April 2013

         As stated in a quote by Albert Camus, a French philosopher and the 1957 Nobel Prize winner, “Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.” The topic has been in the heat of debate for the last sixty years, receiving equally divided opinions from the public. Out of the 196 countries worldwide, only twenty-one carry out execution as capital punishment. America is fifth on the list for the highest number of executions. However, to all its proclaimed purpose, the death sentence of an alleged murderer does not lower our country’s homicidal rates. In fact, studies have shown an increase in numbers. The death penalty is not an effective mean of punishment because it’s not well executed, contains many underlying, systematic problems, and causes more harm than protection to the public.
       
          The death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to potential homicidal murderers. The ACLU, or the American Civil Liberties Union, asserted that “[T]here is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws.” Thorsten Sellin, an authority on criminology who also pioneered the field, conducted a study comparing the homicidal rates in states with the death penalty versus neighboring states that did not. He concluded that states without the death penalty had similar or lower homicidal rates. Like reports can be shown through the murder rate statistics of New Jersey. After banishment of the death penalty, there was a decline of 24% in the first six months of 2009 as compared to six months in the previous year. The drop in rates signified the first time the state of New Jersey has seen a decrease in murder rates for two consecutive years since 1999. This peculiar data trend can be speculated into the “Brutalization Theory” which can be summarized as the death penalty, instead of actually deterring murderers from committing crimes, it motivates murderers by “desensitizing the public to immorality of killing”, “legitimizes the notion that vengeance for past misdeeds is acceptable”, and it causes the government to set a negative precedent. Therefore, death penalty cannot be used as an effect deterrent to crime.
           
          An anonymous Chinese philosopher stated, “A man who seeks revenge digs two graves”.  After a horrific murder of a homicidal victim, family members and friends feel obligated to seek retribution, but this so-called “justice” often transforms into revenge. Many family members have stated in interviews that they would gladly execute the murderer themselves. Raymond A. Schroth, a Jesuit Priest and Community Professor of the Humanities at St. Peter’s College, asserts that “to kill the person who has killed someone close to you is simply to continue the cycle of violence which ultimately destroys the avenger as well as the offender.” The execution of an alleged murderer then becomes a source of satisfaction for the ones close to the victim. “Our desire to see criminals put to death can be summed up in one word: revenge. We are a society that still believes literally in Hammurabi's Code. We want to see an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Legalized Murder…). As often as the families and friends of the victims state that capital punishment is, in its entirety, for justice, their hatred and bloodthirsty comments show otherwise.

       Hundreds of innocent deaths are unaccounted for due to the flaws in the death penalty system. According to US Senator, Russ Feingold, one in every seven executed criminals is, in fact, innocent. Attorneys play a large role in the final decision of a case. The quality of the chosen attorney may be the deciding factor to life or death for the alleged murderer. More than 93% of all case defendants cannot afford an attorney; so the government provides them with an appointed one. “The appointed attorneys are overworked, underpaid, or lacking the trial experience required for death penalty cases. There have even been instances in which lawyers appointed to a death case were so inexperienced that they were completely unprepared for the sentencing phase of the trial. Other appointed attorneys have slept through parts of the trial or arrived at the court under the influence of alcohol” (Death Penalty Representation). Attorneys with a lack of judiciary court experience could ultimately alter or end a person’s life forever.

        Logically speaking, the cost of the death penalty should be less than the cost of life sentence in prison, however, that is not true in today’s society. The death penalty amounts to twice the cost in attorney service and many more hours of trial time, all coming from the taxpayers’ funds. Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, in a Cost Study Commission, spoke to the Pennsylvania Senate Government Management about the shockingly high costs, “The death penalty is the most expensive part of the system on a per-offender basis. Millions are spent to achieve a single death sentence”.  California taxpayers spend an average of about $137 million alone on death penalties- a degrading use of our tax dollars (Shameful Waste of Taxpayers' Money). Each case costs an average of $650,000; when the death sentence is announced, the costs receive a bonus of about $1 million (Does the death penalty cost). The cost of the death sentence amounts to double the amount for life imprisonment, and in most cases, even more.

        The death penalty does not give way to improvements in society. It detracts from it by failing to effectively deter future crimes, raises an excess of taxes for taxpayers, achieves demoralization and revenge in the friends and family members of murder victims, and succeeds in killing the lives of countless innocent prisoners. America, one of the few countries in the world that still instigates the death sentences in most of its states, continues to permit the demoralized killing of human beings. As in Albert Camus’ quote, that “Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders”, killing the murderer would make us all murderers too.

Works Cited

Books:

Prejean, Sister Helen. The Death of Innocents. 1^st ed.

Toronto, Canada: Random House, 2005. Print.

Marzilli, Alan. Capital Punishment. 2nd ed.

New York, NY: Infobase Publishing , 2008. Print.

Lifton, Robert Jay, and Greg Mitchell. Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, The American Conscience, and the End of Executions. 1st ed.

New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2000. Print.

Egendorf, Laura K. The Death Penalty.

San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Print.

Kronenwetter, Michael, Capital Punishment: A Reference Handbook

(Santa Barbara, CA: ABL-CLIO, 2001), 27.

Websites:

Vaknin, Sam. "Many People with Mental Illness Should Not Be Exempt from the Death Penalty." The Death Penalty. Ed. Jenny Cromie and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.

Goldberg, Jonah. "Why Death-Penalty Opponents Can't Win." Rpt. in The Death Penalty. Ed. Jenny Cromie and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.

ProCon.org. "Top 10 Pros and Cons." ProCon.org. 13 Apr. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.

United States. Death Penalty Information Center. Costs of Death Penalty. Web. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty>.

    ProCon.org. "Does the death penalty cost less than life in prison without parole?" ProCon.org. 9 Aug. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.                         <http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Ring, Michael J. "Legalized Murder: The Death Penalty Serves Revenge and Does Nothing to Solve Crime." Tech: Online Edition. 117.51 (1997): n. page. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. <http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N51/ring.51c.html>.

United States. Death Penalty Information Center. Death Penalty Representation. Web. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-representation>.

"The Death Penalty is a Shameful Waste of Taxpayers' Money." Death Penalty Focus: Working for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. N.p., 01 007 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2013. <http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=270>.