Spring Break
The truth behind capital punishment
Joshua Levinson
Issue date: 2/3/04 Section: Commentary
In order to understand our own feelings about the death penalty, we must understand why it exists. In all of the research I've done, I've found three main supportive arguments for capital punishment: 1) it deters crime, 2) spending money to keep depraved criminals alive is both economically foolish and immoral and 3) when a human being takes the life of another, he gives up his own right to live.
First we begin with, what is in my opinion, the weakest argument: Capital punishment deters crime. There is precious little evidence to support this claim, and an abundance of evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.
Since 1975, when Canada abolished the death penalty, the number of homicides has decreased by 23 percent (despite an increase in population) and sits at only one-third of the murder rate in the United States.
If we look at the United States by itself, we see even more alarming statistics: In 2002, the murder rate in the South increased by 2.1 percent while the murder rate in the Northeast declined by almost five percent. Yet the South is responsible for 82 percent of all executions in the United States; the Northeast accounts for less than one percent.
Clearly, the lack of evidence to support the notion that capital punishment deters crime is impressive. We can only be left with the idea that capital punishment does not in of itself, deter crime, and this is not sufficient reason to use it.
Next, we take a look at the economic ramifications of the death penalty. Supporters of capital punishment often say they don't want to pay hard-earned dollars to keep some murderous scumbag alive for the rest of his life. Although I can understand this argument in theory, the actuality of it is anything but true.
According to Indiana's Criminal Law Study Commission, the cost of executing someone exceeded the costs of incarcerating someone for life without possibility of parole by 38 percent. This may seem counterintuitive until we realize capital cases must be intensely scrupulous and the appeals process must be just as methodical. When we are dealing with life and death there is no room for error.
Another study by Duke University found the average cost of an execution was $2.6 million MORE than non-death penalty murder cases with a sentence of imprisonment for life. Again, though you may find this system flawed, it is for our own protection, and for the protection of those innocent of these crimes.
Obviously, if we take an objective look at the facts, capital punishment does not really make our society better. The threat of capital punishment does not deter murderers and instead, seems to encourage the lack of care for human life.
Meanwhile, many Americans today walk around with the idea capital punishment is actually a cheaper alternative to life imprisonment, but nothing could be further from the truth. The necessary trials, appeals and expert analysis are costly, but necessary.
Finally then, we come to the moral argument: Do murderers deserve to live? Or perhaps the better question is: Is it moral for us to kill them?
The most compelling argument I've heard that supports capital punishment is the emotional one: If someone raped and murdered my father/mother/son/daughter or some other close relative, I would want that person to die. Anything less than death would be a grave injustice.
Unfortunately, making a moral argument for or against capital punishment is often dependent upon your own personal beliefs. Almost all religions defy capital punishment (anyone remember "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"?). But almost 70 percent of Americans continue to support the death penalty.
Instead of asking you to let go of your emotional responses to depraved acts that, perhaps, "deserve" death, let me turn this around: When is it okay to kill an innocent person?
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Since that time, 870 people have been executed. More startling than this, however, is that 112 people have been released from Death Row for reasonable doubt about their guilt.
In other words, for every eight people executed, there is at least one person removed from death row. Anyone who has had the unfortunate luck to take probability knows that, given a large number of death row executions and a small rate of error, the chance of someone being wrongfully executed over a great period of time is almost certain.
Is this justice? Is this our great morality? How can you weigh the murder of just ONE innocent human being against all of the "just" murders we commit against defenseless criminals? Who are we to decide the cost of justice must be paid in innocent blood?
And if you can sit there and say although errors happen, they are insignificant compared to the justice we deliver, then I ask you: How would you feel sitting in that chair, waiting for your lethal injection for a crime you did not commit? Or if someone you know and love was wrongfully convicted of a capital offense. This is not as uncommon as you may believe. Is that insignificant? Or is it more than just an aberration?
Given all of the evidence and the almost complete certainty that our Justice Department has wrongly executed innocent people, how can we support this inhumane crime? If it's cheaper and more effective to rid ourselves of capital punishment, as so many of our modern allies have, then why do we wait? What are we waiting for?
Right now, someone is waiting to die for a crime he did not commit. Right now, someone's life is being robbed from him in the name of justice.
Life is the most precious gift in the world, and to take it from someone in the name of vengeance, anger, hatred or even justice, will always be wrong.
Who are you to take that away?
Sources:
http://www.deathpenalty.org/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dplinks.html
First we begin with, what is in my opinion, the weakest argument: Capital punishment deters crime. There is precious little evidence to support this claim, and an abundance of evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.
Since 1975, when Canada abolished the death penalty, the number of homicides has decreased by 23 percent (despite an increase in population) and sits at only one-third of the murder rate in the United States.
If we look at the United States by itself, we see even more alarming statistics: In 2002, the murder rate in the South increased by 2.1 percent while the murder rate in the Northeast declined by almost five percent. Yet the South is responsible for 82 percent of all executions in the United States; the Northeast accounts for less than one percent.
Clearly, the lack of evidence to support the notion that capital punishment deters crime is impressive. We can only be left with the idea that capital punishment does not in of itself, deter crime, and this is not sufficient reason to use it.
Next, we take a look at the economic ramifications of the death penalty. Supporters of capital punishment often say they don't want to pay hard-earned dollars to keep some murderous scumbag alive for the rest of his life. Although I can understand this argument in theory, the actuality of it is anything but true.
According to Indiana's Criminal Law Study Commission, the cost of executing someone exceeded the costs of incarcerating someone for life without possibility of parole by 38 percent. This may seem counterintuitive until we realize capital cases must be intensely scrupulous and the appeals process must be just as methodical. When we are dealing with life and death there is no room for error.
Another study by Duke University found the average cost of an execution was $2.6 million MORE than non-death penalty murder cases with a sentence of imprisonment for life. Again, though you may find this system flawed, it is for our own protection, and for the protection of those innocent of these crimes.
Obviously, if we take an objective look at the facts, capital punishment does not really make our society better. The threat of capital punishment does not deter murderers and instead, seems to encourage the lack of care for human life.
Meanwhile, many Americans today walk around with the idea capital punishment is actually a cheaper alternative to life imprisonment, but nothing could be further from the truth. The necessary trials, appeals and expert analysis are costly, but necessary.
Finally then, we come to the moral argument: Do murderers deserve to live? Or perhaps the better question is: Is it moral for us to kill them?
The most compelling argument I've heard that supports capital punishment is the emotional one: If someone raped and murdered my father/mother/son/daughter or some other close relative, I would want that person to die. Anything less than death would be a grave injustice.
Unfortunately, making a moral argument for or against capital punishment is often dependent upon your own personal beliefs. Almost all religions defy capital punishment (anyone remember "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"?). But almost 70 percent of Americans continue to support the death penalty.
Instead of asking you to let go of your emotional responses to depraved acts that, perhaps, "deserve" death, let me turn this around: When is it okay to kill an innocent person?
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Since that time, 870 people have been executed. More startling than this, however, is that 112 people have been released from Death Row for reasonable doubt about their guilt.
In other words, for every eight people executed, there is at least one person removed from death row. Anyone who has had the unfortunate luck to take probability knows that, given a large number of death row executions and a small rate of error, the chance of someone being wrongfully executed over a great period of time is almost certain.
Is this justice? Is this our great morality? How can you weigh the murder of just ONE innocent human being against all of the "just" murders we commit against defenseless criminals? Who are we to decide the cost of justice must be paid in innocent blood?
And if you can sit there and say although errors happen, they are insignificant compared to the justice we deliver, then I ask you: How would you feel sitting in that chair, waiting for your lethal injection for a crime you did not commit? Or if someone you know and love was wrongfully convicted of a capital offense. This is not as uncommon as you may believe. Is that insignificant? Or is it more than just an aberration?
Given all of the evidence and the almost complete certainty that our Justice Department has wrongly executed innocent people, how can we support this inhumane crime? If it's cheaper and more effective to rid ourselves of capital punishment, as so many of our modern allies have, then why do we wait? What are we waiting for?
Right now, someone is waiting to die for a crime he did not commit. Right now, someone's life is being robbed from him in the name of justice.
Life is the most precious gift in the world, and to take it from someone in the name of vengeance, anger, hatred or even justice, will always be wrong.
Who are you to take that away?
Sources:
http://www.deathpenalty.org/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dplinks.html