A few weeks ago, Connecticut became the seventeenth state to
ban the death penalty.
For most of my life, I’ve supported the death penalty. On
some level, I still do. There are some crimes that reveal such depravity that
the perpetrator forfeits basic human rights. It doesn’t bother me at all, for
example, that U.S. soldiers killed Osama Bin Laden. The killing of a mass murderer means he cannot strike again. If it also eases the suffering of the victim’s loved ones, I am okay with that.
Nonetheless, the time has come to admit that the death penalty,
as it commonly practiced in the U.S. today, is mistaken. Here’s why:
·
The Death
Penalty Does Not Deter Crime: There are numerous conflicting studies about
the death penalty’s impact on homicide. Several studies from the 90s suggested
a correlation between declining crime rates and the more frequent use of capital
punishment. However, these studies generally did not control for the simple
fact that an improving economy suppressed crime generally. Recent studies by
professors at Columbia, Stanford and UCLA find no correlation between the death
penalty and homicide. In a recent poll, only 2% of the five hundred police
chiefs polled named “insufficient use of the death penalty” as an impediment to
combatting crime. The linkage between the death penalty and homicide deterrence
is inconclusive, at best.
·
The Death
Penalty Does Not Save Money: For better or worse, executing a person in
this country is very expensive. This is because death row prisoners are
generally given extra appeals that often drag on for years before an execution—as
the justice system attempts to lessen the chances of wrongful execution. The average
stay for a prisoner on death row is twelve years from date of sentence to the
day of execution. A study of death row individuals in California suggests that
because of their many appeals, a prisoner on death row costs an average $90,000
more per year than an individual with a life sentence.
·
Capital
Punishment Is Irreversible: The most compelling argument against the death
penalty is the most obvious; our legal system is imperfect and the capital punishment
is irreversible. In the late 90s, when DNA testing became an effective investigative
tool, we saw numerous homicide convictions overturned. In Illinois alone,
thirteen people were proven wrongly executed. This led the Republican governor to
sign an executive order putting a moratorium on the death penalty in the state
(the moratorium turned into a permanent ban last year). Estimates vary on how
many people have been wrongly executed since 2000, but even if it’s only a few,
a wrongful execution is irreversible. This is the trump card in the death
penalty argument: until we can be certain that our trial outcomes are correct,
how can we support such a dire, irreversible punishment?
Although circumstances and frequency vary greatly, thirty-three
states still allow the death penalty. A few hundred Americans are executed each
year. The large majority of these people are poor and poorly educated; some are
convicted after poor legal representation. Several states have recently moved
to end the death penalty, including Connecticut just last month.
Nationally, the death penalty remains popular—at least in
the abstract. According to Gallup, 61% of Americans favor it. This is way down
from a peak of 80% in the 80s, but still a legitimate majority. However, other
polls show slippage in death penalty support: one poll offers that only 37% of
death penalty supporters regard the issue as “very important” to them; another
shows only 46% of death penalty supporters favoring it when life in prison
without parole is offered as the alternative. I am waiting for the poll that asks death penalty supporters this question, “Assuming that a few people on death row are executed each year for crimes they did not commit, do you still support the death penalty?”
Congratulations Connecticut.
There is one flaw in your logic. If you cannot accept some few deaths in the process. And that is that in all instances in society there is sometimes people that dies because of the process. Car accidents, constructions of building, mining. People bathing in public baths. Even if there is a difference that this is a direct action to end someones life, the effect is still the same, that some that not deserves to die dies.
ReplyDeleteThe thing you can do is to limit the odds, improving the security. Be stricter with control of people, and that has improved. but you cannot argue that a few deaths is sufficient to entirelly stop the operation of the process, otherwise that could just as likely be an argument for everything else.