Cost Of Taking One's Life Research Paper

The Cost of Taking One’s Life

Capital punishment has been a major debate in society of whether it should be administered to criminals or abolished. It is a source of controversy because of the effectiveness and morality of taking one’s life. People have argued it should be implemented because it is wrong to allow a malefactor to live, while others reason that too many innocent people are executed and therefore it should be removed. However, when taking all the positive and negative effects into consideration, it is clear that the death penalty is necessary because it deters future crimes from being committed, is a justified punishment for those who have murdered, and is carried out by a fair system that does not have racial disparities.

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punishment is a direct factor to the deterrence of crimes. Murders have remarkably decreased while the death penalty was in place. According to H. Naci Mocan and R. Kaj Gittings, economic professors at the University of Colorado at Denver, a study of the Supreme Court moratorium on capital punishment showed that “91% of states faced an increase in homicides” from 1972 to 1976 (Sunstien). However, the murders soon declined because in “67% of states, the rate was decreased after the reinstatement of capital punishment” (Sunstein). While the death penalty was suspended, it is apparent that the number of murders rose significantly because there were no executions to prevent further crimes. Almost two-thirds of the United States, which is approximately thirty-three states, had less crimes committed after the death penalty was reinstituted than the forty-five states that had more crime while it was not in place. The effect of capital punishment can evidently lower the rate of murders if not abolished. Another study from Emory University professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd used data from “over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996” and “found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders” (Muhlhausen). For every murderer that is executed, eighteen lives of innocent people are saved. The average number of inmates executed since the death penalty was reinforced after 1976 is 36 people every year. Because of the death penalty, more than 25,200 people in the United States have been saved. The execution of criminals is important to the deterrence of crimes because it prevents them from breaking the law and harming more people.
The death penalty is a justified retribution for someone who has taken another’s life.

After being put through a fair and speedy trial that is guaranteed by the Constitution in the sixth amendment, educated defense attorneys make their case against a panel of twelve fair judges. These impartial judges take into consideration all the evidence that is presented and conclude that the offender is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and deserves the death penalty. Criminals in the United States are most commonly punished with “lethal injections and the electric chair” (Carmical). If given the lethal injection, a prisoner’s heart stops while he is sleeping, and if put into the electric chair he is killed within a minute, a short and quick death. (Carmical). The pain inflicted to the criminal does not compare to the grief and despair he or she has caused to the victim and the victim’s family. Victims’ families suffer for years dealing with the pain of the lost loved one. Anthony Gregory Scalia, Senior Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, agrees that “if a punishment is not retributive enough, it is not retributive at all” (Scalia). The only punishment that is sufficient for

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actions of the criminal is the cost of his or her own life. It would be morally wrong if the criminal instead were given life in prison while the family of the victim paid tax dollars towards his living conditions (Carmical). The taking of one’s life deserves death as indemnification. As stated by Justice Scalia, “the imposition of capital punishment without pain…lacks a retributive purpose unless it inflicts pain commensurate with the pain that the criminal has caused” (Scalia).
On the other hand, opponents of capital punishment believe that the judicial system holds a racial bias towards black people and minorities. People think jurors are more likely to condemn the death penalty on those who are in poverty. They claim that there are “1,371 blacks on death row”, making up “42% of the total death row population” despite the low percentage of black people who live in the United States (Whitehead). Others state that it is unfair that people who are being put on death row are already the minority in the United States. Also, the majority of those who receive the death penalty come from abusive environments and are impoverished (Whitehead). Those who want to abolish capital punishment use a victim’s mentality to gain support for the criminal. However, those who want to put an end to the death penalty have an argument that is flawed in many ways. Dissidents tend to only look at the problem from one side of the cause, when in actuality, cases with those whom are sentenced to the death penalty have nothing to do the criminal’s race.
Race is not involved in the verdict of the death penalty. Although 42% of the death row population is black people, the other 58% is primarily white people, with other ethnicities making up a small portion of the number. Those on death row often wait over 10 years before they are finally executed. The Death Penalty Information center
reported that the percentage of black people actually executed is 38% in comparison to the 56% of white people (Sharp).

Although white people make up more than half of the United States population, they are not given the death penalty for their race but the crime they committed. If a person, black or white, murders and there is substantial evidence that they are guilty, they deserve the punishment of death. The Bureau of Justice Statistics also invalidates the argument that capital punishment is carried out against certain races, stating “white sentenced to death are executed 17 months faster than blacks” (Sharp). There is neither evidence nor statistics to prove that there are disparities against black people or minorities, or even white people. In Maryland in 2001, a moratorium on capital punishment was implemented “in light of concerns that it may be evenly applied to minorities” (Muhlhausen). Ray Paternoster, professor of criminology at the University of Maryland, studied the possible racial discrimination of the death penalty in Maryland and concluded that “for both capital charges and death sentences, race either played no role of a small role that is very difficult to specify” (Muhlhausen). Professor Paternoster examined past cases in Maryland and could not gather enough evidence to conclude that racial discrimination is a part of putting into effect the death penalty. Concerns raised by opposition to capital punishment were inaccurate because as it was proved, it was

not race but the crime that decided who received the death sentence.