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Capital punishment vs life imprisonment
Death penalty vs life
Life in prison versus capital punishment
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Throughout the world, all nations either have the death penalty or had used it before. The death penalty is the most severe form of punishment a judge or jury can enforce on someone. The death penalty is a cruel and unfair system. It should be abolished because it favors racism. Also, it is financially too expensive for taxpayers. It violates the Bill of Rights and prisoner’s family suffer seeing their loved one’s put to death. The idea of life in prison is enough of a punishment for anyone. The Death penalty should be abolished because it favors racism. Over the past decade Prison Policy Initiative, claim “42.9% Percent of death row that is African-American while the population of African Americans is 12.8% in the U.S. Eleven and two percent of death row that is Hispanic while the …show more content…
According to the Death Penalty Center “cases without the death penalty cost $740,000, while cases where the death penalty is sought cost $1.26 million”. This is a lot of money to execute someone. Our government could use that money to fund different projects and help better our communities by building research centers or more libraries. Also, as the Law Dictionary states, “the average cost of housing an inmate in the U.S is $31,286 in 2012”. This is not a lot of money considering that it cost “$1.26 million” just to execute someone. Our government could save a lot of money by sentencing prisoners to life in prison without parole. The government can use this money to offer more public transportation. According to Prison Policy Initiative, “the amount that California could save $90 million per year by abolishing capital punishment”. California could use this money to fund their criminal enforcement task force to protect citizens and keep the state safer. Taxpayers shouldn’t pay an increasing amount of tax to execute someone when they should be lawfully punished in a cheaper and moral
Even the worst crimes should not be paid with the simple escape of death. The death penalty costs far more than a life sentence, though it seems like the opposite would be true. With the multiple appeals and trials and relocations, it’s millions down the drain. According to deathpenalty.org it costs taxpayers $90,000 more a year to maintain a death row prisoner versus maintaining a prisoner in general population. Add in the cost of execution depending on the method, $24 million for each electrocution in Florida, at least $86 per lethal injection, around $25,000 for a fire squad execution,(deathpenaltyinfo.org) and it’s even more for a quick end.
Notwithstanding issues of morality, the death penalty process of California is financially inefficient and ineffective. At the current rate of executions, “it would take 1,600 years to execute everybody on death row.” [The Death of the American Death Penalty, 122] The average delay in implementing a death sentence calculates out to be 25 years, at an added cost of $90,000 per year over normal incarceration. [Guy, 2] This is a “premium that currently totals more than $60 million a year” [Guy, 2]. When you take the added costs of death row incarceration and total them up with the additional costs of prosecution and the handling of the many legal appeals death row inmates are entitled to, the unnecessary amount of spending is significant. We could eliminate “$126 million a year” in additional costs by simply sentencing death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [Guy, 2] Because of the afo...
Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. From 1976 to 1995 there were a total of 314 people put to death in the US 179 of them were put to death using lethal injection, 123 were put to death using electrocution, 9 were put to death in a gas chamber, 2 were hanged, and 1 was put to death using the firing squad. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United Sates today. Once a jury has convicted a criminal, they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase. If the jury recommends the death penalty and the judge agrees then the criminal will face some form of execution, lethal injection is the most common form used today. There was a period from 1972 to 1976 that capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Their reason for this decision was that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment. The decision was reversed when new methods of execution were introduced. Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as there are people. In our project, both sides have been presented and argued fully.
Introduction: Job David Guerrero lived in downtown San Diego when he was suspected of attacking five homeless men with serious upper-body injuries. Two of which were found dead with their bodies set on fire. Guerrero was linked to the murders form eyewitness testimony and video camera footage. Guerrero should deserve the death penalty under the act of which he commits a murder. This policy of action is morally justified through Lex Talionis, Kantian ethics, Gelernter and the social contract. Although arguments such as Jeffrey Reiman’s might oppose the death penalty and support lesser punishment, my position is a stronger alternative.
Rainey Bethea was a hardly a man, but a monster. He was a rapist, thief, and murderer. Bethea broke into the home of an innocent old woman. He proceeded to brutally strangle her, rape her fragile body until she took her last breaths. After the gruesome act he advanced into the home and seized the possessions that were most dear to her. He left the home without batting an eye. Shortly, after being arrested with the crime Bethea admitted to the allegations. He was summoned to the gallows in Owensboro, Kentucky. The hanging of Bethea was a well-known case of 1936. He was the last person to be publicly executed in the United States. Although not conducted publicly, today thirty-one states have the death penalty. The methods range from firing
These are the facts that kill the pros arguments; the death penalty does not deter people from committing murder, and actually in a strange twist of logic death penalty states have higher homicide rates then non death penalty states. Most people believe that it is cheaper to sentence people to death, wrong again. The following states that have reported higher costs for the sentence of the death penalty verses life without the possibility of parole are, Texas, Kansas, Maryland, California, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina. These are the facts that strengthen the cons arguments; there is undeniable proof that all methods used to carry out the penalty of death can cause the offender to suffer in a cruel and unusual way. There is a disparity in sentencing towards minorities for the death penalty, “defendants convicted of killing a white person were 4 times more likely to be sentenced to death then if they had killed a black person” (Stull, 2012). If our sentencing of the death penalty was fair and not racist, then each state that has the death penalty should have around the same number of people given that sentence for a set number of people living in that state. Yet, “82% of the 900 executions performed in the U.S. were carried out by only ten states with Texas and Virginia accounting for more than half of those executions” (ACLU, n.d.) that’s not
Deborah Hastings of The Associated Press wrote “Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to series of recent surveys.” (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm). In an article Richard C. Dieter, Esq. Executive Director said “The high price of the death penalty is often most keenly felt in those counties responsible for both the prosecution and defense of capital defendants. A single trial can mean near bankruptcy, tax increases, and the laying off of vital personnel. Trials costing a small county $100,000 from unbudgeted funds are common and some officials have even gone to jail in resisting payment.”(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/millions-misspent 19940). Capital punishment doesn’t fix any problems, all it does is cost the government more money. If the death penalty was abolished completely our government would save more money just by sentencing life in prison without
Should the Death penalty be banned in the states? I say no because I’m all for it, the death penalty is here to put the evil in man to rest. Without the death penalty all the convicts that murder would have no punishment and basically be locked up in prison for life. I bet some convicts would pick life in prison over the death penalty because it is like for them living in a hotel. I’m all for the death penalty because it will provide closure for victims, It is not always cruel, and it Prevents crime.
The death penalty is racist, it punishes the poor, it causes the innocent to die, it is not a deterrent against violent crime, and it is cruel and unusual punishment. More than half of the countries in the world have already abolished the death penalty and the U.S should abolish it too. It is wrong and cruel. Some states in the U.S still hold the death penalty because they think it will keep U.S citizens safe, but we can just keep the murders in a separate patrolled jail. Abolish it and we may save the lives of the people that may have been executed innocent.
United States of America is the only country is the only country in the world were
Almost all nations in the world either have the death sentence or have had it at one time. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Since the death penalty wastes tax money, is inhumane, and is largely unnecessary it should be abolished in every state across the United States. The use of the death penalty puts the United States in the same category as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia which are two of the world’s worst human rights violators (Friedman 34). Lauri Friedman quotes, “Executions simply inject more violence into an already hostile American society.”
The death penalty is mainly known by capital punishment. It is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial degree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence. The actual process of killing someone is an execution. Capital punishment has in the past been practiced by most societies. Currently fifty eight nations actively practice it and ninety seven countries have abolished it. Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states. Positions can vary within single political ideology or cultural region. I am for the death penalty. With the death penalty it allows there to be equal punishment among criminals, and it brings about peace of mind to everyone.
Saleh-Hanna, a contributer to the book 'The Case for Penal Abolition' has recently done some research and found that, ?research and evidence has shown that most prisoners are poor, they come from minority populations and have faced great discrimination and racism in the community both before they committed their crimes and during the criminal justice process.? The death penalty is racist because there are higher percentages among those of ethical background. Quoted from the book, Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment, Death-penalty opponents respond that the race card plays a role in other ways. When a defendant has been convicted of killing a white person the odds that the defendant will be executed by the state are much higher. Eighty-five percent of those who have been executed since 1976 were convicted for killing a white person, while only 13% were executed for killing a black person. When will people realized that just because a person is of another race that they are more dangerous than another race.
The death penalty has been an issue of debate for several years. Whether or not we should murder murderer’s and basically commit the same crime that they are being killed for committing. People against the death penalty say that we should not use it because of that very reason. They also make claims that innocent people who were wrongly convicted could be killed. Other claims include it not working as a deterrent, it being morally wrong, and that it discriminates. Some even claim that it is cruel and unusual punishment. I would like to shed light on the issue and inform everyone as to why we should keep the death penalty and possibly even use it more than we do now.