Dwindling Justifications

Keeping a prisoner in jail for life will be very expensive considering that it costs $80,000 a year; and the bad news is that the money comes from the taxpayer's pocket. Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man who might be executed. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year. This may sound awkward, but the death penalty saves lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering again (Bryant). These opinions represent some of the strongest and most influential views that proponents hold. However, if our prison system could rehabilitate more effectively, perhaps those who murdered once, could change.

The Death Penalty, or capital punishment is nothing new in the world. SInce the dawn of civilization people were sentenced to death for sometimes even the most minor of crimes, such a theft. As the world has changed in the last few thousand years, so have attitudes toward the Death Penalty,yet it is still a punishment that is carried out throughout the world today. In the United States, as of July of 2015, 31 states in the Union actively carry out the death penalty. Only 19 states have abolished the death penalty and replaced it with life in prison without the possibility of parole as the maximum sentence. However, with the declining popularity of the death penalty in the United States and throughout the world, the question that needs to be

Imagine you 're watching the local news, and suddenly you hear a case about a man put on death row because of the murder of a homeless man. Most people wouldn 't think twice about this type of case and think to themselves "that 's what he deserves" or "these types of things happen all the time". A report by the Death Penalty Information Center and titled "The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to Us All (Dieter 2013)" talks about a concerning geographic actuality about death row. The majority of the public may think that capital punishment is a widely used form of punishment today but, the reality of the situation is actually, very displeasing. In states that allow this type of punishment, only two percent of counties have been guilty of the bulk of cases (Dieter 2013). Even worse, counties that have the death penalty in effect are responsible for some of the highest reversal rates and errors of injustice (2013). One example of this issue is the state of Alabama. Alabama sentences more people to death than any other state in the United States. According to ACME International, this is because "50% of the people on death row were granted legal representation by public defenders whose compensation for trial preparation is capped at a maximum of $1000 per case." The reality is that a $1000 cap cannot pay for lawyers, witnesses, and specific

The death penalty has been battered backwards and forwards by the questions of abolishment and replacement, with mixed results. There seems to a jagged line in the sand on where people stand, and due to the continuous use today (albeit at a slower clip than in the past), it is still very much a prevalent topic of punishment. Those who argue for it believe that taking it away will take away a great deterrent, that families find peace, and that those who commit egregious crimes deserve only death. Anything less “would fail to do justice because the penalty – presumably a long period in prison – would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime” (“Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments,” 2016). Those who don’t believe in this punishment as a modern-day, useful tool of deterrence and punishment for crime, continuously counter these arguments, as well as any others, daily at every turn. Though many states have made it illegal, others placing moratoriums or refusals to use it, the death penalty can still be found active today. But why can’t it be replaced with life without parole, and it if can why should it?

As Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, said 95 percent of the 3,350 people on death row were poor in 2007. People who cannot afford to pay high lawyer fee have a higher chance to receive the capital punishment. Horace Dunkins, Gary Drinkard and John Eldon Smith are the examples that were sentenced to death because their lawyers failed their responsibilities. Dunkins’ lawyers failed to show his mentally retarded to prove his non-intention; Drinkard’s lawyer failed to prove that he was unable to murder due to his back injury; Smith’s lawyer lacked of awareness of changing rules. However, in the case of Ethan Couch, he killed four people and got 10 years’ probation with a recommendation for treatment of his “affluenza” only. Punishment failed to accomplish its purpose. It punished the innocent but leave the criminal away. This really hesitated me to support death

Capital Punishment would prevent convicted capital offenders from rejoining society. The possibility of a once convicted murderer being allowed to rejoin society can strike fear in the hearts of many especially the victim’s family. The punishment that was intended to be life in prison can often be reduced in many cases. In the United States the prisons are so overcrowded that lawmakers are releasing convicted criminals to make room for more criminals. Booming incarceration rates paired with reductions in prison spending force proceedings targeted at reducing crowding (Guetzkow & Schoon, 2015). A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder could be released by the way of good behavior or time served in order to free up space within the prison for more criminals. Many could argue over the possibility of prisoners

Capital punishment is not a fair or equal penalty, depending on who you are or where you live will dramatically affect the outcome of a sentence. First, race is a huge factor and capital punishment is fraught with racism. A 1998 study found that African Americans were 38% more likely to receive the death penalty in Philadelphia than other races. (Rust-Tierney) Not only are African Americans more likely to receive the death penalty but 83% of cases that do receive it involve white victims. This is true despite the fact that only 50% of murder victims are white. (Rust-Tierney) These statistics do not indicate a fair and unbiased system, people are equipped with their own prejudices and consciously or not these leanings have created a disparity in the justice structure. The system is also biased against the poor. Individuals with little to no wealth can not access the high cost, well-equipped representation the rich can. Over 99% of people sentenced to capital punishment are indigent and are often poorly represented. There is a plethora of other issues that arise with the death penalty, the sentencing is inconsistent, dependent on the prosecutors and judges in the specific case, and the mentally ill are condemned despite laws implemented to prevent this. This leads to the next point, errors. The most dismaying aspect of the death penalty

It is important to understand that the death penalty predates the Roman and Egyptian empires. It can be traced as far back as ancient Babylon under the reign of King Hammurabi during the 18th century BCE. There has been many definitions and translations of the rules for the death penalty over the centuries. Throughout that time the death penalty has been around as a tool to eliminate monstrous criminals from society. The death penalty has proved throughout history that it is a tool that the government and people need to extinguish the bad from wreaking havoc on society.

Capital punishment was first established during the eighteenth century B.C. In the beginning however, the death penalty was the only punishment given to criminals. Ways to kill the “criminals” were crucifixion, burning, stoning, or drowning. Fast-forward to nineteenth century A.D. during the early parts, many states stopped executing for all capital crimes and instead built penitentiaries to put away the convicted felons. Although some states were getting rid of the death penalty, other states held on to it so that it could be a way for the public to get scared at the idea that the death penalty was alive and well. According to the Death Penalty

During this period of time the United States was leaning towards an abolition mind set of running the country. Giving the abolitionist premature hope by releasing death row inmates throughout the country, really caused a stir in the hearts of the retentionist. A well plotted society where the death penalty will no longer be a punishment in (capital) punishment was almost put into action, until the judiciary began to step back from the viewpoints of the abolitionist. The Courts of the United States began restoring the death penalty into their acts as a way of punishment due the fear of no proportional punishment being established. The states that abolished the death penalty began restoring it such as: Oregon, New Mexico, Massachusetts and Ohio; with these states

Capital punishment has been a debated issue for many years and is commonly thought to be only sought out upon by extremists. Henceforth, the death penalty has been extremely problematic and widely disputed issue for centuries. Since the start of civilization, individuals who commit a criminal act have been subjected to capital punishment. The punishment itself is carried out in the most humane way possible; thusly, the issue is whether the citizens accept it as a sensible punishment. In contrast, the citizens criticize the governmental bodies that partake in the non-moral act. Even though capital punishment has become, to a greater extent, less gruesome. This form of punishment has evolved from beheadings to the electric chair, and now lethal injection. A couple of common supporting arguments that death penalty commentators often voice is that it saves money, lives, and is a just cause from a moral standpoint. Subsequently, this leads to the benefits of the death penalty outweighing the negative counterparts.

Since the mid 1900’s, capital punishment has brought many individuals into many diverse view points throughout the years. Capital punishment is a way of punishing a convict by killing him or her because of the crime he or she committed. Capital punishment will always have its pros and cons. There are opponents who absolutely disagree with capital punishment. And then there are advocates who support the idea. In the advocates view point, capital punishment is a way to minimize the threat in the world today. In the opponent’s point of view, opponents disagree with capital punishment, because of the high expenses it brings to the states. Also, opponents argue that capital punishment

Since 1976 more than 7,800 people have been sentenced to death in the United States justice system. Of those people, more 1,400 have been executed, 159 were exonerated and more than 2,900 are still on death row (Capital Punishment in the United States). The incarceration system is costing taxpayers a tremendous amount of money, in fact about in costs about $70,000 billion each year. In 2016 there were over 2.2 million people in the United States prisons. The United States prison population has more than quadrupled since the early 1980’s. There are over 5,000 jails and prisons in the U.S. (18 Facts

The death penalty is being used for some reasons and has been authorized from numerous points of view consistently. The censured detainee waiting for capital punishment may have infringed upon the law, yet does that give us the privilege to end the life of another individual? Why have we utilized capital punishment? The death sentence permanently removes law-breakers from our society and prevents the ex-criminal from continuing his criminal career. We slaughter in frantic expectations that these executioners and attackers will not have the capacity to strike once more, killing or assaulting more innocent victims’ .In many cases, the criminal has infringed upon the law, but if he is let off easily and slips through the system, he may go out and commit the crime repeatedly. The death penalty is the ultimate punishment; it gets the point through and educates so society knows the justice system will not

The death penalty was one of the more cruel punishments created in order to punish the convicted and to deter crime from reoccurring. Dating back to the early 1800’s, capital punishment has stuck around for hundreds of years but there hasn’t been a change in the number of crimes committed. Crimes that are punishable by death are espionage, various forms of murder, hijacking an aircraft, kidnapping, genocide, etc. One of the sole purposes why the death penalty was created was to discourage others from committing a crime and show what may happen to them if they break the law. In recent years, there have been studies done in an attempt to find a correlation between capital punishment and the rate that crimes occur. There have been numerous amounts of studies that have compared the amount of violence in U.S.’ states with and without the death penalty and also have failed to find a deterrent effect (Ehrenfreund 1). States like Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina that