The Death Penalty Is The Ineffective And Expensive Process Between Sentencing And Executing Essay

Since Proposition 34, the proposed measures of “pro-death” and “anti-death penalty” have created controversies. In California the death penalty is allowed, but this state has the most inmates on death row. The last time someone was put to death was over 8 years. The death penalty is carried out with lethal injection on inmates with certain crimes punishable for death. Voters with this proposition get the right to choose if prisoners are sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole. Both options make the inmate work to pay fines to the victims’ families. Although some may argue, California should abolish the death penalty since the system is dysfunctional and a waste of money.

California has approximately the same population of Canada, and it uses the death penalty (37 million and 35 million people respectively) California will be used as a comparison for costs. Per death row inmate, ninety thousand dollars more is spent, between the extra trial costs, housing, and extra guards, death row costs an exorbitantly large amount more than a regular life imprisoned inmate. Inmates can spend up to twenty years on death row, waiting for their respective trials to be completed, to find out if they have been exonerated or not. This is part of the reason this process is so expensive. (Baskey-East, S. (2014, January). Currently many death row inmates are on suicide watch or solitary confinement from other inmates for their own safety – fellow inmates have been known to enact “prison justice” for crimes such as child molestation, and the suicide watch is for obvious reasons. But the price they pay for

sentence at a fraction of the cost. What else do we get? Perhaps we satisfy a

The state of California has carried out 13 executions since the enactment of capital punishment in 1992 (NAACP, 2016, 10). According to the NAACP winter quarterly report, there are currently 743 prisoners on death row (NAACP, 2016, 39). Since the enactment, there has been a wide range of political debate. The largest concern is in regards to the number of wrongful convictions and its philosophical underpinnings. The citizens in California are as diverse as their opinions regarding capital punishment. As a society continues to grow, and time passes philosophical, themes change as well. As with any type of change, legislation eventually follows.

Prior to taking this class, I would say that I knew how I felt about the death penalty. Growing up in the 70 's and 80 's, it was always an "eye for an eye", if someone killed another and was proven guilty then he or she would get the death penalty. In high school, I learned that if a person was convicted of the death penalty then they were allowed 13 appeals. Not sure where the 13 appeals came from because I cannot prove that today. The research I have found, is that there is no limit of appeals for the death penalty due to finality of the punishment.

"An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind” (Dear). Gandhi’s moving words still resonates soundly and influences people’s acts today. He conveyed that violence only breeds more violence and people should not allow hate and bitterness consume them to the point where they cannot forgive but to take vengeance upon another as the ultimate solution. Throughout history, various forms of executions such as lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad and hanging have taken place as a punishment for violent crimes in the United States. The death penalty is an ineffective and inefficient form of punishment and it should be eliminated because it is fundamentally immoral and disrespect for human life, does not deter crime, prolongs the anguish of the victims’ families, costs lots of taxpayers’ money, and worst of all, risks executions of innocent people.

Capital punishment which furthermore identifies as the death penalty, execution has been a hot topic in the public eye for a while. The question on lots of minds is whether it is acceptable for the state to terminate one’s life for the crime they have committed. A significant issue that we will address is that the justice system over time formulates mistakes. Whether it’s processing the evidence improperly or missing an enormous piece of the puzzle, making mistakes can happen. If the justice system executed an innocent there is no way for it to redeem itself. There is no way for a person to be brought back to life. As I began to research further into this issue, I became aware that plenty of people agree with the idea of capital punishment being endorsed; however, I believe asking this question will be the key to finally finding closure to this issue.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has laws that date back to the Code of Hammurabi in Babylon. The first recorded death penalty case took place in the 16th century BC where a man was sentenced to death for his alleged use of magic. The death penalty in the United States was influenced by Britain power over the original thirteen colonies. In the 1700’s, Britain had two hundred and twenty-two crimes that could be punished by death. The first legal execution in the United States took place in Virginia in 1622 where the defendant was put to death for theft (PBS). The first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason was Michigan in 1846. Capital punishment is legal in the federal government and

“ An eye for an eye leaves us all blind doesn’t it “. Capital punishment cost the United states a lot of money. The death penalty can be unfair and can cause innocent lives to be took. The death penalty should be abolished because it is an ineffective way of punishment. There are trials that are unjust and many innocent people that have been killed. Putting people to death cost more than sending people to jail for the rest of their lives. Capital punishment doesn’t affect change.

The death penalty is “the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.” Currently, thirty-six countries practice this punishment, 103 countries have abolished it for all crimes, and six countries have abolished it except for special circumstances. The death penalty has been around for a very long time in the United States, with the first recorded execution being that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Fortunately, the executions are not as painful and torturous, nor are they still performed to be viewed by the public, like they had been many years ago. There have been some attempts to reform the capital punishment throughout history in America. One instance of a successful attempt at reform was in the landmark case, Furman v. Georgia, in 1972, where the Supreme Court ruled that punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it was too severe for the crime, if it was arbitrary, if it offended society 's sense of justice, or it if was not more effective than a less severe penalty, setting a new standard for the death penalty and decreasing the amount of people being put to death. However, the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 when states began to rewrite their death penalty statutes to get around the issues addressed in the Furman case and has been practiced since.

2D 7A:Capital punishment is the practice of executing people as punishment for a specific crime. Throughout history, people have been put to death for serious criminals. Methods of execution have included such practices as injection, shooting and other forms. 2C According to Amnesty International (2007), ninety eight countries have abolished capital punishment. This proportion accounts for most of countires in the world.

In Ancient Greece, about 621 BC, the first Athenian legal system was first written down (Robert). The death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offenses. Historically, the death sentence was often handled with torture, and executions, except that it was done in public. In this century, the death penalty, execution or capital punishment, whatever you’d like to refer it as, is the result for committing capital crimes or capital offences and it is not in public. The death penalty has been practiced by most societies in the past, as a punishment for criminals, and political or religious dissidents. Despite the fact that many countries have negated the death penalty, over 60% of the world 's population live in nations where executions still take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia. Since 2009, mostly every country has banned the placement of the death penalty for a person under the age of 18. Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. The only countries who still perform these executions are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan.

John Grisham, an American politician, lawyer, and author once stated, “Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it 's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.” The death penalty, or capital punishment, refers to the punishment of a criminal convicted of a capital offense through execution (“Definition of Death Penalty”). With many criminals convicted of a capital offenses awaiting execution on death row, the death penalty has been a seriously debated topic since its reinstitution in the mid 1970s (“Reinstating”). Many in law enforcement have the view that there are positives to the death penalty, as execution serves as a form of retribution and is a direct deterrent to heinous crime. To many police officers capital punishment is a tool that assists and informs criminal justice and more specifically, law enforcement. Others believe that sentencing someone to death is not only inhumane, but is costly and there is always a chance that a person may be innocent and put to death (Drummond). In order to preserve human rights, save money, and save innocent lives, capital punishment should be abolished.

What is the death penalty? The death penalty is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime. In the reading selection “The DEATH PENALTY in AMERICA” Bedau says that “The history of the death penalty in America can be useful if roughly divided into six epochs of very uneven duration and importance (3)”.The author is saying that the history of the death penalty can be usefully if it is separate into different time period. The author says “first, from the colonial period up to the adoption of the constitution and the bill of right; second, the seven decades leading up to the civil war; then the five decades through the Progressive Era; third, from World War I through the post-World War II years; next the two decades from the 1950s to the 1970s; and finally from the 1970s to the present (3)”. The history of the death penalty in American start early 1700s to present day. British introduce Capital punishment to the colonial government in the seventeenth century (Bedau 3), the colonial government buys into the idea of capital punishment because colonial government had a lot in common with the British government. The author states that “although the capital laws of the thirteen colonies differed from each other in many interesting and important details concerning the death penalty (Bedau 3, 4)”. The original thirteen colonies had a different way of approaching the idea of the death penalty. During the century and a half of the colonial

Before an execution can occur, a series of protocol can drag the difficult process on for long periods of time and be harmful to the convicted. According to “The Case Against the Death Penalty”, the average inmate waits twelve years after the conclusion of the trail for the execution. This time can be mentally strenuous and result in physiological illness known as Death Row Syndrome. Knowing the place, time, and method of