Why We Should Not Abolish Capital Punishment

Many people are hesitant on deciding whether they support the death penalty and in turn use other factors, like expenses, to determine their answer. They prefer to crunch the numbers and see what works better economically for society. Economically, it is actually cheaper to house an offender in jail for the rest of their life compared to the pricing to execute them. The reason is due to the pre-trial costs; in general, capital cases are far more complicated than non-capital cases and therefore require more money for the overall process. Several experts are needed to evaluate the forensic evidence, mental health and the social history of the defendant. Another expense is the procedure of jury selection. With the death penalty in question, the jury selection in capital cases are much more time consuming and expensive. In

I would like about whether or not the United States should abolish the death penalty. The United States should not abolish this because those who commit a capital felony which is punishable by imprisonment or death, should serve a capital punishment which is the death penalty. Many believe that certain crimes such as rape and murder should punishable by the death penalty. Although many also see it as inhumane, many also view murder and rape as inhumane. One can view this as part of Hammburi’s Code law that states “An eye for an eye.” Capital punishment has ben around for thousands of years; beginning even before the ancient Greeks and Romans. At that time, there were many different ways to carry out capital punishment such as, beheading, stoning and electrocution (PBS).

The most important reason why the death penalty should not be abolished is because we need capital punishment for those cases in which a killer is beyond redemption. “Some claim lift without parole is an appropriate alternative to the death penalty” (23). Others say if you kill, you should be killed or if you commit a crime that is bad that you should be killed. “According to Gallup polls, 60 percent of Americans support the death penalty for a person convicted of murder” (23). Therefore more than half of Americans are for the death penalty/capital

The death penalty is a punishment given to people who commit heinous crimes. Since 1976, there have been over 1,390 executions. But does that make the death penalty, necessarily, a correct and justifiable form of punishment? “The death penalty is our harshest punishment,” states Ernest van den Haag, author of “The Ultimate Punishment: a Defense.” Van den Haag, in his article, argues how the death penalty is effective and should be used. However, Jack Greenberg, James P. Gray, and Jeffery Reiman, all concur that the death penalty should not be used as a punishment for criminals. Jack Greenberg, author of “Against the American System of Capital Punishment,” argues how the death penalty is an

The future of the death penalty lies unclear in the cross-country battle over whether or not it should be abolished. The death penalty should in fact be abolished because of the extreme costs and painful time involved to house and execute inmates, the indecision of which method of execution is the most humane, and the increasing number of innocent inmates being wrongfully executed.

inmate is very expensive to maintain as taxpayers are losing a lot of money, this loss of money

A paramount issue regarding prison populations in America, are the finances associated with running institutions of such magnitude. The cost of operations for any kind of incarceration facility is beyond exorbitant. The public overlooks the expenses of training employees, providing programs for inmates (vocational training, education, etc.), legal and medical assistance for inmates, maintenance and facility upgrades and etc. The funding for all this comes from tax payers at the local, state, and federal levels with assistance from federal programs and Congress. A better explanation is that local and state facilities are paid for by local and state taxes along with federal aid whenever it is attainable. Federal institutions are paid for through

Although some people believe capital punishment will help get rid of more criminals, Diamond and Donahoo emphasize how capital punishment is not justified in our judiciary system and should be outlawed.

America’s strategy of capital punishment believes that killing someone actually solves the problem of reducing crime rates, when in reality it is more of a method to avoid the real issue with the criminal justice system. We are killing all these prisoners and not really getting the answers we need. For instance, are we really stopping crime? Also, the death penalty puts innocent lives at risk because of how flawed it is. Since the introduction of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from Death Row, including some who came within minutes of execution with the death penalty. Therefore, I am against the death penalty and wish for it to be terminated due to the fact that it is morally wrong and has little to no impact when it comes to reducing crimes rates. This makes it practically useless and straight-up stupid; it also distracts us to a point of making us avoid the true ways to actually reduce crime in America.

The death penalty can lead to the death of innocent people. For example, “…According to a new study, serious errors occur in almost 70% of all trials leading to the death penalty…”(Leibman). This shows that if 100 people were put on death row, 70 would have serious mistakes in their

In the past two decades, over half of the death penalty trials have contained constitutional errors, and five percent of those people were exonerated during retrial proving the faults of the current system. As Leahy stated, “ We have cast iron scientific proof that a significant number of people sentenced to death in America in the late twentieth century have been absolutely, undeniably innocent.” This goes to show that one out of three cases that are successful is simply not good enough. Cases in which DNA testing has proven inmates innocence shows that the system is not perfect, and when it comes to a person’s life, there is no room for constitutional violations. There is another problem in death penalty trials, the lawyers. In too many cases defendants have been assigned lawyers who were later disbarred, suspended or are fresh out of law school with little to no experience. Finding quality lawyers who can handle a death penalty trial appropriately to do it pro bono, or for little pay is hard. This is why Leahy came up with the “Innocence Protection Act” to provide funding in order to give defendants accurate representation in death penalty trials

American prisons are overcrowding due to the luxurious lifestyles of prisoners which causes a large amount of incarcerations. States need to find a way to decrease incarcerations and save money at the same time. Prison is meant to be a punishment for individuals who have committed crime, therefore inmates do not deserve luxurious amenities such as free food and free health care since other programs in communities are suffering budget cuts.

This usually occurs when an innocent person believed to be convicted of a crime gets executed, due to the fact that the evidence provided in court usually contains some flaws to erroneously indicate that he/she is responsible for the crime. In the short story “Two Fishermen”, the narrator states ‘In the morning, young Thomas Delaney, who had grown in the town, was being hanged: he had killed Mathew Rhinehart whom he had caught molesting his wife when she had been berry picking in the hills behind the town. Thomas Delaney had taken a bad beating before he had killed Rhinehart.’ This demonstrates that Thomas was innocent because he tried to save his wife from Rhinehart’s approach. But when Rhinehart starts beating Thomas very badly, Thomas had to react quickly and was forced to kill him in order to defend himself from the bad beating. Hence penalties on innocent can be avoided, only if the right to defence is protected and capital punishment is banned from the

Capital punishment dates back to 18th century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. Under this code twenty five crimes, excluding murder, were punishable by death. In historical data, the first death penalty was imposed to offender who was blamed for magic in 16th century BC Egypt (Regio, 1997). Unfortunately, death penalty is still practiced in some countries. For example, in Egypt recently on 24 March 2014, Minya Criminal Court imposed death penalty to 529 followers of Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsi for their participation in violence (Amnesty International, 2014). Nowadays, United States also practices capital punishment. According to the fact sheet of DPIC (2014) 20 criminals from different states were executed this year

Death penalty should be scrapped because it can lead to the execution of innocent people. The justice system is bound to make mistakes and so, the accused people should be given a chance to appeal, and prove their innocence other than being murdered because of mistakes made by judges. There are many cases whereby individuals are imprisoned and