The Death Penalty Should be abolished

The Death Penalty Should be abolished

Dees, Tim. “Should The United States Of America Abolish The Death Penalty?”. Forbes.Com, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/30/should-the-united-states-of-america-abolish-the-death-penalty/#21c4213a547c.

Capital punishment is the execution of an offender who has been found guilty and sentenced to death after a court conviction. The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment leading up to over 1,400 individuals executed so far. The proponents of capital punishment argue that it is an essential tool for the preservation of law and order, acts as a deterrence to crimes, and the cost-efficient as compared to life imprisonment. Moreover, retribution honors the victim, aids in consoling the victim’s families as well as ensuring the perpetrators’ heinous crimes do not pave the way for future tragedy.

However, opponents such as Tim Dees posits that the capital penalty does not act as a deterrence to crimes better than punishment. If so, states that practice death penalties should have lower crime rates in crimes such as murder than those that do not (Dees). However, this is not the case. Further, the capital penalty is expensive. Dee argues that keeping an adult inmate cost much less as compared to stages that undergo before execution. In an estimate, life imprisonment of an adult may cost a million dollars averagely while prosecution of a death penalty case from trial to exhaustion of the appeals costs roughly over four million dollars since the government pays for both sides of the case (Dees).

Sarat, Austin. “How To Convince Americans To Abolish The Death Penalty.” The New Republic, 2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/154035/convince-americans-abolish-death-penalty.

Some states in America have abolished capital punishment. New Hampshire is the latest state to abolish the death penalty did not come as a shock to American people since the proponents of the death penalty seem to decline over the last two decades. The move to abolish was presented by the legislature to the house and passed only turned down in the year 2000 by the democratic governor Jeanne Shaheen veto the bill (Sarat). She, however, explained her decision by indicating that some murders are more brutal that the death penalty is the answer.

Nonetheless, the appeal for retribution or an eye for an eye fueled the motion to support the death penalty. The proponents have long believed that if someone is bold enough to take another person’s life, there should be no exception regardless of age or gender. Similar arguments were made at the national level, even with the Supreme Court decision to legalize the death penalty was justified. It’s believed that capital punishment, with its requisite long legal process, prolongs pain and suffering to the offender and the victims’ traumatization of the loss they endured (Sarat).

Will, Gorge F. “Abolish The Death Penalty.” The Washington Post, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/abolish-the-death-penalty/2018/09/28/830ad282-c27a-11e8-97a5-ab1e46bb3bc7_story.html. Accessed 3 Dec 2019.

The columnist Gorge Will gives an account of Vernon Madison, who was convicted of allegedly murdering a police officer in 1985. For over 30 years, the state of Alabama has tried to execute him for his crimes. But the state convicted him twice unconstitutionally. In the first count, she excluded African American jury, and on the second count, they insinuated inadmissible evidence into the record. On the third trial, the Alabama judge who had a reputation of the sentencing offender into death penalties disregarded the jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment and proceeded with the death penalty (Will).

The period it took to prosecute the offender received a toll on him. In a statement by his lawyer, by the third trial, the offender had already had a mental illness, which was characterized by paranoia and delusions. This, therefore, can be considered as a cruel punishment that has been inflicted on the offender. The emotional agony that the death row inmates go through is inhuman; thus, it’s essential to abolish the death penalty.

Engle, Jeremy. “Should We Abolish The Death Penalty?”. Nytimes.Com, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/learning/should-we-abolish-the-death-penalty.html.

The United States has been known to in the forefront of exercising capital punishment. In the year 2018 alone, the nation executed 25 inmates, and over 2,600 offenders remain on death row (Engle). Some states, however, have moved away from the death penalty, citing that it’s cruel and inhuman. The notion of an eye for an eye is ancient, and more rehabilitative methods have been integrated. The question of whether the nation should stop using capital punishment has risen debate across the country. The justification of heinous crimes in the death penalty and other issues have been raised. California, for instance, wanted to suspend the death penalty. Supporters, however, noted that the suspension is against the will of the state residents.

The opponents of capital punishment have long argued that the practice is filled with racial disparities, and it’s not justified with the taxpayer’s money (Engle). The researcher has confirmed that the state pays over 180 million dollars to sustain capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978. The higher-profile cases witnessed in the country was a clear indication of racial disparities within the legal system. In a matter of Kevin Cooper, who was convicted of the first degree of murder in four counts, still maintained his innocence even after over 30 years in the trial. Supporters have garnered evidence that shows that he was framed by San Bernardino officers (Engle). They ordered a DNA taste, something that the state declined to do due to racial segregation present in the estate.

The possibility of the wrongful conviction of offenders proves that capital punishment is indeed insufficient. Statistically, over 150 inmates to whom previously were convicted of murder have been exonerated. This, therefore, has strengthened the opponents of the death penalty’s move towards eradication of capital punishment. In California, April 2019, a man who had been convicted for over 24 years for murdering a young farm girl named Vicente Figueroa Benavides was released following false testimony given at his trial (Engle).

Berlin, Erickson. “Why Amnesty Opposes The Death Penalty Without Exception.” Amnesty.Org, 2019, https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/.

People are executed and sentenced to death daily around the world by a variety of crimes ranging from drug-related offenses to terrorism-related acts and murder. Some nations globally execute individuals who were under 18 years when the crimes were committed. Others use capital punishments on mentally unstable people, while others apply it after unfair trials. According to Berlin, this is a clear violation of international laws and amendments. The individual in death row undergoes emotional torment, for they stay in line for a long time, not knowing whether they can be exonerated or they would see their families one last time. For whatever reason, capital punishment gives the government the power to take human life. Moreover, it perpetuates social injustices by targeting the minority who may not be able to afford reasonable attorneys to represent them.

Amnesty international, therefore, illuminates that the use of the death penalty on individuals who were juvenile while committing the crime is against international laws and should be prohibited. Sadly, some countries still execute young offenders. However, such executions are few as compared to the total annual record of the total number of executions. In the last five decades, 140 juvenile offenders have been recorded being executed around the world. Capital punishment is irreversible, and therefore, once the offender has been executed, there is no turning back even though the evidence may come up later that can prove the innocence of the offender (Berlin). Moreover, it’s often used within skewed justice systems. Most people executed in the majority of the countries are wrongly convicted.