There are rules and laws that every person must abide by in order to protect the people, regulate society, provide rights for the people, and to solve problems and conflict. When these laws are broken, there must be a consequence in order to deter people from negatively impacting the quality of life in society. There are some truly evil people in the world who have no intention of correcting their behavior. They become infatuated with evilness and killing, and seek to hurt others whenever given the chance. The death penalty may seem like the proper consequence for people who are this malevolent, but it is not up to mankind to determine if someone deserves to die or live. It is a necessity that the death penalty be abolished because it is an unethical, unfair and immoral punishment, hypocritical to what the justice system believes in, and is a punishment too severe to be so fallible.

Some people believe that the death penalty is helpful or that it serves justice to all those who do wrong. The penalty is viewed by many who support it as the proper tool of revenge to provoke criminals from believing they can get away with anything. They believe that criminals will correct their behavior because they are scared to receive a punishment that would end their life. The strongest opinion from those who support it, is that the evil people who commit these terrible acts simply deserve death for their malicious intentions. While some claims made by death penalty supporters are very valid, often times they are not completely true. For instance, Bruce Fein believes that "The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill" (Fein 1). It is certainly valid to believe that death penalty treats the defendant as a free moral actor, but to say it honors human dignity is inaccurate. If dignity is defined as being worthy of honor or respect, then one should question if executing someone is truly preserves human dignity by being worthy of respect. While there are claims made by death penalty supporters that are somewhat valid, those claims made by the supporters have a lack of inclusive fairness, which leads to the supporters being wrong on their stance.

The death penalty is erroneous because the process of justifying execution is highly subject to mistakes made by humans. It is no secret that humans make mistakes and have the tendency to misjudge certain things. People can easily mistake what actions are deemed as moral and immoral. Therefore, it would be too large of a risk to put someone's life in the hands of a judicial system filled with many erroneous people. Bryan Stevenson states that one out of every nine criminals placed on death row is exonerated ("We need to talk about an injustice" TED). This shows that humans do make mistakes and that not everyone placed on death row is actually guilty of all their charges. More evidence of the penalty's fallibility is shown in "EXONERATION AND WRONGFUL CONDEMNATIONS: EXPANDING THE ZONE OF PERCEIVED INJUSTICE IN DEATH PENALTY CASES" by Craig Haney when he shares that " ... Illinois removed more wrongfully convicted people from its death row than were added as a result of new death sentences" (132; vol.37). If this penalty is so severe yet so subject to mistakes, why is it still present? The fact of the matter is that defendants are not just being wrongfully convicted, but their lives come to an undeserving end. One thing that should be taken very seriously in the world is how all life is precious. As stated by Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier in "Dead Innocent: The Death Penalty Abolitionist Search for a Wrongful Execution", Hugo Bedau and Michael Radelet identified twenty-three cases where a defendant was wrongly convicted. One wrong execution is one too many (410; vol.42). Since the death penalty is subject to many errors and wrong accusations, it is a threat to the preciousness of life that must be removed from America.

With so many death row inmates becoming exonerated, it is assumed that there are most likely others who have been incorrectly convicted and executed. With these assumptions comes the questioning of racial discrimination. Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz discuss how the fact that death rows seem to vastly more populated with African Americans than the common population is not enough to prove the system to be racially discriminatory, but is enough to create the perception that it is (997; vol.51). While there may be statistics or research that go against this perception, the fact that there is a perception is enough to cause conflict. Blacks may feel that they are mistreated as a whole when it comes to the criminal justice system, but this feeling is strongly present when it comes to the death penalty. Abolishing the penalty as a whole would be a step in the right direction towards removing the perception of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Would blacks still have instances where they feel mistreated if the penalty were to be abolished? Probably so, but at least they wouldn't have to experience this feeling of mistreatment grieving over a black person's death. David Jacobs and Jason T. Carmichael state that "racial or ethnic threat theories suggest that enhanced minority presence leads to repression" (111, vol. 67). They state how there is the idea that "dominant racial groups are intimidated by large minority populations. Greater minority presence threatens middle- and working-class whites, who respond with efforts to maintain their superior position" (112, vol. 67). Since in America's case the dominant racial group is whites, many blacks feel as if they are being misjudged because white people are intimidated by them. This leads to whites supporting for capital punishment due to their prejudice against blacks. Capital punishment is used as tool of discrimination against areas heavily populated with blacks. The study done by Jacobs and Carmichael shows that the death penalty is more likely to be present in states where economic inequity is most pronounced. Anthony Bishop makes the claim that "The United States Supreme Court has also ignored the growing evidence of racial disparity in the application of the death penalty" (1128, vol. 43). This shows that not only is there racial disparity in the criminal justice system, but that the court is not even willing to accept this. Ignoring problems is certainly no way to get rid of them. The death penalty must be abolished so that minorities are not overpowered and unfairly treated in the criminal justice system due to prominent racial discrimination.

The death penalty also becomes fallible because of the people who make up the jury. A study done by Claudia L. Cowan, William C. Thompson, and Phoebe C. Ellsworth shows that there is a level of bias towards the conviction of capital punishment in cases. They define a jury as "a group of ordinary citizens of different backgrounds and viewpoints deliberate together to reach a decision that represents the common sense of the community" (74, vol 8). However the study done showed that those who favor the death penalty are much more likely to reach a verdict of guilty in capital cases than those who oppose the death penalty. This means that the defendant's life is basically dependent on his or her luck of the draw when it comes to creating a jury. If the jury is composed of primarily of death penalty supporters, then the defendant is already at a disadvantage regardless if they are guilty or not. Due to the fact that there is such an arbitrary method of composing the jury in death penalty cases, the fairness of every trial is suspect, putting the lives of every defendant in an uncomfortable amount of danger.

Those who commit crimes deserve a punishment that matches the severity of their crime. If there was a person who committed manslaughter, or murdered several people, one might assume that the proper punishment would be to kill that murderer. However, this reasoning is a dangerous way of thinking. This way of thinking is dangerous because it could create a world where the line between moral and immoral is blurred. There is no way to validate ending someone's life because humans are not the ones who began their life on Earth. Bryan Stevenson makes the claim that "Ultimately, the moral question surrounding capital punishment in America has less to do with whether those convicted of violent crime deserve to die than with whether state and federal governments deserve to kill those whom it has imprisoned" (Stevenson, TED). Is there a way to morally kill someone? Can ending a person's life be justified based on that person's crimes and behavioral history? These are the type of questions the jury and other members of the judicial system must ask themselves. No one is saying these killers should be shown mercy to the point where they are sent home unpunished. David Dow says that "We should punish people who do bad things" (1). Of course everyone deserves to be punished for their actions, but their death should not be a result of them killing someone else. The punishment itself doesn't seem solve much as Sacirbey says, "If the death penalty serves no real purpose beyond retribution, can it be logically as well as morally seen as anything other than torture?" (1).Yes most of the criminals who are sentenced with the death penalty are low life scums, heartless killers, and malicious trouble makers, but it is not up to a jury to determine if they should live or be executed.

Stevenson not only explains how the death penalty is immoral, but how it serves as an injustice. The punishment cannot exist because the criminal justice system itself is unjust. Stevenson makes the claim that someone can't be labeled just because of their actions. He believes that everyone is defined as more than the worst thing they've ever done in their life. If a person steals something, they are more than just a thief. If someone lies or kills someone, they are more than just a liar, or a murderer. Because of this idea, there is human dignity that must be respected by the law. It is not unfair to punish a person, but the death penalty is an unfair punishment because an individual is executed based on the worst thing they have done in their life. He goes on to say how "Death sentences are imposed in a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent" (Stevenson, TED). The sad truth is that a wealthy and guilty man is more likely to end up with a lesser punishment than someone who is poor and not guilty. There is certainly a presence of racial bias and ethnic discrimination in the system. This deficiency is the system is highlighted particularly in cases regarding the death penalty. Stevenson shares his own experience as a lawyer when he had a client in a case where a fourteen year old poor black boy was charged as an adult. Looking at the boy, Stevenson could tell that he was a kid and not an adult. This shows that the judge has the ability to turn people into something that they are not. Sentences boil down to how the convicted criminal is perceived or judged by the court. Since the judge is able to turn a person into something they are not, the criminal justice system can be seen as flawed and unjust. The death penalty cannot exist in a system as flawed, biased, and unfair as the current criminal justice system.

Capital punishment should not be supported because it is a punishment that is hypocritical on many levels. Bill Ryan, a representative of the state of Illinois who is an advocator of abolishing the death penalty, gives several examples of why this is true. He explains how advocates for the death penalty believe that the execution of murderers provide some sense of closure to the family of the victims. However, if closure is a key benefit of the death penalty, then why isn't every murderer given the death penalty? (1). It is hypocritical to claim that the family of killed victims deserve closure, then pick and choose which murderers get capital punishment. Does this mean some lives are valued over others? Ryan believes that "The death penalty is imposed so randomly and arbitrarily that the crimes and criminal backgrounds of hundreds of convicted murderers in the general prison population serving life without possibility of parole or long sentences are no different than the people on Death Row" (1). This hypocritical nature of the death penalty leaves a level of inequity across the families of murdered individuals. 

The death penalty's intent to provide closure is also hypocritical because sometimes the family of the victim is treated unfairly and not given a real closure. Vik Kanwar explains how the defendant placed on death row serves several years in prison with the possibility of being released or executed in the distant future. Kanwar goes on to say that this places a level of frustration and anxiety on the family. Why develop a punishment intended to give closure when the actual execution doesn't take place until years later? This is hypocritical because instead of getting their grief over with, the family of the victim is forced to stress and live with constant trauma due to the indeterminacy of the process. Sometimes a family may even decide that they forgive the murderer. In these cases, they may want to show mercy on the defendant's life. However, mercy pleas have been denied which doesn't make any sense if the whole point of closure is to make the family of the victim do what makes them feel better. Kanwar states that, "The rhetoric of individualization that caters to victims' desires for closure is dangerous, but it is such inconsistency that is most detrimental to the administration of justice" (Kanwar 216, vol.27). Once again the death penalty is seen as fatally flawed with many deficiencies because the rules within the penalty are highly inconsistent. By giving murderers the death penalty, the criminal justice system is claiming that such a heinous crime such as murder warrants a penalty of execution. However, since the selection of the death penalty is so random and arbitrary, the criminal justice system allows some (and most) murderers to live which goes against the central claim that they deserve to die. If the death penalty is created to show that murder is an unacceptable form of behavior, then the entire idea of the death penalty is hypocritical since the penalty involves executing someone. Since a majority of the convicted murderers are given life in prison without the chance of parole or very extensive sentences, it would be best to abolish the death penalty as a whole instead of letting this hypocrisy be maintained. 

Lastly, the death penalty puts a financial burden on the economy. Although the price for death row varies across the states, it is for certain that it does not save money. Lochhead states that the average death penalty case costs around 1.3 million, while cases without capital punishment average around $775,000 (Lochhead 1). This means that if the death penalty were abolished completely, the economy could save millions of dollars and perhaps spend that money on programs that would actually deter crime. There are ways the government can spend their money effectively to improve the quality of life and the economy, and there are ways they can engage in hurtful spending. Spending extra money on a punishment with so many flaws is unwise and could lead to producing an inadequate nation.

The death penalty is too severe of a punishment to be riddled with so many problems. Its erroneous nature alone is a good enough reason to abolish it. Convicted criminals are better off serving lengthy sentences rather than being executed. The death penalty causes more problems than it solves in America, and the results that come from it are the opposite of its intended purpose. If the nation wants to work towards creating a criminal justice system that truly seeks justice, the death penalty should be abolished because it is highly fallible, unfair, and hypocritical.

