Currently, the death penalty is implemented in thirty-one states in the United States. In modern day America the goal of the criminal justice system is to is to control the way we act, punish those who don't act according the to the law, and to hopefully prevent as much unlawful behavior as possible. Recently the death penalty has been a very controversial topic. This form of punishment is always changing and is inconsistent. The question on whether or not this form of capital punishment should still be enforced must be seriously considered. Some states and countries have chosen to go their own way on this debate. For example, the state of Texas has chosen keep the death penalty while Illinois no longer implements it. The country of South Africa decided to abolish the death penalty completely in 1995 (Anckar 2). While executing people for their crimes is a punishment that began centuries ago, and capital punishment has always been a way of the law, it does not necessarily mean it's the right way. The Changing Nature of the Death Penalty Debates claims that public opinion of the death penalty today has changed compared to twenty-five years ago and that as a nation we are heading towards abolition of the death penalty (Radelet 1). American law surrounding the death penalty should be abolish because its an inhumane and ineffective form of punishment that is costly and losing public support. 

In colonial America prisons didn't exist (Acker 2). Because of this, executions were carried out in much harsher ways for much smaller crimes. This includes crimes such as burglary, counterfeiting, and theft (Acker 2). Imagine if the death penalty was implemented for those crimes today. In Acker's article The Death Penalty: An American History he gives the early example of a man named George Kendall, who was sentenced to death by a firing squad in 1608 in Virginia for the crime of spying. A firing squad is a method in which a hail of bullets is fired at the convicted person. Back then, firing squads were far more common. Currently Utah is the only state to authorize their use, and has in fact implemented this method as recently as 2010 (Balko). Acker states in the second paragraph of his article that other techniques used during colonial times were public hanging or putting people in posts. These often entailed wild public gatherings and "raucous behavior" by those who came to watch. One of our rights stated by the Eighth Amendment in United States Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". Arguably, all methods of the death penalty can be seen as cruel and unusual, because most states abandoned hanging in favor of the electric chair and gas chambers by the mid-20th century though (Anckar 12). These methods are very questionable though as well, as botched executions have been reported for decades (Six Reasons Why Support for Capital Punishment is Evaporating). Electric chairs are supposed to send a quilt jolt of electricity directly to the inmate's heart for a speedy death, but one of many horror stories provided by The Innocence Project shows the cruel reality of what America is doing to people. In 1983 a man named John Evans faced the electric chair. The article reports that after the first jolt of electricity, the observing physicians witnessed sparks and flames shoot out from the electrode straps on Evans's legs and smoke come out from under the hood, which was to keep the inmate in place. Evans maintained a heartbeat, so the physicians readjusted the chair and applied another jolt of electricity. More smoking and burning flesh occurred. They continued to find a heartbeat, and even with Evans's lawyer pleading for them stop, they administered a third jolt. The execution took a total of fourteen minutes and left his body charred and smoking. When our founding fathers wrote our rights in the Constitution, I'm positive that punishment methods like this, and the ones aforementioned by Acker and Balko, are what they meant by "cruel and unusual". Botched executions like these are why the most preferred method today is lethal injection (Balko), but lethal injections can be problematic as well. 

Lethal injections are one method used to execute death row inmates. Most states began to legalize this method in 1977 because it was seen as the most humane and least painful (Salk), and since then it's become the most preferred method (Balko). It has now been uncovered that lethal injections aren't as consistent with performing as promised. One example Salk gives from her text "Lethal Injection in Uncharted Territory" is in performance a death row inmate named Dennis McGuire, who faced his death sentence at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. In his case, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and and Correction experienced a drug shortage and could no longer proceed with their typical lethal injection protocol. Rather than extending McGuire's time on death row to wait for the proper drugs, they wanted to go on with his execution using an untested drug medley. Although it was argued by McGuire's attorney that he could severely suffer and it was unknown how long it would take for him to die, it was approved by the federal court. Observers on the medical team report seeing his stomach swelling, fists clenching, and hearing him coughing and gasping for air while time was dragging on. Salk reports in her article that lethal injections are supposed to fully paralyze the victim so they do not feel a thing, which is important to keep in mind. McGuire was not pronounced dead until twenty-six minutes after his injection, which is noted as "the longest time ever recorded for a lethal injection death in Ohio history" (Salk). For one of the most accepted methods of executions, its strikingly inhumane for us to let someone suffer this much. "It's rare that someone lives to tell about it  --  how an execution felt" (qtd. in Barry). This is just one of many cases of botched executions. In the notes of her article "Lethal Injections in Uncharted Territory", Salk gives a quote by Tierny Sneed where he reports that, "[t]here have been issues with lethal injection since it first came into use". Clearly, carrying out the death penalty in almost all situations is concerning. "When we take a guilty person's life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture and we demean our own dignity in the process" (qtd. in Gardiner 4). 

Not only are we allowing guilty people to be brutally killed, but in the United States alone at least three-hundred-thirty-seven people have been exonerated by DNA testing to date, including twenty who served time on death row (Grisham). There are many reasons for the occurrence of wrongful convictions, but the fact that numerous innocent people have been found guilty and killed for crimes they did not commit is troublesome. According to a Gallup poll taken in 2003, seventy-three percent of Americans believed that an innocent person had most likely been convicted in the previous five years (Balko). Although a Gallup poll taken in 2009 shows that that number dropped to fifty-nine percent due to the availability of DNA testing, we cannot deny the fact that innocent people are at risk for, and currently are, being executed today. One example of a wrongful execution given in "10 Infamous Cases of Wrongful Execution - Criminal Justice Degrees Guide", is of a man named Claude Jones was executed in 2000 for murdering a liquor store owner in Texas in 1989. The facts of this case were that there were three men who could be linked to the murder, including Jones, and there were two witnesses across the street who saw a car pull into the liquor store parking lot but could not see the killer. Jones claimed he was innocent and that he was in the car at the time of the murder. The deciding factor for the case was a hair strand found at the crime scene. At this point in time DNA testing was available. Despite Jones's attorney's petitions to get the strand of hair submitted for examination, a forensic expert testified that the hair appeared to belong to Jones. All the courts and the Texas Governor George W. Bush denied Jones, and he was found guilty with the sentence of the death penalty, despite the weak evidence. After Jones's execution, The Innocence Project lawfully obtained the strand of hair in 2007 and had it tested. It in fact did not belong to Jones, but to the murder victim. This shows that there was no proof that Jones was ever in the liquor store, and there was not enough evidence to convict him. For a criminal case the evidence must be "beyond a reasonable doubt" and a person is "innocent until proven guilty". Clearly for Jones, he was not given these chances since not all resources, such as DNA testing, were used. This happens to more than one out of four people who are also wrongfully convicted (Grisham). The fact that an innocent person, or multiple, could be sitting on death row right now and possibly facing the electric chair, is unjust. It's better to save someone who has done nothing wrong than to let them suffer for a crime they did not commit by enforcing the death penalty. 

Some countries do believe highly in the effectiveness and use of the death penalty (Anckar 1). In Why Countries Choose the Death Penalty on page three, Anckar labels the United States as a "retentionist" country, meaning the death penalty is fully allowed and has been carried out within the last ten years, as opposed to other countries who have restrictions on their death penalty laws or who don't implement the death penalty at all. Also within his article on page six, Anckar states that popular support for the death penalty still remains quite high even in the places where it's been abolished for decades. In the news article Six Reasons Why Support for Capital Punishment Is Evaporating a Gallup sample taken recently in 2013 showed that support for the death penalty in the United States was at sixty percent. While sixty percent is a relatively high number, its far less than what has been in the past. For example, a Gallup survey from 1994 reported that support was at eighty percent and peaked (Radelet 2). In a Pew Survey from 2013, when people were given the choice between two punishments for murder, fifty-two percent preferred life imprisonment without parole while only forty-two percent chose the death penalty (Six Reasons Why Support for Capital Punishment is Evaporating). Trends are showing a decline in support for the death penalty over the past few decades. Even today, less than half of the countries in the world retain the death penalty and only thirty percent actually implement it (Anckar 3).

American support for the death penalty still remains high for a few common beliefs. According to Balko, vengeance and retribution are what people seek the most. He brought up a Gallup poll that showed that about sixty percent of death penalty supporters say vengeance/retribution is the main reason for their backing. People want the guilty person to receive justice for what they've done and they believe death is the proper or only way (Radelet 10). The second most popular reason to support the death penalty since the 1970's is deterrence (Radelet 3). According to the article The Changing Nature of the Death Penalty people believe in the hypothesis of general deterrence, which is the idea that by punishing offenders, others will be discouraged from committing similar crimes. The last main reason for death penalty support is incapacitation. This is the belief that we need to execute the heinous killers so that they do not have the ability to kill again, and it also prevents recidivism or repeat offenders (Radelet 4). Opinions like these should not determine whether someone lives or dies when there are facts proving the indiscretions occurring by capital punishment. Supporters also have hopes that DNA evidence and sanitized executions make the death penalty seem more humane to those who oppose (Balko). Balko says that since modern day executions resemble medical procedures, like lethal injections, it eases peoples minds as compared to the older forms of executions, but a study done in 2005 found that four out of ten people who are executed by lethal injections have been given inadequate anesthesia (Balko). DNA evidence has somewhat of the same effect on people. It is nice to know innocent people are being relieved, but it's also questionable that there are many mistakes in the system in the first place. There are many cases that have faulty evidence, government misconduct, inadequate defense, and even false confessions (Grisham). Its been uncovered that in more than twenty-five percent of DNA exonerations, defendants who were found guilty of a crime actually falsely confessed. While giving a false confession seems unfathomable, the suspect may be subjected to duress, coercion, or harm during questioning. (Grisham). Situations like these prove that reasons for support of the death penalty must be outweighed by the injustices that are occurring, and in reality supporters arguments are inadequate. 

Money is a large factor that comes into play for supporters of the death penalty. Taxpayers don't want to spend their money on attempting to rehabilitate a criminal in prison, when they have the simpler solution of execution. The idea that execution is simpler and cheaper is just an assumption. David Dow says in his TED talk that we still pay for the death penalty. In fact, in the state of Florida, holding an inmate on death row costs taxpayers fifty-one million dollars more per year than it would to hold them on life without parole (High Cost of Death Row). In the New York Times article High Cost of Death Row the author argues that the death penalty is actually an economic drain, because there are so many different parts. In this article, it's stated that not only are there multiple stages for pretrial and trials, but once an inmate is on death row, they will be there for a long time, and the method of executions cost a lot of money. The belief that executing people is quicker and cheaper is inaccurate. 

The death penalty is an ongoing debate. It's important to be educated about this topic because there are many misconceptions about it and facts that people are unaware of. Although it can be argued that there is high support for the death penalty, trends show a consistent decline in support. The death penalty should no longer be implemented in America because it's an inhumane and ineffective form of punishment with costly effects. Therefore, changes can be made once people are aware of this and the inhumanity and injustices that occur, like with the execution methods in Evans's case and exonerations in Jones. Tax payer's can save money by not supporting the death penalty and implementing life without parole instead. Also, their money can be put to a better use by intervening and putting new programs in place. We can step in at a different point in these criminals lives, rather than waiting to punish them. David Dow in his TED talk speaks about a variety of ways we can intervene in order to prevent crimes from being committed. Dow states that most of the offenders on death row happen to have gone through the juvenile justice system or have troubling childhoods. He explains that only some states offer early childhood care, special schools to help disadvantaged kids, the state that he is a defense attorney in is Texas, which does not offer programs like these. This is something that should be offered everywhere to help nudge kids off of the path that they are on. If all the money going towards the death penalty wasn't being spent on injections, electric chairs, and holding people on death row, money could be spent on helping people. If we intervened early enough we could save the criminals before they became criminals. This would be a start to much more humane and effective way of solving the crime problem in America. 

