
The capital punishment of the death penalty is a form of punishment administered legally by the government through multiple types of execution methods. Being a law that results in the death of a human being, it has been a topic of great controversy for centuries. It is an issue that touches upon economics, politics, and human ethics, causing a divide in popular opinion throughout the United States and around the world. Primarily, the debate comes down down to moral ethic and the degree that people are willing to go to achieve justice. Those who are supports of the capital punishment believe that the system is not only just, but that it can serve as a deterrent against future crime. Abolitionists on the other hand, disagree on a moral standpoint and argue the deterrent claim stating that criminals don't per say expect to be punished prior to committing the crime. The United States demonstrating this division holds 31 states that utilize capital punishment, while the remaining states have banned it. What factors have sustained the death penalty for all these years? Well, weather dependent on one's personal opinion or the facts, the death penalty is an outdated form of punishment that through years of revealing its faults, is too inept of a system to still be in use. Since correcting murder with murder is clearly not the answer, why is it not a thing of the past?

The preservation of the death penalty in the United States has lasted over 400 years attempting to mold and change to what the times have demanded. The retribution of one's crime dates back forever, however the death penalty itself was brought over to the United States from Britain in the1600s. As influenced by Britain law, almost all crimes such as stealing, hitting ones parents, religious beliefs, and treason, justified capital punishment. Although some circumstances regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony, as it would later vary from state to state, close to all felonies had a mandatory death sentence. (deathpenaltyinfo.org) 

The circumstances of capital punishment would change however with the rise of the abolitionist movement. Growing some momentum in the Colonial Times, the early 19th century would move away from the public eye as penitentiaries began to form and there were no more public executions. As the issue of the death penalty progressed, Michigan became the first state to abolish it in 1846 for any crime other than treason. Following this, the country went back and forth from lowering and increasing the standards applicable for the death penalty. (deathpenaltyinfo.org)

It wasn't until the 19670s that the legality of the death penalty was questioned specifically in two important court cases. In 1972 Furman vs. Georgia case the death penalty appeared to be "cruel and unusual punishment" violating the 8th and 14th amendment (Marcus 842).  The results of the court case resonated through the country, and new capital punishment statues were written that included a new two-stage trial procedure. (aclu.org). In the 1977 Gregg vs. Georgia the death penalty was questioned constitutional later resulting in objective standards to guide, regularize, and make rationally reviewable changes (aclu.org).

This of course does not eliminate the faults of capital punishment, as the lines can become blurry between states, courts, and cases. 

According to Merriam-Webster, morality is defined as, "the degree to which something is right and good". (merriam-webster.com) Many people, in addition to myself, view the death penalty as an immoral, inhumane and uncivilized practice. No person should be able to decide the fate of another human being. The former director of corrections departments in both Delaware and Minnesota, Paul W. Keven, believes "the act of murder reveals a lack of respect for human life. In consequence then, we need to encourage a higher respect for life. But finally, it defies all logic to suppose that we can encourage a greater respect for human life by the device of taking a human life"(Kasten12). There is no question that those who commit such atrocious crimes should be punished for their actions. It is necessary to implement justice for not only the nation, but to give peace to the family of the victims. However, as stated in the article, "Protestors aim at Stopping Execution", Hartnagel recognizes a group of protester protesting the death penalty, many in which were families of murder victims. Campaigning on their phrase "don't kill for me", the protesters were responding to the notion that the death penalty "serves justice to the victims' families", asking them to stop the cycle of murder. The death penalty is often justified as serving as retribution for society, however that is just another way of saying vengeance or revenge. Reinforcing anger under the name of the law is not only hypocritical but just continues the cycle of violence. 

During a death penalty case there is four stages; the trial containing the direct appeal, state habeas, federal habeas, following clemency with a return to the court and later execution (Dow). This entire procedure results in extended trial times, double the number of attorneys, two separate trails, and a series of appeals for when the inmate is held in high security of death row. The investigation, attorney preparation, trial, appellate proceedings, and execution procedures of a capital case exceed the costs associated with a life imprisonment murder case. A Florida study revealed that the state spends six times as much money on a single capital case as it would to imprison a defendant until he dies (Kasten 7). "Over the past 22 years, the taxpayers of Illinois have spent more than $800 million to send nearly 300 men and women to Death Row. This amount is in addition to what it would have cost to sentence each of the nearly 300 to prison without parole, and it does not include the more than $40 million paid to settle lawsuits by those wrongly convicted" (articles.chicagotribune.com). Ryan brings light to not only the miss-use of taxpayer money, but the faults in the death penalty system that our money also has to correct. 

Although it is said that capital punishment serves as a deterrent against future crime, studies have shown this to be untrue. A nationwide police survey has the death penalty ranked as the lowest method to reduce crime, actually finding that states that do implement the death penalty have a higher rate of crime. These results indicate that these taxpayer funds are being spent on an economically flawed scale that in the end, serves no safety benefits to them whatsoever. (aclu.org)

The death penalty is imposed unfairly in terms of racism, bias, income, and the irrevocable mistake of accusing the innocent. Being enforced so randomly, the line becomes so blurry between those sentenced to death row and those sentenced to life in prison, that their crimes and criminal could easily be no different. The discriminating of race is very present in the argument of the death penalty being unfair. In a study done by Profesor Baldus regarding racism in capital punishment the results showed that the conviction of blacks where far more present when the victim was white, then if the victim was black. (Marcus 859). Another huge aspect of unfairness is the dependency of money on weather a criminal is sentenced to death row or not. If one does not have the income to account for the tremendous amount of money it costs to get a liable attorney, then they must due with what the state deals them. Considering that the death penalty is an irrevocable decision that ends in death, too often people are sentenced to death row. "Nationally, at least one innocent person is exonerated, for every 7 that are executed" (deathpenalty.procon.org). DNA is used to testify weather a criminal is guilty or not. In the past decade, DNA sampling has freed more than 170 convicted criminals from death row. However, for multiple reasons, a very small percentage of criminal investigations get to utilize it. In a case that resulted in Illinois suspending the use of the death penalty, convicted murderer and rapist, Verneal Jimerson was sentenced to death row and incarcerated for 11 years before a DNA test revealed his innocence. (Marcus 851) 

Instead of spending so much money, time, and maintenance on such a flawed system, why don't we use all of these resources to actually reduce violence rather than perpetuating it? In a national survey of police officers, they ranked the death penalty as the least effective, and ranked curbing the usage of drugs, having a stronger and larger presence of police, longer sentences, and gun control as useful deterrents (aclu.org). Another method to substitute the death penalty is the ideology that it can be completely prevented if implanted early on in childhood. In his ted talk, David. R. Dow emphasizes on "places in a person's life where our society could have nudged and weaned them out of the path they were on in the chapters of a criminal's life prior to them becoming a murder". Some of his "modes of interventions", suggested early childhood education, special schools for from troubled kids and juvenile delinquents, and aggressively intervening in threatening home lives. In these strategies, Dow claims that morally and economically, "you can either pay now or you can pay later" (tedtalk).

As of today, the United States is the only Western industrialized nation to still implement the barbaric and uncivilized use of the death penalty. Being a form of punishment that is reminiscent of ancient times, it alights to a justice system that lives by the phrase, "an eye for an eye and a life for a life". Centuries later, we should be civilized enough to know the quality of a life and what an immoral, dehumanizing practice the death penalty is. Perpetuating violence with violence, we are hypocritical as a nation.  Promoting ourselves as a nation that respects and works hard to achieve the civil rights of all, we diminish these beliefs by implementing the death penalty. States that currently function without the death penalty such as Michigan and Wisconsin, are functioning just the same as those who don't implement it.  The system is a huge economic burden, based entirely on unfair procedures, and is fatally flawed. 
