The death penalty, or capital punishment, is a timeless argument that for so many years has gained no ground.  Capital punishment, for those who don’t know, is a sanction given by the government to punish a criminal by death for the crimes he or she has committed.  The penalty is the most extreme punishment one can receive and it is used very sparingly; however, when it is used, the whole nation becomes engulfed in the flames of justice and the debate of whether the death penalty should be implemented or not rages on.  As with any argument, the topic is very controversial and emotionally charged which hinders progress and instead increases ambiguity and doubt among the people and the positions they choose to take.  To get everyone on the same page, lets dive deeper into the history of capital punishment.  Prior to 1972, the death penalty was in full swing and was used at the state’s discretion.  The states would have full power in deciding whether a criminal got to live or die.  However, in the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional for multiple reasons.  The court ruled that capital punishment violated the eighth amendment which states that cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited.  The courts elaborated by saying there were no rational standards by which the penalty was applied (“Gregg”).  The next four years went on without issues until Troy Gregg came around in Gregg v. Georgia.  Little did Gregg know, he was about to change the future of the United States of America.  In 1976, Gregg was found guilty on a count of murder and a separate count of armed robbery.  The state of Georgia sentenced Gregg to death, which was proved unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia four years prior.  After the Supreme Court took a look at Gregg’s case, they ruled that the death penalty was not unconstitutional because the process that Georgia took to give this sanction was “careful” and “judicious” (“Gregg”).  It was at this point in 1976 where the argument over capital punishment became a household debate and soon became one of the most controversial topics in history.  However, a lot has changed since 1976 and it is time for the ruling to change with it.  Everyone can agree that capital criminals deserve a severe punishment; however, the point of disagreement comes when the two sides can’t determine how to deal with this punishment.  Capital offenders should spend their lives paying for what they have done, and not inside of a grave.  The death penalty should be abolished due to the effectiveness (or lack thereof) and the morality of putting offenders to their grave.

One of the most notable arguments for the death penalty today is that capital punishment helps our economy by not having to keep a criminal alive in prison for the entirety of their life.  People who support this argument believe that our country is wasting money keeping criminals alive that instead deserve to die for what they have done.  This is very plausible and has a solid foundation of logic behind it if you don’t look at all the facts.  When a criminal is put on death row, it is not as simple as putting him to sleep the next day.  This sanction requires many trials that result in a lot of time and money spent on someone who is not worth it.  For example, in the case of James Holmes killing twelve people in the 2012 movie theater shooting, the state will end up spending around 3.5 million dollars to hear evidence and hold trials on the case where they would have spent around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars if they decided to give Holmes life without parole (Holloway).  Another argument for the death penalty is that having it in place will in turn prevent criminals from attempting these crimes, lowering the capital crime rate.  This seems to make sense on paper, but criminals are not that easy to predict.  If criminals were truly thinking about the consequences of their actions beforehand, how do they get caught?  Wouldn’t they have a full proof plan that will ensure their safety after the fact?  It’s thoughts like these that show how the death penalty has no effect on the deterrence of crime.  No one in their right mind would choose to commit capital crimes if they were in the right mindset to think about their future after these actions.  “You know this idea that [the death penalty] has a deterrent effect is… well, we have a name for that in the field of psychology, it’s called insanity” (The Death Penalty).

With all of the counterarguments on the table, let’s dive deeper into the ineffectiveness of capital punishment.  No matter where you go, who you talk to, or what you read, the death penalty has no clear deterrent to violent crime.  According to a study done on the homicide rates in states with the penalty versus states without the penalty, states without capital punishment actually had lower homicide rates than those with the death penalty.  This proves no correlation between capital punishment and deterrence of violent crimes (Ehrenfreund).  A second study was done between Hong Kong, a nation where capital punishment was abolished in 1993, and Singapore, a nation where the death penalty is mandatory for murder, almost like an “eye for an eye” situation.  The studies show very little difference between the homicide rates of the two megalopolises (Ehrenfreund).  On a different note the death penalty, in some cases, actually causes murders to occur.  In 1963, two men were stopped by two officers for a license plate that was not illuminated.  However, the two offenders thought they had been caught for the string of robberies they had committed, so they kidnapped the two officers.  After realizing they only got pulled over for a non-lit license plate, the two men thought they had committed a capital offense by kidnapping the officers, which meant they thought they would be sentenced to the death penalty.  They then acted rashly to cover up any loose ends, killing one of the officers and accidently allowing the other to escape.  They were later found and convicted of murder (Warden).  This shows how the use of the death penalty can inversely ignite a fire in criminals to go further and further into a crime until they have caused more damage than ever intended.  Furthermore, to convey the ineffectiveness of capital punishment, even when a criminal is given the death penalty, it is still ineffective.  “Only fifteen percent of death sentences imposed since 1976 have been carried out.” (Nagin 30).  This shows that even when the death penalty is enforced, it still fails over eighty percent of the time.  “…some individuals have been on death row for decades and indeed may die by other causes before they can be executed… there have already been 416 such deaths” (Nagin 30).  Nagin and Pepper convey that in the slight chance that capital punishment is sanctioned, the penalty still fails to provide the justice that it so intended.  Life without parole in these cases would have saved time, money, and endless stress on the prosecutors and the families involved.

As you can see, there are valid arguments to both sides.  Some arguments are stronger than others, and it all leads to compromise.  To those who claim that the death penalty is financially supported, hopefully you can now see how this is not always true.  And to those who believe that capital punishment is a deterrent to violent crime, hopefully you now see that there is simply no concrete evidence to support those claims.  When discussing the effectiveness of the death penalty, it is only fair to say that there is no clear support to either side of the argument, and therefore a compromise needs to be made.  If capital punishment has no clear deterrent to murder, then wouldn’t it be fair to have these criminal spend life in prison without parole because it makes financial sense?  After all, our world revolves around money and if the financial aspects of capital punishment do not add up, it seems logical to have all capital offenders serve life in prison rather than life in a grave.  Obviously, all of this logic and reason can only get an argument so far, so it begs the question:  what about the morality of capital punishment?

One can talk all day and night arguing the effectiveness of capital punishment because there are endless studies, articles, and facts that help support either side.  However, when you get to morality, the whole game changes - it is no longer a fact-based argument.  Morality allows the people to say “Yes that makes complete sense, but…”  It allows an argument to reach a much deeper level that is not about facts or hardcore evidence but rather about what is right and what is wrong in our world.

When discussing morality and the death penalty, many supporters of capital punishment argue that it is morally permissible because it is constitutionally supported.  These people will argue that the death penalty is not “cruel or unusual” because they are simply receiving what they gave.  At first glance, this sounds very logical; an eye for an eye, right?  That would make sense if we still lived under the Roman Empire.  If we should respond to murder with murder, what’s stopping our government from punishing rape with more rape, arson with more arson, or robbery with more robbery?  The death penalty is the most barbaric sanction in our government’s existence and back in the 1700s there is a possibility it may have made sense.  However, our society has come a long way in the past 300 plus years and it is time for a change.  Capital punishment reduces society to the ethical standards of the murderer.  In a society where we value our ethics, there is no room for a state-sanctioned, uncivilized practice (“Morality and the”).  There, that covers the “cruel” part, but what about the “unusual?”  Capital punishment is unusual for a couple of reasons.  First, the United States of America is the only western industrialized nation that enforces this punishment.  Secondly, the U.S. essentially chooses a random sample of murderers from across the country to apply the death penalty to, making it quite unusual (“The Case Against”).  This is the case because at the end of the day, murder is murder.  If one murderer is sentenced to death, why is another criminal who committed the same crime not? Another argument for the morality of the death penalty is that the people think the offender should get what he or she “deserves.”  The problem with this stance is that what he or she deserves is not death.  Sure, many people think that if you kill someone, you deserve to be killed, as stated above.  However, for example, if an individual went out and killed an entire family, doesn’t he or she deserve to suffer a lot more than an easy, government sanctioned death?  Doesn’t the offender deserve to spend the rest of his or her life thinking about the crimes they have committed and wishing that they could take it all back?  That seems like a very reasonable punishment for a heartless act.  

Morality is a very touchy subject, and what is morally permissible to one person might not be the same for another person.  However, we can all agree that murder is ethically wrong and a punishment is deserved.  Furthermore, we can all agree that the murder of a loved one takes a toll on the families involved.  Everyday those family members will wake up in the morning and deal with the fact that a person they love very much will never get to see the light of day again.  This is one of the most important reasons as to why the death penalty should be abolished and instead these criminals should serve life in prison.  “Death penalty cases on average take twenty-five years or so to reach ultimate resolution, whether it be the imposition of the death sentence, a reversal or otherwise” (Holloway).  These families do not deserve to deal with twenty-five years of endless thoughts of what could have been.  If these criminals were sentenced to life in prison, the families could come to peace knowing that justice is being served and learn to move on instead of mourning for their loss without letting go.  Along with this reason, the death penalty should be abolished due to the possibility of wrongful convictions.

Wrongful convictions are one of the biggest flaws in our justice system because one thing that can never be done is to give time back to those wrongfully accused.  The feeling of releasing an innocent person from prison decades after they were wrongfully convicted is one of the most bittersweet feelings there are.  To know that our justice system has failed and essentially wasted an innocent person’s life is a hard thing to live with.  However, when these innocent people are released they are finally given the chance to make something out of their life and the look on most of their faces is priceless to know that they are finally free.  “Well over 100 individuals have walked off of death row based on innocence, proven by DNA or other methods” (Marshall).  If that statistic said only one individual was saved from death row, it would still be more than enough to make a change.  One of the main problems with this process is that most of the innocent, wrongfully convicted members of our society will not live to see the day where our government sets them free.  For example, a man named Henry McCollum was released in 2014 after spending close to thirty years on death row for the murder of an eleven-year-old girl that DNA evidence suggested he did not commit (Holloway).  In a case like this and others, it is hard to believe that there are no deceased members of our society who were wrongfully convicted and didn’t live to see the day where they were set free.

Hopefully, one day, this timeless argument will come to an end.  Death is one of the most interesting aspects of our lives, and it makes sense that a death penalty creates such an uproar throughout our nation.  That’s not the problem; the problem is that people are so blinded by their preconceptions that they do not take a step back to hear other sides of the argument.  They miss the key pieces that are needed in solving the hardest puzzle of our democracy.  Capital offenders deserve capital punishment, there’s no question about that.  The question is what capital punishment should consist of and, after reading through the arguments above, the hope is that you all realize the death penalty hurts way more than it helps.  Life in prison provides numerous more solutions to the problems caused by this outdated, savage sanction.  Who knows, maybe one day, God forbid, you will be faced with a situation involving the penalty, and you will have to choose:  life or death?
