The death penalty, dating back to ancient civilizations, has been a part of the federal justice system in the United States since colonial times. To some, it is justice served to one who has committed a heinous crime; to others, it is considered immoral or simply inefficient and illogical for the United States. Inefficiencies of capital punishment lie in its expenses, and therefore increased costs to all American taxpayers, the unreliability of the most prominent method of execution: the lethal injection, which leads to its arguable violation of the Eighth Amendment, and the emotional toll on those affected. The matter is already subject to intense debate, its opposition movement beginning many years ago not long after it started being used. The Supreme Court justices have dealt with various cases regarding the death penalty and its constitutionality and arbitrariness, and the outcome of such cases have switched back and forth from support to opposition of the punishment over the years. The death penalty is overall an inefficient and risky government program and should be abolished for various reasons including: the inconstant reliability of the drugs and process used for lethal injection, the practice being inhumane and immoral due to its violation of the Eighth Amendment, the high cost to obtain the drugs and carry out sentences which lead to higher taxes, and the number of those in the United States who are included in the strong opposition to capital punishment.

The first established laws pertaining to the death penalty date as far back as the Eighteenth Century. Colonial times also included the founding of the movement for the abolition of the death penalty. When Europeans came to settle the New World they brought with them the practice of capital punishment. Though the federal punishment was used without large judicial complications until the Early and Mid-Twentieth Century (DPIC). In 1972, the Supreme Court suspended the use of the death penalty in all states due to some existing statutes regarding the punishment no longer being valid as they violated the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. But this decision would not last, and a broken and inefficient system was once again brought back to the states, but only a few began utilizing it once more. 

Later in 1972, the death penalty was reinstated through a landmark decision by the Supreme Court for various court cases including the states of Florida, Georgia, and Texas; the previous decision suggesting that the Eighth Amendment was being violated was overturned and the new decision found the punishment constitutional (History, Staff). In 1977, the first execution using lethal injection after reinstitution of the death penalty occurred in Oklahoma; later lethal injection would show to be the most commonly used form of execution across the United States. After World War II, the United Nations General Assembly introduced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which advocated for limitations on the scope of the death penalty in order to protect juveniles, pregnant women, and the elderly. The limitations from this doctrine that carried over into the United States as well as limitations decided by the judiciary included those with a mental illness or intellectual disability, race, and juveniles. Currently, the death penalty is no longer used at all in New Mexico and Delaware, but the use of capital punishment is occurring less and less frequently in the other forty-eight states (DPIC). One of the most prominent reasons for the slowly, but steadily declining decrease of support for the death penalty in a multitude of the states is the unreliability of the process for lethal injection.

The inconsistency associated with the drugs and process used to carry out a lethal injection execution are one of the major reasons why this punishment itself just needs to stop. A botched execution can result in an exceedingly painful and drawn out death, which is not what the death penalty is meant to entail. States who primarily use lethal injection as a means of execution use either a one, two, or three drug protocol, though they all are meant to humanely end an inmate’s life. The three drug protocol first uses a sedative or anesthetic, followed by pancuronium bromide as a paralytic, and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart (DPIC). Although all lethal injections do not go this smoothly, and many eyewitness accounts of executions gone wrong point out how inhumane it is and gruesome to watch. To begin, even the process of preparing the inmate for execution by lethal injection can be inhumane. Many of those on death row come from backgrounds that include abusive drug use, leading to problems for executioners as they try to find suitable veins to insert catheters to begin the flow of the drugs. Executioners have also been known to simply have trouble finding a suitable vein due to lack of knowledge on inserting IVs, extending the suffering of the inmate through probing different parts of the body looking for a vein (The Associated Press). 

Various accounts of botched executions from the Death Penalty Information Center are described like this, such as, “It was overwhelming, stunning, disturbing…reporters taught for years that intrusion is their business, had trouble looking each other in the eyes after it was over” (Greene). This, among other reasons, stands to be a major factor for many people to view the death penalty as immoral and unethical. This also applies to physicians, who sometimes must risk violating ethical standards of medical organizations as well as the Hippocratic Oath while being present to supervise executions. One family that was present during the execution of a loved one actually filed a lawsuit after the event, describing it by saying the inmate went through “repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling, and arching his back, appearing to writhe in pain…It looked and sounded as though he was suffocating” (The Associated Press). Apart from this, there are recurrent reports of inmates having violent physical reactions to the lethal injection drugs as they are administered. The excruciating pain and long, drawn out deaths experienced by these inmates goes into a gray area where it becomes extraordinarily easy to argue that this violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Apart from the complications of the lethal injection process and botched executions, the price of the death penalty is often very high, and this expense (in large part) becomes a burden on American taxpayers.

Not only is the death penalty expensive because of the high prices of the drugs used in lethal injection, but other expenses including legal costs, pre-trial costs, jury selection, trial, incarceration, and appeals add up. All these costs lead to a burden on American taxpayers, with ever increasing taxes that fund a flawed and ineffective system. Cases dealing with capital crimes become much more complicated with various expenses than non-capital crime cases (Amnesty, USA). Legal costs must be paid by the state, as the majority of people facing the death penalty are not able to afford a lawyer of their own choosing and must be assigned one by the state. Pre-trial costs must cover forensic evidence and looking into social history of the defendant as well as mental health; jury selection takes up more time and this becomes more expensive due to the death penalty question (DPIC). Trials can last up to four times longer than non-capital cases and this requires additional compensation for attorneys and jurors, as well as other court personnel. The incarceration portion of expenses in capital crime cases include the solitary confinement of death row inmates in special facilities that have a larger assemblage of security guards. These are only the costs of capital punishment cases during the preliminary trials, the expenses only increase as the investigation continues and the trials proceed with the series of appeals granted to the accused by the Constitution.

During a case regarding the death penalty, the accused is allowed a series of appeals that, in some cases, have led to the discovery of evidence that proves an inmate’s innocence before their execution. Although these appeals are entitled at the expense of taxpayers, again mainly due to compensation for state appointed lawyers (DPIC). All these costs, in addition to the expenses due to cover the staff of an execution (executioners, supervising physicians, anesthesiologists and technicians, nurses, etc.), add up to be significantly more expensive than a lifetime sentence of a prisoner in a general federal prison. An anti-capital punishment advocacy organization, Death Penalty Focus, did research on the myth that a death sentence costs less than a life sentence and came out with the findings: “Studies of the California death penalty system, the largest in the United States, have revealed that a death sentence costs at least 18 times as much as a sentence of life without parole would cost” (Death Penalty Focus). Instead of inflicting a larger burden on the American taxpayers with the higher costs of capital crime cases and maintaining prisoners on death row, why not keep criminals locked up for the rest of their natural lives in prison without parole? Studies have been done to show that the “closure” thought to be brought to families of victims after executions of death row inmates is actually an incorrect concept, the outcome actually results in ongoing emotional conflicts regarding the traumatic experience.

While some may believe that a ruling of capital punishment will ultimately result in closure for the affected victim or the family of such a person, the outcome is actually much the opposite. In most cases, the families or loved ones affected by one accused of a capital crime would rather not have to deal with the continued pursuit of that punishment which could include years of appeals prolonging the most likely traumatic experience and causing them to have to relive those plaguing, heartbreaking emotions until the trial concludes (Marsh). Even if the accused is convicted and executed, the likelihood that this will actually bring significant emotional closure to the loved ones of the victim or victims is slim. According to a 2007 study by criminologist Scott Vollum, “…the victims’ loved ones reported experiencing feelings of peace or relief in only seventeen percent of the more than one hundred and fifty cases in which they made public statements; they reported feeling a sense of closure in only two and a half percent of those cases. By contrast, in twenty percent of cases, they explicitly said the execution did not bring them healing or closure” (Marsh). The emotional health of those affected by death row inmates is one of the most important things about capital punishment trials, and if the execution of the accused is not bringing families and loved ones the emotional closure they need, what is the point?

For those having to deal with the emotions and aftermath of a tragedy, being dragged back into various capital court cases and ongoing appeals will not help them heal or move on from their morbid experiences. According to Nancy Berns, a professor of sociology at Drake University, “In some cases, the end of the trial – or even the execution – can make them feel worse because they’ve been focused on the trial, and when all that gets moved away, the grief sets in in a different way” (Marsh). Even those who think that the death of the person who committed the heinous crime that affected them in some tragic way may bring them closure may not actually feel any better once their supposed justice has been served. Feelings of revenge and justification, including eye-for-an-eye mentalities, may flare up at the beginning of trials for those affected but will likely wane throughout the long process of a court case dealing with a capital crime. The CNN article discussing the question of whether the death penalty brings closure states, “For many victims, feelings of pain and loss may never go away…But psychological research has found that one way to achieve greater peace of mind is through forgiveness” (Marsh). Though this may seem like an unthinkable act for people who have gone through unspeakable grief at the expense of a person who has committed a capital crime, this does not actually even require reconciling with the offender. It instead entails letting go of feelings that include anger and vengeance toward the accused which will eventually lead to freeing themselves of the power it has over them. In addition to the supposed “closure” the death penalty brings those affected by capital crimes, there is also a link correlating the use of the death penalty and the decline of murder and crime rates in various states.

Those in support of capital punishment have done ongoing studies since the beginning of the controversy with those opposed in order to prove that the death penalty creates a deterrent effect in crime rates. Although this seems like a logical idea: more executions, less crimes, is it really the case? According to a New York Times article on the life-saving aspect of the death penalty, “The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time – while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors – and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3, 054 counties over two decades” (Liptak). The studies have been received with somewhat sharp criticism, but do in fact show a deterrent rate. Even economists studying this data who are personally opposed to the death penalty do acknowledge this effect and put it into consideration when further developing their own opinions (Liptak). Although how can these studies accurately base the decrease of crime rates, with the primary focus on lesser murder rates and convictions, on the use of capital punishment. There are so many other factors that play large roles in the decreasing rates of crime and conviction, how can a federal punishment that is used so scarcely be the sole reason for this. This argument, while having valid studies with data that technically is accurate, just does not fully make sense enough to create support and justification for such an inefficient and inhumane government system. According to the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, since executions in NC have ceased in 2006 the murder rate has declined (NCCADP). Therefore, there is no shown correlation to the use of the death penalty and decreased homicide rates and leads to the fact the argument stating this is not credible. The most effective tool in reducing crime rates is actually shown to be increased law enforcement resources, not the use of the broken and barbaric system. 

 Although the death penalty has been a part of the United States court systems dating back to the earliest of colonial times, it is time for a change and for the ultimate abolition of capital punishment. There is a clear division between the population that is in support of the death penalty and those who oppose it; some think of it as retribution and justice served while others only see its inhumanity and unethical aspects. The movement for the abolition for the death penalty began not long after the federal punishment itself began in colonial America. Throughout the years, especially during the early and mid-twentieth century, Supreme Court rulings regarding the death penalty switched from pro to con, suspending and reinstating the punishment, a permanent ruling hard to come by. The death penalty is an ineffective and flawed federal punishment and its use should be ultimately stopped for various reasons impacting the American public: the inconstant reliability of the drugs and process used for lethal injection, the practice being unethical and inhumane due to its violation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause in the Constitution, the high cost to obtain drugs for lethal injection, carry out sentences, and expenses to cover the capital crime case which lead to higher taxes. The large number of those in the United States who are included in the strong opposition to capital punishment are in fact playing a role that will aid in leading to the demise of the penalty. The use of capital punishment is being used less and less frequently in the United States, and if it follows this rate it will eventually stopped being used at all. This would be the most beneficial to the United States, primarily to the American taxpayers who would experience less of a burden, as well as those affected by the outcome of capital crimes.
