Capital punishment has existed since the earliest of civilization. Various established institutions have carried out this ultimate consequence. However, the forfeiture has been amended, even abolished, recently over the last few decades. Approximately a third of countries across the globe currently use the death penalty with the United States being one of the very few countries carrying out executions. An intricate conversation surrounds capital punishment and its usefulness in the United States. The purpose of the death penalty in the United States is seemingly becoming smaller. With a high amount of death sentenced convicts, only a handful of those sentenced are put to death. Furthermore, the execution method is often disagreed upon as well as ineffective. 

With the severe crimes committed by death sentenced people, it is easy to understand the purpose of capital punishment as it exists now. Guilty people are clearly receiving what they deserve in many people’s eyes. However, this is purely based on individual judgement. Moreover, what crime deserves death? Opinions differ on many levels of the conversation. It is easy to understand reasoning behind both sides of the argument. However, the supporting argument is not strong enough to retain such a drastic law. Having one executed, which costs extreme dollars in several arenas, does not always work, and does not provide a positive outcome, is far too much of a cost. The convict is already kept from safely secluded from society. What good does it do to kill the convicted? There could potentially be a hundred different answers to this question, and they are all going to be based on individual opinions based on morals. I am going to argue that, with morals aside, the death penalty does not provide a positive effect on the United States. Moral arguments cause the conversation to get confusing and there is not much factual evidence, its ambiguous. No law should be ambiguous. 

From the year 1972 to 1976 there were no executions in the United States. Due to the death penalty being cruel and unusual punishment and arbitrarily sentenced, he supreme court suspended the law in 1972. However, in 1976 the law was reinstated. Clearly the law has been surrounded by uncertainty for quite some time. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been 1447 executions in the United States. In 2016, there were around 2900 death row inmates. People sentenced to death go through a lengthy process of court hearings and appeals. In 2012 the average person on death row spent 15 years from their sentence to their execution. During this time the convicted, their families, and the effected victims are troubled with an arduous wait. This wait costs extensive dollars covering lawyer fees, housing fees, and endless hearing fees. Per the Death Penalty Information Center, “Defending a death penalty case costs about four times as much as defending a case where the death penalty is not sought, according to a new study by the Kansas Judicial Council” (Death Penalty Information Center 1). This same common theme applies to every state. On average, death penalty trials cost much more than simple trials. This doesn’t add the time death sentenced people spend housed in prisons, which often lasts well over ten years. I argue with the great ambiguity regarding the law, a replacement law must be put into place. The law does not provide a sufficient logical reasoning and the evidence in favor of the punishment is far too ambiguous.

 

Everybody has heard the cliché prison stories unearthing the horrible condition. Is the death sentence worse than life in prison? This is a question of opinion. ABC news recounts request from a man on trial “Passaro pleaded guilty to murder in 2000 and requested—and received—the death penalty” (Robinson 1). Furthermore, life in prison is less of an extreme alternative to capital punishment. Sentencing one to life in prison is an extreme sentence alone, but necessary. What is the purpose to putting one to death? The sentence of life in prison already excludes that person from the rest of society. People sentenced to life in prison, and people faced with prison time in general, need to be looked at more than just a burden. The United States does not provide much room for re-education once you hit a long prison sentence. Inmates are not providing hardly anything the economy. I argue re-education plans should be put into place. This plan also needs to include service to the community. This would provide a sense of purpose for inmates. Rather than just being a burden and a cost to society, inmates could contribute to the society of the United States. Life in prison provides the same purpose as capital punishment, the convicted criminal is kept safe from the rest of society. That person is also denied their rights to live a free life. Some believe the death penalty provides a solution to crime. However, this solution is not present. Executions have provided no evidence of a deterrent effect on crime. 

The common supporter of capital punishment argues its effectiveness of deterring crime. However, there is no efficient method of measuring crime deterrence. There are endless factors that play into the correlation between crime and capital punishment. Dr. Jeffrey Fagon argues “Murder is a complex and multiply- determined phenomenon, with cyclical patterns for over 40 years of distinct periods of increase and decline that are not unlike epidemics of contagious diseases” (Fagon 7). Murder, most common reason for death sentences, is so complex and many researchers still don’t understand the forces acting upon people to kill. Many have mental illness or acted on the spot in anger or fear. People often commit murder based off a quick mislead judgement. This is not meant to take away from the severity of the crime. I argue that many people committing such severe crimes do not fear the death penalty. There are currently 31 states in which the death penalty is active. Studies have tried to find a correlation between crime and the death penalty. However, there is no method of controlling an experiment and observing not only the correlation, but the causation of the death penalty and crime. Dr. Fagon of Columbia University argues, “These new studies are fraught with technical and conceptual errors: inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider all the relevant factors that drive murder rates, missing data on key variables in key states, the tyranny of a few outlier states and years, and the absence of any direct test of deterrence” (Fagon 4). It is far too difficult to measure whether someone committed, or didn’t commit, a crime solely based on a single variable—the ultimate punishment. As Dr. Fagon addresses, many studies have recently come out over the past decade or two pointing to deterrent effects of the death penalty. There have also been many other results that have shown differing conclusions. Even if the studies did provide accurate depictions and correlations, the methods of observing the data are not valid. Crime rates are effected by endless variables and patterns. 

False convictions, although rare, happen at a surprising rate. Per the Death Penalty Information Center, as of 1973, one hundred and fifty-seven people have been discharged from death row due to their proven innocence. This is an astronomically high number considering what is at stake for death sentenced convicts. Aronson and Cole, authors of a journal relating innocence and the convicted, state “Although death penalty discourse has always been, and remains, multifaceted—encompassing morality, religion, cost, deterrence, theories of punishment, fairness, race, class, and human rights—we suggest that over the past decade innocence has emerged as perhaps the dominant issue in death penalty discourse with “an unprecedented effect on the debate about capital punishment”” (Aronson, Cole 604). In other words, these authors state having death sentenced people proven innocent provides the largest reason for opposition. Above all statistical evidence and morally driven evidence, innocent people cannot be put to death. With capital punishment, this is always a possibility. DNA evidence has proven a handful of convicted people innocent since its technology emerged in the late 1900s. Many convicts were nearly executed before the DNA evidence proving their innocence emerged. It is unacceptable to take an innocent man’s life before he could be proven innocent. DNA evidence can take time to find and it is uncertain when pieces of evidence will be discovered. Since 1973 153 people have been removed from death row due to their proven innocence (Death Penalty Information Center 1). The death penalty allows for innocent people to have the possibility of their innocence taken from them. Life in prison would allow for convicts to potentially be proven innocent before it’s too late. This argument sets moral opinionated arguments and all other forms of debatable evidence aside. The death penalty does not provide the significant positives, if any at all, to signify the potential of taking away an innocent man’s life. 

The United States is set up on the foundations of democracy. What source of democracy does capital punishment fulfill? The death penalty is a simple solution to complex problems within our borders. However, the solution is not exactly clear. Capital punishment is a monarchical principle, not democratic. One scholarly journal states “Along with the right to make war, the death penalty is the ultimate measure of sovereignty and the ultimate test of political power. With the transition from monarchical to democratic regimes, one might have thought that such a vestige of monarchical power would have no place and, as a result, would wither away” (Sarat 221). The death penalty is an illusionary solution to heinous crimes committed in the United States. There is no real correlation between the two. The United States is one of the only Western civilized nation to continue to practice the death penalty. Furthermore, only 31 states still have the death penalty statute in practice. Contributions to democracy provided from capital punishment are simply impossible to find. Some argue the deterrence of crime; however, crime deterrence is impossible to measure. Even if there were a deterrence of crime, the 19 states that do not exercise the death penalty have not shown any large increases in crime since the law was revoked. With the United States being one of the only nations to continue to use the death penalty, it is even more surprising the US continues to use this punishment based on our great belief in democracy and freedom.

The actual execution of death sentenced people is often slow and ineffective. Many executions have failed and left the convicted to suffer through a slow death, assuming the convict was killed—the methods have failed this drastic. People often cannot agree on a reasonable method of execution. This only adds to the ambiguity of the law. There is no method of deciding whether one approach is just in killing a death sentenced person. Even when the method is agreed upon, it sometimes fails. The American Civil Liberties Union states “In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under then-existing laws “the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty… constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments”” (American Civil Liberties Union 1). There has been clear unrest regarding capital punishment for over a century. The supreme court ruled the law was ambiguous and cruel and unusual punishment in 1971. Per the Death Penalty Information Center, about 3 percent of total executions from 1890-2010 were botched, or failed. This leaves the inmate with a series of physical and mental sufferings. 

Time and money are both substantial expenditures of death sentenced criminals. Economically, capital punishment is burdening. First, a copious amount of time is used to prosecute and sentence people to death. The American Civil Liberties Union states “It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and law enforcement personnel” (American Civil Liberties Union 1). The time it takes for one to be sentenced to death to their execution is astronomical, leaving some to be on death row for over a decade. The time of lawyers, courts, judges, and prosecutors is all being used during this time. The monetary costs are also very high when sentencing one to death. These include lawyer fees, courtroom fees, execution fees, holding fees, and the list goes on. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been used to sentence people to death in the United States. Pierce and Radelet talk about this cost in their publication

“Homicide trials are more expensive when the death penalty is a possibility than when it is not, in part because of a greater need for expert testimony, exclusion of more potential jurors, and the necessity to conduct a second, or penalty, phase of the trial. After trial, there is a near-automatic appeal of the case through state and federal courts; this involves years of litigation before the final disposition. Finally, a greater proportion of death penalty cases than other homicide cases are sent back to trial courts for resentencing, meaning that a cost-per-execution calculation must also consider the costliness of cases in which the death penalty was considered or indeed imposed, but not carried out” (Pierce, Radelet 717).

Obviously, death sentencing cases are much more costly than other cases. Having capital punishment replaced with life in prison without parole would solve this issue. The crimes committed at this level cannot be argued much unless one is arguing a death sentence. Therefore, this replacement would save time and money.

Easily understandable, supporters of the death penalty argue some notable viewpoints. There are two main categories of supporters, those who believe the law deters crime and those who believe the convicted is receiving what they deserve. First, capital punishment deterrence studies have been shown to be all over the place. Some studies representing deterrence evidence and some representing no deterrent effect at all. There is no possible method of truly observing this correlation accurately. Second, in some eyes, the convict may be getting what they deserve for their committed crime. However, this can be arbitrarily applied. There is no golden standard to determine whether someone will be sentenced to death. Even when one is sentenced to death, the sentence brings high costs and ineffectiveness.  The death sentence does not do the public any justice. A life in prison sentenced criminal (without parole) is already set aside from society for the rest of their lives set to die in prison by their lonely self. The positive feeling some get from knowing one was executed for their acts does not outweigh the negatives attached to the death sentence.  

Positives of the death penalty are all based on individual morally driven opinions. Negatives of the death penalty can be related directly to costs and other morally driven opinions. All individual opinions aside, the death penalty must be abolished due to its ineffectiveness and high costs. I argue there is little to no reward or positive to executing a guilty criminal. Having one serve life in prison without parole suffices for the worst of crimes. The opinions of the supporters are not strong enough to retain a punishment this severe. The ambiguity regarding the law is also vast, being applied with inconsistency, guilty people being proven innocent and execution methods being ineffective and not agreed upon. The United States needs to act, being one of the last democracy based nations practicing the death penalty, and replace capital punishment with a new statute. This statute should include life in prison without parole. Doing so would isolate the dangerous criminal from society. No other questions asked. There would be no ambiguity or large costs. This would save time money and stress for all parties—courtrooms, lawyers, families, defendants, prosecutors, judges etc.—surrounding death penalty cases. Life in prison provides the same positives to democracy as capital punishment, isolating a dangerous threat from society. Capital punishment only allows for great costs and an illusionary solution to problems in the United States.
