On July 4th, 1776 leaders across the country came together to sign the Declaration of Independence. This was the beginning of one of the most powerful and special nations to ever dawn on this planet - The United States of America. There are many things that make this country special yet few define what it is that makes us different. I think that The United States’ greatest quality is the devotion of the citizens to do what is right even if it is not easy. The United States went to war to abolish the barbaric practice of slavery. Americans across the country fought for the rights of women during the women’s suffrage movement. We, as Americans fight for what is right and that is the biggest reason why we are one of the most powerful nations on Earth. Capital punishment started long before The United States. It has practically been part of society since civilization began. Only in the past 100 years have people debated the morality and logic behind the death penalty. It is time, as a country to phase capital punishment out of practice. As an American who cares about the future of this country, I feel like this is an issue I should write about. After receiving years of Catholic education, I feel as if I understand that moral implications of the death penalty. As an economics major, I feel that I understand the economic consequences of keeping the capital punishment system. There are very few logical arguments as to why we need the death penalty system in The United States. Death row has been draining money from the economy for years, a waste of tax-payer dollars to see very few criminals actually get executed. The death penalty violates basic human morals that most Americans have progressed to by now. Also, there is an argument to be made that the death penalty actually violates the constitution - which holds our most sacred rights. It has been disproportionally been affecting minorities for years. It is time that The United States of America abolishes the death penalty because of the economic waste, our progressive morals, and equal protections for all citizens.

Politicians are always ranting about government spending - where we need to cut and where we need to spend more. I think that most everyday Americans would agree that there is waste involved in public spending. If any argument should change even my most pro-death penalty opponents it would be on the grounds of pure finances. I want to convince my audience that the death penalty system in this country is an absolute garbage fire burning tax-payer dollars.  Another piece that is important to my argument is the morality behind the death penalty. On the grounds of basic human morals, the death penalty can hardly be defended. Along with the fact that innocent people have been put on death row and executed in the past. The statistics are alarming and the stories of those who were wrongfully convicted are tragic. The disproportionality skewed against minorities also plays into my moral case along with my legal case. That disproportionality violates the equal protections clause which is legally problematic. Another important part to my legal argument is that the death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment, therefore unconstitutional in two instances. 

There are many misconceptions about capital punishment in the United States. One very common misconception is that it is cheaper to execute a criminal than it is to keep them in jail for life. Many people don’t know why the Death Penalty costs so much money. Phillip Holloway from CNN explained the financial waste when he wrote “the average length of the initial prosecution for a death penalty case -- not including lengthy appeals -- means more than a thousand extra days of courtroom resources are being used. Judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court reporters, jurors, bailiffs and other courtroom staff are all needed just to conduct a trial, and that means spending a lot of money from state coffers that could have been used elsewhere.” (Holloway). The death row system in the United States is spending millions of tax-payer dollars to see criminals be put to death years and years after the crime was actually committed. How much does the death penalty actually cost? Jolie McLaughlin wrote in the Northwestern Law Review “For example, in 1988, The Miami Herald reported that the cost of the death penalty in Florida was $3.2 million per execution compared to $600,000 for life imprisonment. Similarly, The Dallas Morning News reported in 1992 that the trials and appeals of a capital case alone cost Texas $2.3 million per case on average, which was approximately three times the cost of imprisoning someone for forty years.” (McLaughlin). The intention of the Death Penalty is not to bring closure to family - it’s supposed to deter criminals from committing crime. The illusion that having a federal death penalty actually deters anyone from committing crimes is just that - an illusion. Yet states pay millions and millions of dollars to keep this practice alive. There are much more useful ways to prevent and deter crime than having a death penalty in place. 

California has had maybe the most staggering financial waste because of the capital punishment system. In 2011 Judge Arthur Alacron from the U.S Court of Appeals conducted a study along Paula Mitchell, a Loyola Law School professor, which found that since 1978 Californians have spent a shocking 5 billion dollars to carry out 13 executions! Doing the math is sickening as it comes out to almost 400 million dollars per execution. Tax-payers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for executions that are not even happening. That math clearly doesn't add up and Californians are not happy about it. If you gave someone 5 billion dollars to fight crime, I cannot imagine they would spend it that way. This isn't a problem that just California is facing. States across the country are burning their tax dollars to fuel this fraudulent and wasteful system. North Carolina also faces a similar problem among other states. Michael Hewlett writes “The death penalty also doesn't deter crime, the study says. Robinson said data show the state's murder rate declining since executions stopped in 2006 and that no study has ever shown North Carolina's death penalty to have any deterrent effect.

Studies, Robinson said, have shown that death penalty cases in North Carolina cost an additional $11 million to $20 million a year.” (Hewlett). With no evidence that the death penalty deters crime, why are we spending so much money on it? Gretchen Sween writes in the American Journal of Criminal Law “All the resources that state and federal governments spend litigating capital cases and incarcerating death-sentenced inmates in extreme isolation are resources not spent on other things. And some Americans—who are essentially pragmatists—are starting to balk when confronted with the death penalty’s precise costs. Perhaps this recent development belatedly validates Thurgood Marshall’s hypothesis, which posits that a properly “informed citizenry” could not support the death penalty.”(Sween). I really believe the difference between capital punishment being abolished or not is whether this information can reach the general public. The death penalty is starting to become less and less of a partisan issue. Many conservatives are concerned with the outrageous costs of the death penalty. Being for the abolishment of the death penalty is starting to become more of a logical position rather than a political one. The problem is that most citizens are not aware of how wasteful this system really is. Our judicial system simply does not have the money to waste. With clogged courts, police being laid off, and prisoners being let out early, we could use that precious money to start resolving the toxic issues that our judicial system faces in this day in age. The first step to stop this chaotic, irresponsible spending is to reach out to the leaders of this country. The death penalty issue is used as rhetoric for politicians to appeal to those who want to be tough on criminals. The realization that many need to make is that we can still be tough on criminals without executing them. Life in prison without parole is a cheaper than the death penalty and serves the same purpose as the death penalty - to put people out of society forever. The death penalty is a huge waste of tax-payers dollars that could potentially go to places that desperately need it.

The death penalty is a barbaric and immoral process that ends the most precious thing in the world - human life. It is tough for anyone to feel sympathy for convicted murders, but no one needs to. No one should lose sleep knowing that a criminal who committed an awful crime, is spending the rest of their life in prison. Although, letting our judicial system decide who gets to live and who gets to die is irresponsible and terrifying. In a Gallop poll recorded in 2015, only 53% of Americans had trust in the judicial system. Knowing that almost half our country does not trust the system, how can we let the system carry such heavy responsibility. Often times, criminals on death row are being executed years and years after their sentence is given. By that time, they have had ample time to reflect on the decisions that they made, and by the time their execution date rolls around, they could be completely different people. Human life is simply too precious and special to allow a flawed judicial system run it. Many countries have already come to this conclusion but the United States is a little late. Most people can all agree that murder is a disgustingly immoral act. If that statement is agreed upon, why do so many support the killing of of the criminals as moral? The death penalty is quite simply vengeance disguised by our judicial system as justice. Sunpreet Singh Kandola did a study on the underlying attitudes behind the death penalty. She wrote of her study “These findings reinforce previous research surrounding individual influences on attitudes to the death penalty and indicate personality factors shaping right-wing authoritarianism as key influences on the construct, rather than a priori higher level measures of morality, gender or victimhood.”(Kandola). Her claim is that the underlying attitudes behind capital punishment are attitudes associated with anger and revenge. The second that we let emotions run the law, than we are in some serious trouble.

The value of human life is not the only thing that makes our capital punishment immoral. The disproportionate amount of minorities that are sentenced to die is simply astonishing. The capital punishment system has been discriminating against minorities ever since its adoption. Of the counties that still have the death penalty legalized, white men make up about 98% of those district’s attorneys. According to the ACLU “While white victims account for approximately one-half of all murder victims, 80% of all Capital cases involve white victims. Furthermore, as of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.” (ACLU). You do not have to look too far to see a problem here. While most of America believes that all races should be treated equally, that is not true everywhere. In less enlightened areas of the country, blatant racism could be used in the decision between life and death. Obviously nothing is perfectly proportional, but the numbers are quite convincing. Even the supreme court of New Jersey released a report saying that their own states law was discriminatory against minorities. If we cannot enforce the death penalty properly, than we certainly cannot enforce it at all. The Equal Protections clause in our constitution protects anyone from discriminatory actions from our government. With statistics like these, it is a fair statement to say that minorities are being discriminated against in court when it comes to capital punishment.

The eighth amendment of the United States constitution reads “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”. So the question in this case is, is death a cruel and unusual punishment? I think that Judge Michael Brennan put it the best during the supreme court trial Georgia vs Gregg. On the topic of whether the death penalty was unconstitutional he wrote “Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment; therefore the principle inherent in the Clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment.”(Georgia vs. Gregg). The point that he is making is that since life in prison serves the same purpose, inflicting a more painful and intense sentence is immoral and cruel. Countries across the world have come to this same conclusion yet for some reason the U.S. has not come around to this realization yet. Since there is very convincing evidence that the death penalty has disproportionately affected minorities, and that it could be considered a cruel and unusual punishment, the death penalty actually would violate two separate amendments. Diann Rust-Tierney wrote a very insightful article on why the death penalty is indefensible. In her eyes the death penalty is pointless because “As the death penalty becomes rarer, it also becomes even more arbitrary and less defensible. Supporters have yet to demonstrate that it produces a tangible good. The practice does not, for example, lead to more safety. A 2008 survey of police chiefs from across the country ranked capital punishment last among methods to reduce violent crime.”(Rust-Tierney). It is scary that something as ineffective, race-based, and cruel is still legal in the United States.

Possibly the biggest objection to the death penalty is the fact that you cannot bring anyone back from the dead. The judicial system is responsible for the death of innocent men who were wrongly accused of crimes that they did not commit. newsweek.com published a particularly disturbing article about innocent men on death row. Referencing a study that was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Pema Levy wrote “Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated. As a percentage of all death sentences, that's just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed. Further, the majority of those wrongfully sentenced to death are likely to languish in prison and never be freed.”(Levy). The thought of innocent men either dying or eroding away in prison should be enough to scare anyone into thinking about abolishment.

Writing laws and policies is often a distribution between risks and rewards. There are certainly reasons why capital punishment has not been abolished by the federal government. It is often cited that the death penalty can help bring closure to the families of the victim, which in many cases I would admit is true. Although, I would say that creating laws based off of emotions and feelings rather than sense is something we should not do. Another argument that is often made by those in favor of the death penalty is when the criminal commits such a heinous crime that they are indefensible. I actually agree with that point to some degree. People like Dylan Roof, who murdered innocent church members in the name of white supremacy are truly evil and despicable people. My counter-argument cites the risk and reward sentiment mentioned above. Saving millions of dollars, protecting minorities, ensuring accuracy, and all the other benefits outweigh keeping capital punishment legal just for extreme cases. I will admit that arguing on the basis of morals is difficult. No one is “right” when it comes to morality positions no matter how bad one wants to be. There are pros and cons to abolishing the death penalty, the argument I have been making is that the pros tend to be more logical and substantive than the cons. 

The death penalty has always been a controversial and emotional topic. Sometimes it isn’t easy to talk about a subject as sensitive as capital punishment. I think it is important to talk about these sensitive issues. As a tax-paying American, I feel that my dollar should go somewhere worth while. I do not believe that spending hundreds of millions of dollars pursuing executions are worth it. The research done on the economic implications of having a death penalty is simply astonishing. I think that this is the strongest argument against keeping the death penalty. As a Christian, the morality behind executions is concerning. The basis of the death penalty is that taking a life is okay if the court deems they “deserve” it. With varying judges, courts, laws, we cannot trust the justice system to always make the right judgement. They have made wrong judgements in the past which has led to innocent men being buried. The studies that show how racially charged the death penalty system further proves my point. If the victim is white, the defendant is severely more likely to be tried for the death penalty. This is not only immoral, but illegal. This violates the equal protections clause attached in the fourteenth amendment of the constitution. In my opinion, this isn't the only amendment that the death penalty violates. I believe that the death penalty should be considered a cruel and unusual punishment by the federal government. Although all of these arguments are separate, they all tie together. There is too much evidence of waste and corruption to keep the capital punishment system. There is a movement in this country that is trending against the death penalty, unfortunately it is a slow one. Just like any other issue, there are good and bad things that could possibly come out of my policy prescription. After thorough research and deep thought I can confidently say that the United States of America should federally ban the death penalty. 

