A current and highly controversial topic, the use of capital punishment and / or the death penalty, has been in practice since the very foundation of this country. This subject is highly important and frequently debated upon because it hinges on the government’s abilities to intervene on one of the only worldwide, agreed upon, “human rights” that everyone deserves: life. Via capital punishment, the government has the right to end a human life. Most of the time, these people on death row are considered and proven guilty in the court of law in either one of 31 states that are still using the practice, or at the federal level, where the death penalty is completely legal. Most recently placed on death row at the federal level is Dylann Roof, whom is responsible for the notoriously racially driven Charleston church shooting. In circumstances such as this, it is almost unanimous across the  general population that after committing such a heinous act, Roof certainly deserves the death penalty; however, in many cases, the evidence is not so cut and dried. The most recent execution, though generally unheard of, is the execution of Richard Masterson. Masterson was convicted of homicide in 2002; however, it was later found that following the victim’s death, medical examiner Paul Shrode was unqualified to perform the autopsy on the victim in which he ruled Masterson a killer. Although Masterson plead guilty, his lawyer argued it was out of Masterson’s misunderstanding of his sentence and legal rights. Often times courts pressure inmates into pleading guilty with promises of a shorter sentence. Due to instances like these that are surrounded in mass confusion, there is a significant amount of controversy surrounding the death penalty from all angles. Through this paper the setbacks and benefits to the death penalty will be researched and analyzed. Additionally, this paper will explore and answer the question: With consideration to the current controversy over the use of capital punishment in the United States, what are the potential and present setbacks or benefits to using such a practice? Furthermore, should it be continued? Given the current controversial climate surrounding the use of capital punishment, the discrepancies in methods used throughout the country, and an overall lack of criminal evidence, the death penalty should be suspended in the United States until it can be safely regulated via evidence, medical protocol, and consistency throughout. 

Prior to delving into the modern day use of capital punishment, it is important to acknowledge the roots of the practice. The use of the death penalty dates back as early as 18th century B.C. It’s use in America was brought about during the colonial times, the practice being heavily influenced by British aristocrats. Since then, the United States has seen the use of the death penalty ebb and flow, yet remain stable throughout (common knowledge). However, America has progressed significantly politically, morally, and rationally since the colonial times. As these changes in thought and morality have come about, it has led some people to question the morality of the use of the death penalty. However, there is still a very strong amount of the population in support of the continued use of the death penalty. Essentially, capital punishment advocates argue that when a crime is so heinous, there is no other option other than to end that person’s life. They additionally argue that the death penalty serves as an adequate deterrent to such heinous crimes, DNA testing is used accurately, fairly, and up to protocol, and that the continued use of capital punishment will decrease prison over population. Though some of these points logically make sense, there are a plethora of reasons such as faulty DNA testing, extreme lack of evidence for deterrence, high tax payer cost and the presence of medical malpractice to consider the other side of the coin: banning or re-regulating the death penalty. 

According to the article “Capital Punishment in the United States and Beyond” by Paul Marcus of William and Mary, after exploring the death penalty in extensive detail in its various nuances, he concludes that we should seek an “improved process of guilt determination”         regarding the use of death penalty. He notes additionally that the U.S. is unique in it’s historic distrust of a large, powerful central government. He follows up on this idea by noting that the U.S., as arguably the most developed country in the world, is significantly obsolete in it’s use of the death penalty. This is an interesting aspect to consider, and one initially not considered in this research paper. The major values and interests Marcus discusses are ethical and moral issues, as well as practical legal issues. He addresses the most obvious legal issue: proof of guilt. He notes that DNA testing has freed at least 170 inmates from death row; however, he says that DNA testing is limited to a very small number of cases: in fact, some inmates do not receive any DNA testing prior to being executed. This practice of DNA testing, which should be protocol for every death sentence, is actually few and far between. Additionally, he addresses other subjective issues such as racism, sexism, and classism in the death penalty. Though he does not delve into detail  regarding these specifics, he notes that those three facets certainly play an unfair role in the current use of Capital Punishment. Paul Marcus received both a J.D. and an A.B. at the University of  California Los Angeles. Currently, he is a professor of law at William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. He has written 50+ articles, authored and co-authored about ten books, all related to legal issues, specifically regarding the penitentiary system, and also acted as a Clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for several years. Though Marcus does not state a clear and concise   thesis or opinion, it is blatantly obvious in his writing that he is seeking stricter regulations on DNA testing and a closer look into sexism, racism, and classism with regard to capital punishment, and more broadly, in the U.S. jail system as a whole. 

In John Lamperti’s work, “Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder?”, the central question Lamperti is answering is: does the death penalty provide a better deterrent to murder/violent crimes than long term or life imprisonment? His evidence is based on a study conducted by Thorsten Sellin, a Swedish- American sociologist and pioneer of scientific criminology. The results of this study concluded that, based on Sellin’s statistical analyses and observations, homicide death rates vary vastly on a state by state basis meaning that no clear connection can be drawn. Trends of homicide death rates in states that did not practice the death penalty were either the same or similar to those that did practice the death penalty. Additionally, he noted that given similar social and economic situations, it is impossible to blindly distinguish abolition states from those still practicing capital punishment. In essence, there is nothing distinguishable about states that practice or do not practice capital punishment with regard to their crime rates. He uses proven statistics about socioeconomic status, race, and incarceration rates to make his claims. He first cites the clinical field test of the Salk Polio Vaccine. The outcome of this clinical field test proved that the vaccine statistically, was judged an ultimate success. Lamperti claims that it is impossible to analyze the death penalty under a study designed like a medical field test. There is no control or independent group, and the issues are far too complex and widespread to compare to the death penalty and it’s use in America. Additionally, he notes that prisoners do not have the same rights as those volunteering to participate in a clinical trial. He next cites the use of cigarettes/tobacco and the presence of lung cancer. In his study, he could not prove that cigarettes directly correlate to lung cancer because often times those who smoke cigarettes had different traits than those who do not smoke (increased impulsivity, less exercise, etc.). What this means, is that there is an opportunity for a “third” issue to be at hand in those who smoke, leading to lung cancer. Lamperti compares the fuzzy correlation between smoking and lung cancer to the fuzzy correlation between the death penalty and deterrence. He does this by demonstrating that there is no general connection between smoking and lung cancer, just as there is no general connection between the implementation of capital punishment and decreased crime rates. John W. Lamperti earned a B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics from Haverford College, as well his PhD in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology. Though he is a mathematics professor, he has dedicated much of his life to political and social work and  research. As far as the death penalty is concerned, Lamperti claims statistics and math intersect with this social issue through “deterrence”. He has examined the statistical abilities of the death penalty to act as a deterrent to commit crimes to criminals. According to his statistical analyses, the death penalty does not act as an effective deterrent, and thus, should not be continued in the U.S. 

Another researcher, Rob Warden, focused on this practice’s ability to deter a criminal from committing a certain crime, most typically murder. As one of the pioneers of the anti-death penalty movement, Warden claims in his article titled, “Reflections on Capital Punishment,” that the death penalty has no deterrent effect, maintaining that the penalty costs more to tax payers than it would to house inmates for life, and that there have certainly been innocent Americans killed by the death penalty. This notion of Warden’s that the death penalty is extremely and unnecessarily costly is bolstered by PhD John Roman’s research about capital punishment in his article in the Oxford Academic American Law and Economic Review article “Reassessing the Cost of the Death Penalty Using Quasi- Experimental Methods.” According to fourteen studies researched by Roman, a death row inmate costs, on average an additional $517,000 during trial, $147,000 more during the penal time they must serve, and $201,000 more if the death sentence is to be questioned or reversed (Roman). Overall, with things like housing and food calculated in, that puts each death row inmate at about a $1,000,000 additional cost just for their sentence alone (Roman). These statistics are compared to those of non- death penalty homicide trials, not petty crime trials like theft, minor drug possession, or public intoxication, so any risk of number or statistical inflation can be ruled out. These costs accumulate from the things like additional time and evidence needed in the courtroom to allow the death penalty, the price to house and feed these inmates while they await their final trial, often times for many years, and finally, the costs to reverse the death sentence if need be.  Warden is a well known legal affairs journalist. He is both an editor and a publisher at Chicago Lawyer magazine. In the 80’s, he uncovered dozens of wrongful legal convictions alone, as well as figured out several wrongful capital punishment convictions. This article, written in the fall of 2009, there are several issues surrounding this time period related to capital punishment. In early ’09, Romell Broom had a “botched” execution, as well as several predecessors in ’08 and ’07 of executions “gone wrong” or executing a potentially innocent person. It is important to acknowledge these things in the light of this article considering the gravity of one’s life.

Rather than focusing on common or obvious issues such as innocence vs. guilt or race, Richard C. Dieter takes a different look into the death penalty in his work, “Methods of Execution and Their Effect on the use of the Death Penalty in the United States”. He examines the effect of different methods of execution on the prisoner, their families, and the staff, and focuses on the large vail placed on lethal injection. In his examination, he references an article from the L.A. Times that sets up the more modern scenario of lethal injection very realistically. The prisoners have little to no idea what drugs are being injected into them which is illegal in hospitals and doctors offices across America, then, once IVs are set up and inserted, the cold, dark, secluded room is shut and locked, and the prisoner is left alone to die, or not die in some circumstances. In the adjacent room, the drugs are administered by medical staff, or occasionally even merely unqualified prison workers, and the room is often cramped with press, prison staff, and state workers. He claims this is a terrible way to go about the death penalty process, and cites stories of doctors and nurses claiming the procedure was not done in accordance with medical protocol. The major values and interests about this medical practice Dieter explores in this article are twofold. First, he explores the problems and issues with lethal injection. He highlights that sometimes the lethal injections or other methods used do not work, often leaving the prisoner in agony for hours. He also notes that the medical staff is shorthanded, or even nonexistent, or the medicines used have not been tested and approved yet by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Examples of this range from collapsed veins during lethal injection, prolonging the process and causing the inmate extreme pain, severe adverse reactions to drugs administered causing seizures, pain, cardiac arrest and even unintentional death (Death Penalty Information Center). Additionally, unmentioned by Dieter but still pertinent, electrocution, not even a medical practice, has caused a handful of immoral and sometimes unsuccessful deaths. In July of 1989, Horace Dunkins was pronounced dead twenty minutes after the first jolt of electricity. After the procedure, Alabama Prison Commissioner Morris Thigpen said, “I regret very much what happened. [the cause] was human error” (Death Penalty Information Center). It is evident here that something is severely wrong with the way the criminal justice system handles capital punishment; it is ill- regulated, often mis-practiced, and, some would argue, cruel and unusual, specifically regarding the electric chair. This would be considered a moral issue regarding the prisoner’s rights to both proper medical care and ethical rights to be free of pain. Secondly, Dieter addresses how this awful process could be inflicted on an innocent prisoner and how immoral and illegal this concept is. Dieter graduated cum laude with a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He has been the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. for over 20 years. He has additionally written a multitude of publications about law and ethics, many of which relate to the death penalty. Though the Death Penalty Information Center expresses no direct bias on the practice, in Dieter’s personal life, he does not defend the policy. He claims (in a separate article) that if life in prison were substituted for execution, there would never be an instance of killing an innocent citizen via death row. He additionally cites racial bias and mental retardation as reasons to not use the practice, as they have been noted to effect one’s chances of living or dying on death row, minorities and mentally handicapped unfortunately being victimized more often than not.  

In addition to ethical and health issues, lack of evidence of deterrent factors, and other reasons, CNN Legal Analyst Philip Holloway has also spoken out regarding this issue in his article “Time to Question the Sanity of the Death Penalty”. Essentially this piece makes the argument that there are a multitude of reasons why the death penalty both does not work and why there are more effective ways to handle dangerous criminals. Holloway, through this paper, reiterates many of the facts, which will be presented in the examples below, that have already been proven against this practice in a modern setting. This topic was brought up due to the jury in Holmes’ case deciding whether or not to implement the death penalty. Holmes had been found guilty of murder in the first degree for killing 12 people in the well known tragic Aurora Massacre. The writer, Holloway, argues that lifelong imprisonments are a better alternative to the actual death penalty because they ultimately cause more suffering to the inmate, which then creates actual deterrence to committing the crime. 

Though death is a terrifying concept for the average person, studies show that killers “never develop a sense of belonging an attachment to the world” (Dieter). This statement demonstrates that killers most likely have an extremely different outlook on the value of life; clearly if they are willing to take the life of another on a whim, their concept of life’s value is probably seriously skewed. This is reiterated and proven time and time again through these killer’s last words. “I don't care if I live or die, go ahead and kill me,” a direct quote from Jeffrey Dahmer, a rapist and killer of 17 men and underaged boys, whom was executed November 1994; or, even more disheartening, Carl Panzram’s final words to the prison guard in the room, “Hurry up and do it you Hoozier bastard! I could hang over a dozen men while you're screwing around” in September of 1930 before he was hung to death. For this reason, how does one know the killer would be afraid of the death penalty? Based on these two chilling quotes, and with a plethora of many more frightening death row last word speeches, it is clear that these inmates, who are clearly guilty given their statements, are genuinely not only ready to die, but are still thinking of harming others up until their last breath. If these inmates are so happy and ready to die, the question then becomes: why should we allow them to have their way if they have inflicted so much pain and hurt upon others? Prison life is no day at the Ritz Carlton, especially not when these dangerous inmates are locked up in a maximum security facility prison housing without an option for parole: they will never leave the doors of the prison unless it is to be transferred. In maximum security, inmates are allowed one hour outside a day, where they effectively stand in a cage where they are unable to harm themselves or anyone else. This is the only time they are allowed to leave their cell. In addition to Holloway’s point about punishing the criminals, he also argues that the death penalty is expensive and makes no financial sense for the tax dollar/tax payer as previously noted, that it is harder on the criminal’s families, it is not fairly applied, and, occasionally, innocent people/ so called criminals die on death row. Holloway is a lawyer now working as a top level CNN legal analyst. He is both a former prosecutor and police officer, which gives him a unique introspective knowledge into this specific issue as he has, in a sense, been on “both sides” of the equation. 

In conclusion, it has become increasingly evident that the death penalty should be outlawed until the United States Government can pass laws to ultimately regulate this on a national level. It is unacceptable that abortion, so highly contested and debated, has become such a topic of debate, yet the death penalty has been almost untouched with regard to current political discussion. The two topics both discuss ending a “human life” at the decision of another human being. Considering bills are currently being passed in the White House to stop abortion, or at least strictly limit it, it is concerning that the death penalty has rarely even been discussed in the current political environment. It has been noted as an inhumane practice by medical workers, doctors, and prison staff alike. It has additionally gone unproven that the death penalty even acts as a deterrent to criminals at all. Given the strict regulations on the food we eat, the cars we drive, and even the things we say by the government, it is unfathomable that the death penalty has hardly even been questioned by democrats and republicans alike. This practice is ill-proven, out of date and inhumane and should be put out of practice until certified medical officials and legal workers can devise a humane, effective, and proven plan to use this practice with strict regulations, just like any other medical or legal practice. 
