ow than it would be to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives. The expense comes from the long drawn out appeals process that we are giving our criminals, and the court appointed attorneys that the poor are receiving. (Death Penalty Information Center)The death penalty costs the state of North Carolina 2.6 million per execution while it costs the whole nation [United States] 700 million since 1976. And it's the same everywhere, Florida spent an estimated $57 million on the death penalty from 1973 to 1988 to achieve 18 executions - that is an average of $3.2 million per execution. (Miami Herald, July 10, 1988). In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. However it is also a form of insurance that the criminal will never commit another crime again. (Death Penalty Information Center)What the Bible Says?In the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) the death penalty was required for a wide range of offenses, both civil and religious. In the following passages from the King James Version of the Bible, Jehovah required the state to execute a person for murder: Genesis 9:6 states: Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. If sufficient proof were provided that a person had committed a crime, the state imposed the death penalty on the guilty person(s). They were either stoned to death, impaled or burned alive. Witnesses who testified at the trial would often participate in the killing. To their credit, the courts of ancient Israel required very high levels of proof of criminality before they would order the death penalty (Horwitz, 1973, 36)Conclusion:Of course, a person may think it is immoral to kill someone no matter what they have done. When I say it is retributive justice to take the life in turn for the taking of another life, it could be argued that ...
