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It relieves the anguish of the victim’s family (Grisham 120). This paper will address the issue of the death penalty and is more specifically to the audience of death penalty advocates. It will show that looking out for the state of the public’s satisfaction in the scheme of capital sentencing does not constitute serving justice. Today’s system of capital punishment is fraught with inequalities and injustices. Realistically, imposing the death penalty is expensive and time consuming. It has yet to be proved as a deterrent. Morally, it is a continuation of the cycle of violence and...degrades all who are involved in its enforcement, as well as its victim (Stewart 1). It is a deterrent. Perhaps the most frequent argument for capital punishment is that of deterrence. The prevailing thought is that imposition of the death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing violent acts. Numerous studies have been created in attempt to prove this belief; however, evidence does not show that capital punishment deters crimes any more than long prison terms do than long prison terms do (Cavanagh 4). Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Montgomery based Equal Justice Initiative, has stated that... People are increasingly realizing that the more we resort to killing as a legitimate response to our frustration and anger with violence, the more violent our society becomes (Frame 51). It removes killers. One argument of death penalty advocates is that it removes killers from our society. Life imprisonment would also produce this same result. Millions and millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the death penalty sine 1976. The average cost per execution averages two and a half to three and a half million dollars. This is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for forty years (Death Penalty Information Center 1). It is the ultimate punishment. The key part of the death penalty is that it involves death -- something which is rather permanent for humans. This creates a major problem when there continue to be many instances of innocent people being sentenced to death (Tabak 38). According to a 1987 study, twenty three people who were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted were executed between 1900 and 1985 (Long 79). A report by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights shows that seventy people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence since 1970 (Death Penalty Information Center 1). These death penalty errors are irreversible. Until human judgment becomes infallible, this problem alone is reason enough to abolish the death penalty at the hands of the state more dedicated to vengeance than to truth and justice. In our legal system, there exists numerous ways in which justice might be poorly served for a recipient of the death sentence. Foremost is in the handling of his own defense counsel. In the event that a defendant is without counsel, a lawyer will be provided. Attorneys appointed to represent indigent capital defendants frequently lack the qualities necessary to provide a competent defense and sometimes have exhibited such poor character that they have subsequently been disbarred (Tabak 37). With payment caps or court determined sums of, for example, five dollars an hour, there is not much incentive for a lawyer to spend a great deal of time representing a capital defendant. In other words, "Capital punishment means them without the capital gets the punishment (Frame 5)." It is biblical. This concept is based on an eye for an eye scripture of the Old Testament. This belief is morally bankrupt. Why do governments kill people to show that killing people is wrong? Humanity becomes associated with murderers when it replicates their deeds. Would society allow rape as the penalty for rape or the burning of an arsonists’ home as the penalty for arson? The state should never have the power to murder subjects. To give the state this power eliminates the individual’s most effective shield against tyranny of the majority and is inconsistent with democratic principles. The New Testament teachings of Jesus states Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also (Matthew 5:38-9). It satisfies the public’s need for retribution. Revenge is an unworthy motive for our society to pursue (Whittier 1). At some point, man must stop the violence. Seeking temporary gratification is not a logical basis for whether the death penalty should be imposed. Granted, revenge is easily confused with retribution, and most would agree that the punishment should fit the crime, but can society really justify murdering someone else simply on the basis that they deserved it? Government has the right and duty to protect the greater good against people who jeopardize the welfare of society, but a killer can be sentenced to life without chance of parole, and society will be just as safe as if had been executed. It relieves the anguish of the victim's family. In our society, there is a great expectation placed on the family of a victim to pursue vengeance to the highest degree -- the death penalty. Pat Bane, executive director of the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), stated, One parent told me that people made her feel like she was betraying her son because she did not want to kill the person who murdered him (Frame 50). This creates a dilemma of morality. If anything, by forcing families to seek the death penalty, their own consciences will be burdened by the death of the killer. Furthermore, killing him will not bring back your son (Grisham 402). It will lesson prison costs. A vast misconception concerning the death penalty is that it saves society the costs of keeping inmates imprisoned for long periods. In the act of preserving due process of justice, the court appeals involved with the death penalty become a long, drawn-out and very expensive process. Criminal justice process expenses, trial court costs, appellate and post-conviction costs, and prison costs perhaps including years served on death row awaiting execution... all told, the extra cost per death penalty imposed in over a quarter million dollars, and per execution exceeds two million (Cavanagh 4). In earlier times--when capital punishment was common, the value of life was less, and societies were more barbaric--capital punishment was probably quite acceptable. However, in today’s society, which is becoming ever more increasingly humanitarian, and individual rights and due process of justice are held in higher accord, the death penalty is becoming an unrealistic form of punishment. Also, with the ever present possibility of mistaken execution, there will remain the question of innocence of those put to death. Finally, man is not a divine being. He does not have the right to inflict mortal punishment in the name of society’s welfare, when there are suitable substitutes that require fewer resources. Bibliography: WORKS CITED Cavanagh, Suzanne, and David Teasley. Capital Punishment: A Brief Overview. CRS ReportFor Congress (1995): 4.Flanders, Stephen A. Capital Punishment. New York, NY: H.W. Company, 1991.Frame, Randy. A Matter of Life and Death. Christianity Today. 14 Aug. 1995: 50.Grisham, John. The Chamber. Island Books:New York, 1994.Stewart, David O. Dealing With Death. American Bar Association Journal 80.11 (1994): 50 Tabak, Ronald J. Report: Ineffective Assistance Counsel and Lack of Due Process in Death Penalty Cases. Human Rights 22. Winter (1995): 36. Whittier, Charles H. Moral Arguments For and Against Capital Punishment Word Count: 1291
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