e former. This, to me, is not a tough call”(Pro-death penalty.com). The death penalty also saves the government money in the long run. A trial for a capital case (which is a case of first-degree murder) is already time consuming and expensive. This type of case usually takes around six weeks and constitutes between 3,000 and 5,000 pages of court records. When a convicted killer is given life without parole, the appeals made by attorneys on both sides, as well as appeals by the court and the judges involved, add up to millions of dollars our government wastes every year, not to mention money for the convicted murderer’s food and clothing, etc.(Jacobs, Landes, and Siegel). Lastly, I feel that capital punishment is the only way of making sure that a murderer will not kill again. Many people refute this argument by saying, “Well, what about life in prison without parole? Doesn’t that do the same thing?” Sadly, most convicted murderers are not given life prison terms, especially with their first murder. The average prison sentence for murder is less than six years!(Jacobs, Landes, and Siegel) The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 1998, thirty-seven states and the federal prison system held 3,452 prisoners under sentence of death, all of which had committed murder. Among the inmates with available criminal histories, two out of three had a prior felony conviction, and even more abhorrent, one in two had a prior homicide conviction(Bureau)! The cold hard truth is that if a convicted murderer is allowed to go free, he/she will most likely murder again. At least six percent of murderers kill again within six years of their release(Sentencing Info.). In conclusion, the death penalty seems to me to be the best course of action in a murder case. As I have said, it is the best deterrent America employs against murder, it saves our country money, and most importantly, it guarantees that a murderer will not hav...
