for 40 years is estimated at $750,000. This is a huge amount of taxpayer money but the public looks at it as an investment in safety since these murders will never kill again. Retentionists argue that these high costs are due to "the lengthy time and the high expense result from innumerable appeals, many over 'technicalities' which have little or nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence, and do little more than jam up the nation's court system. If these 'frivolous' appeals were eliminated, the procedure would neither take so long nor cost so much" (Kronenwetter 29). The moral issues concerning the legitimacy of the death have been brought by many abolitionists. They think that respect for life forbids the use of the death penalty, while retentionists believe that respect for life requires it. Retentionists says the bible (Genesis 9:6) says, "Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man may his blood be shed." This classic argument in favor of the death penalty has usually been interpreted as a proper and moral reason for putting a murderer to death. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is its secondary counterpart (Cox). Both quotes imply that the murderer deserves to die and it was his own fault for putting himself on death row. Supporters of capital punishment say that society has the right to kill in defense of its members, just as an individual has the right to kill in self defense for his or her own personal safety. This analogy is somewhat doubtful, however, as long as the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to violent crimes has yet to be proven. In the United States, the main objection to capital punishment has been that it was always used unfairly, in at least three major ways. First, females are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though 20 percent of all murders that have occurred in recent years were committed by women. Second, a disproportionate number of nonwhites are sentenced to death and execut...
