capital punishment believe the death penalty is absurd and is an un-Christian practice. Further more, they feel society should not encourage sentiments of vengeance that cater to morbid interest in ritual execution (Chronology). Many people feel that capital punishment is not a deterrent but that it is a spiteful action of the past and has no place in a civilized society today (Issue). In fact, law enforcement officials do not consider the death penalty an effective deterrent. Of 368 police chief and sheriffs, the death penalty was ranked as the least cost effective way of reducing violent crimes (Issues). According to a new national poll:The man with the money and a good lawyer was always able to get out better than the poor man with an attorney selected by the court After a man was hanged no evidence, nor court order could bring him back, even though he was proven innocent (Background 22). Those who "have labored long in the criminal justice system know, supported by a variety of studies and extensive personal experience, that blacks get the harsher hand in criminal justice and particularly in capital punishment cases," McCann wrote in "Opposing Capital Punishment: A Prosecutor's Perspective," published in the Marquette Law Review in 1996 (Bonner & Fessenden). Forty-three percent of the people on death row across the country are African-Americans, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (Bonner & Fessenden). In Milwaukee, the district attorney for the last 32 years, E. Michael McCann, shares the view that the death penalty is applied unfairly to minorities. "It is rare that a wealthy white man gets executed, if it happens at all," McCann said (Bonner & Fessenden).In twelve states that have chosen not to use capital punishment, an analysis by The New York Times found that the demographic profile of states with the death penalty is not far different from that of states without it. Indeed, 10 of the 12 states without c...
