warden at Californias San Quentin Prison once said, . . . the term capital punishment is ironic because only those without capital get the punishment (Bedau 6). This statement seems to be true today. Without capital, one cannot be tried equally, since he or she cannot afford private investigators, psychiatrists, and expert criminal lawyers to help with the trial. Therefore, the poor suffer the harshest punishment. Racial, sex, and socio-economic discrimination plays an important role in deciding the punishment placed on the crime, which is clearly not equal protection from the law.Capital punishment has many supporters. One of the major arguments that these supporters express is that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime. The supporters argue that if the death penalty is legalized and practiced, it will discourage others from committing a crime. However, by comparing the data of the states with the death penalty and the states without the death penalty, one can easily see that the death penalty has no effect in deterring crime. According to the National Research Council in 1976, the available studies provide no useful evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment (Bedau 141-42). The states that use the death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates than the states without such laws because according to an FBI report, which states that . . . states which have abolished the death penalty averaged lower murder rates than states which have not (Bedau 142). Furthermore, the states that establish death penalty laws do not reap any significant benefits in reducing crime or murder rates. Research shows that a large percentage of the murderers do what they do because of passion, malevolence, and/or because they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs (Bedau 170). This statistic demonstrates the fact that the murderer gives little thought to the consequences he or she might have to face later on for the crime....
