This Is an Electronic Packet of Information to Use to Write Your Research Paper. Think
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This is an electronic packet of information to use to write your Research Paper. Think of this packet like a cafeteria – you will select those items from it that you want to use in your Research Paper and leave all of the other items.
From this packet you are to select the BEST pieces of particulars to provide perfect proof that your Claim (thesis) is correct. Your quotes, your block quotes and your paraphrases will all come from the material in this packet. Nothing will be documented in your paper that is not in this packet. You are NOT to use information from any other sources; your “research” has been done for you – it is this packet, and only this packer. The packet contains a variety of information. Some of which you will not be able to use because it will not support your claim. Remember to select the best proof. The Research Paper IS TO BE YOUR WRITING AND YOUR IDEAS, SUPPORTED BY TEXTUAL SPECIFICS FROM THESE SOURCES.
You may not be able to write a complete Works Cited page entry for every text in this electronic packet, but remember: MLA rules state that if an item is missing that would usually go into an entry for the Works Cited page, the writer ignores the missing piece and created an entry without the missing information. Are you asking yourself why won’t you know all the information to write a complete entry? Only the information given at the top of each of the first pages of each piece of information (some information may take more than one page) can be used. Remember, using MLA rules – if a piece of information is not provided, ignore it and move to list the next piece of information that you do have.
If you have a question, ask in class….e-mail me… stop in before school or after school. Remember that famous saying by Jim Rohn: “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." Don’t put off working on this paper.
We will go to the Media Center to work on this. I strongly suggest that you have a flash-drive, and/or save everything to your space on the school website.
Don’t waste time. This is a big project and worth many points.
You can do this! Mrs. C 2014 AP English Language/ Hon. Am Lit Synthesis Paper Question 2
Capital punishment (also called the death penalty or execution) in the United States is a legal sentence in 32 states, and in the federal civilian and military legal systems. Its application is limited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution to aggravated murders committed by mentally competent adults. Capital punishment was a penalty for many felonies under English common law, and it was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence. The methods of execution and the crimes subject to the death penalty vary by state and have changed over time. The most common method since 1976 has been lethal injection. Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977, thirty-four states have performed executions. In 2010, 39 inmates were executed in the United States and 3,108 were on death row – an execution rate of less than 2%. Many states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio and Arizona regularly execute convicted murderers. Texas has performed the most executions by far, and Oklahoma has had (through mid-2011) the highest per capita execution rate. The Supreme Court has placed two major restrictions on the use of the death penalty. First, the case of Atkins v. Virginia, decided on June 20, 2002, held that the execution of mentally retarded inmates is "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Generally, a person with an IQ below 70 is considered to be mentally retarded. Prior to this decision, between 1984 and 2002, forty-four mentally retarded inmates had been executed in the United States. Second, in 2005, the Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) abolished executions for persons under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. Carefully read the following 7 sources, including the introductory information for each source. Then synthesize information from at least three (3) of the sources and incorporate it into a coherent, well- developed essay that argues a clear position on whether the United States Government should eliminated Capital Punishment as a legal judicial punishment or should maintained it as a legal judicial punishment.
Make sure your argument is central; use the sources to illustrate and support your reasoning. Avoid merely summarizing the sources. Indicate clearly which sources you are drawing from, whether through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. In the paper, you may cite the sources as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the descriptions in parentheses. In the Works Cited, you may NOT cite sources as Source A, Source B, etc.; the Works Cited page must be in alphabetical order – using the information needed from the box for each source (author, title, etc.). Remember, the “website” information is given only for your information; websites are not given in a paper or in Works Cited page.
Source A (“Arguments”) Source B (Messerli) Source C (Drehle) Source D (Bedau) Source E (“History”) Source F (Lowe ) Source G ( “Numbers”)
Source A:
“ Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty.” Michigan State University Death Penalty Information Center. Michigan State University Death Penalty Information Center online, 2000. Web. August 10, 2014.
Website: http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/arguments.PDF The Death Penalty Prevents Future Murders Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life.
For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out.
Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty. Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University who has studied the question of deterrence closely, wrote: "Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts. Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most. Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence. Perhaps they will not be deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else. We owe all the protection we can give to law enforcers exposed to special risks."
Finally, the death penalty certainly "deters" the murderer who is executed. Strictly speaking, this is a form of incapacitation, similar to the way a robber put in prison is prevented from robbing on the streets. Vicious murderers must be killed to prevent them from murdering again, either in prison, or in society if they should get out. Both as a deterrent and as a form of permanent incapacitation, the death penalty helps to prevent future crime.
Testimony in support of deterrence Ernest van den Haag Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy, Fordham University. Excerpts from " The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense," (Harvard Law Review Association, 1986) “Execution of those who have committed heinous murders may deter only one murder per year. If it does, it seems quite warranted. It is also the only fitting retribution for murder I can think of.”…
“Most abolitionists acknowledge that they would continue to favor abolition even if the death penalty were shown to deter more murders than alternatives could deter. Abolitionists appear to value the life of a convicted murderer or, at least, his non-execution, more highly than they value the lives of the innocent victims who might be spared by deterring prospective murderers. Deterrence is not altogether decisive for me either. I would favor retention of the death penalty as retribution even if it were shown that the threat of execution could not deter prospective murderers not already deterred by the threat of imprisonment. Still, I believe the death penalty, because of its finality, is more feared than imprisonment, and deters some prospective murderers not deterred by the thought of imprisonment. Sparing the lives of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the lives of convicted murderers because of the possibility, or even the probability, that executing them would not deter others. Whereas the life of the victims who might be saved are valuable, that of the murderer has only negative value, because of his crime. Surely the criminal law is meant to protect the lives of potential victims in preference to those of actual murderers.” …
”We threaten punishments in order to deter crime. We impose them not only to make the threats credible but also as retribution (justice) for the crimes that were not deterred. Threats and punishments are necessary to deter and deterrence is a sufficient practical justification for them. Retribution is an independent moral justification. Although penalties can be unwise, repulsive, or inappropriate, and those punished can be pitiable, in a sense the infliction of legal punishment on a guilty person cannot be unjust. By committing the crime, the criminal volunteered to assume the risk of receiving a legal punishment that he could have avoided by not committing the crime. The punishment he suffers is the punishment he voluntarily risked suffering and, therefore, it is no more unjust to him than any other event for which one knowingly volunteers to assume the risk. Thus, the death penalty cannot be unjust to the guilty criminal.”
The Death Penalty is Not a Proven Deterrent to Future Murders Those who believe that deterrence justifies the execution of certain offenders bear the burden of proving that the death penalty is a deterrent. The overwhelming conclusion from years of deterrence studies is that the death penalty is, at best, no more of a deterrent than a sentence of life in prison. The Ehrlich studies have been widely discredited. In fact, some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is, society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. Even most supporters of the death penalty now place little or no weight on deterrence as a serious justification for its continued use.
States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty.
The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively. As someone who presided over many of Texas's executions, former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox has remarked, "It is my own experience that those executed in Texas were not deterred by the existence of the death penalty law. I think in most cases you'll find that the murder was committed under severe drug and alcohol abuse."
There is no conclusive proof that the death penalty acts as a better deterrent than the threat of life imprisonment. A survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies found that 84% of these experts rejected the notion that research had demonstrated any deterrent effect from the death penalty .
Once in prison, those serving life sentences often settle into a routine and are less of a threat to commit violence than other prisoners. Moreover, most states now have a sentence of life without parole. Prisoners who are given this sentence will never be released. Thus, the safety of society can be assured without using the death penalty.
TESTIMONY IN REBUTTAL TO DETERRENCE: Hugo Adam Bedau and Austin Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University Excerpts from “The Case Against The Death Penalty” (Copyright 1997, American Civil Liberties Union)
“Persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence either may or may not premeditate their crimes. When crime is planned, the criminal ordinarily concentrates on escaping detection, arrest, and conviction. The threat of even the severest punishment will not discourage those who expect to escape detection and arrest. It is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is not premeditated....
Most capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment. Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended. In such cases, violence is inflicted by persons heedless of the consequences to themselves as well as to others....
If, however, severe punishment can deter crime, then long-term imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime. The vast preponderance of the evidence shows that the death penalty is no more effective than imprisonment in deterring murder and that it may even be an incitement to criminal violence. Death-penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death penalty states....
On-duty police officers do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide in abolitionist states than they do in death-penalty states. Between l973 and l984, for example, lethal assaults against police were not significantly more, or less, frequent in abolitionist states than in death-penalty states. There is ‘no support for the view that the death penalty provides a more effective deterrent to police homicides than alternative sanctions. Not for a single year was evidence found that police are safer in jurisdictions that provide for capital punishment.’ (Bailey and Peterson, Criminology (1987))
Prisoners and prison personnel do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide from life- term prisoners in abolition states than they do in death-penalty states. Between 1992 and 1995, 176 inmates were murdered by other prisoners; the vast majority (84%) were killed in death penalty jurisdictions. During the same period about 2% of all assaults on prison staff were committed by inmates in abolition jurisdictions. Evidently, the threat of the death penalty ‘does not even exert an incremental deterrent effect over the threat of a lesser punishment in the abolitionist states.’ (Wolfson, in Bedau, ed., The Death Penalty in America, 3rd ed. (1982)) Actual experience thus establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty does not deter murder. No comparable body of evidence contradicts that conclusion.
A just society requires the death penalty for the taking of a life. When someone takes a life, the balance of justice is disturbed. Unless that balance is restored, society succumbs to a rule of violence. Only the taking of the murderer's life restores the balance and allows society to show convincingly that murder is an intolerable crime which will be punished in kind. Retribution has its basis in religious values, which have historically maintained that it is proper to take an "eye for an eye" and a life for a life.
Although the victim and the victim's family cannot be restored to the status which preceded the murder, at least an execution brings closure to the murderer's crime (and closure to the ordeal for the victim's family) and ensures that the murderer will create no more victims. For the most cruel and heinous crimes, the ones for which the death penalty is applied, offenders deserve the worst punishment under our system of law, and that is the death penalty. Any lesser punishment would undermine the value society places on protecting lives.
Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma City, described his concept of the need for retribution in one case: "In 1991, a young mother was rendered helpless and made to watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. The killer should not lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die."
Testimony in support of retribution Louis P. Pojman; Author and Professor of Philosophy, U.S. Military Academy. Excerpt from "The Death Penalty: For and Against," (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998)
“[Opponents of the capital punishment often put forth the following argument:] Perhaps the murderer deserves to die, but what authority does the state have to execute him or her? Both the Old and New Testament says, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Prov. 25:21 and Romans 12:19). You need special authority to justify taking the life of a human being. The objector fails to note that the New Testament passage continues with a support of the right of the state to execute criminals in the name of God: ‘Let every person be subjected to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.... If you do wrong, be afraid, for [the authority] does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer’ (Romans 13: 1-4). So, according to the Bible, the authority to punish, which presumably includes the death penalty, comes from God.
But we need not appeal to a religious justification for capital punishment. We can cite the state's role in dispensing justice. Just as the state has the authority (and duty) to act justly in allocating scarce resources, in meeting minimal needs of its (deserving) citizens, in defending its citizens from violence and crime, and in not waging unjust wars; so too does it have the authority, flowing from its mission to promote justice and the good of its people, to punish the criminal. If the criminal, as one who has forfeited a right to life, deserves to be executed, especially if it will likely deter would-be murderers, the state has a duty to execute those convicted of first-degree murder.”
REBUTTAL TO RETRIBUTION: The death penalty is not a just response for the taking of a life. Retribution is another word for revenge. Although our first instinct may be to inflict immediate pain on someone who wrongs us, the standards of a mature society demand a more measured response.
The emotional impulse for revenge is not a sufficient justification for invoking a system of capital punishment, with all its accompanying problems and risks. Our laws and criminal justice system should lead us to higher principles that demonstrate a complete respect for life, even the life of a murderer. Encouraging our basest motives of revenge, which ends in another killing, extends the chain of violence. Allowing executions sanctions killing as a form of 'pay-back.' Many victims' families denounce the use of the death penalty. Using an execution to try to right the wrong of their loss is an affront to them and only causes more pain. For example, Bud Welch's daughter, Julie, was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Although his first reaction was to wish that those who committed this terrible crime be killed, he ultimately realized that such killing "is simply vengeance; and it was vengeance that killed Julie.... Vengeance is a strong and natural emotion. But it has no place in our justice system." The notion of an eye for an eye, or a life for a life, is a simplistic one which our society has never endorsed. We do not allow torturing the torturer, or raping the rapist. Taking the life of a murderer is a similarly disproportionate punishment, especially in light of the fact that the U.S. executes only a small percentage of those convicted of murder, and these defendants are typically not the worst offenders but merely the ones with the fewest resources to defend themselves.
TESTIMONY IN REBUTTAL TO RETRIBUTION: National Council of Synagogues and the Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
Excerpts from “To End the Death Penalty: A Report of the National Jewish/Catholic Consultation” (December, 1999): “Some would argue that the death penalty is needed as a means of retributive justice, to balance out the crime with the punishment. This reflects a natural concern of society, and especially of victims and their families. Yet we believe that we are called to seek a higher road even while punishing the guilty, for example through long and in some cases life-long incarceration, so that the healing of all can ultimately take place. Some would argue that the death penalty will teach society at large the seriousness of crime. Yet we say that teaching people to respond to violence with violence will, again, only breed more violence.
The strongest argument of all [in favor of the death penalty] is the deep pain and grief of the families of victims, and their quite natural desire to see punishment meted out to those who have plunged them into such agony. Yet it is the clear teaching of our traditions that this pain and suffering cannot be healed simply through the retribution of capital punishment or by vengeance. It is a difficult and long process of healing which comes about through personal growth and God's grace. We agree that much more must be done by the religious community and by society at large to solace and care for the grieving families of the victims of violent crime. Recent statements of the Reform and Conservative movements in Judaism, and of the U.S. Catholic Conference sum up well the increasingly strong convictions shared by Jews and Catholics...:‘Respect for all human life and opposition to the violence in our society are at the root of our long-standing opposition (as bishops) to the death penalty. We see the death penalty as perpetuating a cycle of violence and promoting a sense of vengeance in our culture. As we said in Confronting the Culture of Violence: 'We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing.' We oppose capital punishment not just for what it does to those guilty of horrible crimes, but for what it does to all of us as a society. Increasing reliance on the death penalty diminishes all of us and is a sign of growing disrespect for human life. We cannot overcome crime by simply executing criminals, nor can we restore the lives of the innocent by ending the lives of those convicted of their murders. The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life.’
We affirm that we came to these conclusions because of our shared understanding of the sanctity of human life. We have committed ourselves to work together, and each within our own communities, toward ending the death penalty.”
INNOCENCE The risk of executing the innocent precludes the use of the death penalty. The death penalty alone imposes an irrevocable sentence. Once an inmate is executed, nothing can be done to make amends if a mistake has been made. There is considerable evidence that many mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death. Since 1973, at least 88 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged. During the same period of time, over 650 people have been executed. Thus, for every seven people executed, we have found one person on death row who never should have been convicted. These statistics represent an intolerable risk of executing the innocent. If an automobile manufacturer operated with similar failure rates, it would be run out of business. Our capital punishment system is unreliable. A recent study by Columbia University Law School found that two thirds of all capital trials contained serious errors. When the cases were retried, over 80% of the defendants were not sentenced to death and 7% were completely acquitted.
Many of the releases of innocent defendants from death row came about as a result of factors outside of the justice system. Recently, journalism students in Illinois were assigned to investigate the case of a man who was scheduled to be executed, after the system of appeals had rejected his legal claims. The students discovered that one witness had lied at the original trial, and they were able to find the true killer, who confessed to the crime on videotape. The innocent man who was released was very fortunate, but he was spared because of the informal efforts of concerned citizens, not because of the justice system.
In other cases, DNA testing has exonerated death row inmates. Here, too, the justice system had concluded that these defendants were guilty and deserving of the death penalty. DNA testing became available only in the early 1990s, due to advancements in science. If this testing had not been discovered until ten years later, many of these inmates would have been executed. And if DNA testing had been applied to earlier cases where inmates were executed in the 1970s and 80s, the odds are high that it would have proven that some of them were innocent as well. Society takes many risks in which innocent lives can be lost. We build bridges, knowing that statistically some workers will be killed during construction; we take great precautions to reduce the number of unintended fatalities. But wrongful executions are a preventable risk. By substituting a sentence of life without parole, we meet society's needs of punishment and protection without running the risk of an erroneous and irrevocable punishment. Testimony in support of innocence Gerald Kogan, Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice; Excerpts from a speech given in Orlando, Florida, October 23, 1999 “[T]here is no question in my mind, and I can tell you this having seen the dynamics of our criminal justice system over the many years that I have been associated with it, [as] prosecutor, defense attorney, trial judge and Supreme Court Justice, that convinces me that we certainly have, in the past, executed those people who either didn't fit the criteria for execution in the State of Florida or who, in fact, were, factually, not guilty of the crime for which they have been executed.
And you can make these statements when you understand the dynamics of the criminal justice system, when you understand how the State makes deals with more culpable defendants in a capital case, offers them light sentences in exchange for their testimony against another participant or, in some cases, in fact, gives them immunity from prosecution so that they can secure their testimony; the use of jailhouse confessions, like people who say, 'I was in the cell with so-and-so and they confessed to me,' or using those particular confessions, the validity of which there has been great doubt. And yet, you see the uneven application of the death penalty where, in many instances, those that are the most culpable escape death and those that are the least culpable are victims of the death penalty. These things begin to weigh very heavily upon you. And under our system, this is the system we have. And that is, we are human beings administering an imperfect system.”...
And how about those people who are still sitting on death row today, who may be factually innocent but cannot prove their particular case very simply because there is no DNA evidence in their case that can be used to exonerate them? Of course, in most cases, you're not going to have that kind of DNA evidence, so there is no way and there is no hope for them to be saved from what may be one of the biggest mistakes that our society can make.”
REBUTTAL TO INNOCENCE Executing the innocent is a rare but acceptable risk of the death penalty. There is no proof that any innocent person has actually been executed since increased safeguards and appeals were added to our death penalty system in the 1970s. Even if such executions have occurred, they are very rare. Imprisoning innocent people is also wrong, but we cannot empty the prisons because of that minimal risk. If improvements are needed in the system of representation, or in the use of scientific evidence such as DNA testing, then those reforms should be instituted.
However, the need for reform is not a reason to abolish the death penalty. Besides, many of the claims of innocence by those who have been released from death row are actually based on legal technicalities. Just because someone's conviction is overturned years later and the prosecutor decides not to retry him, does not mean he is actually innocent. If it can be shown that someone is innocent, surely a governor would grant clemency and spare the person. Hypothetical claims of innocence are usually just delaying tactics to put off the execution as long as possible. Given our thorough system of appeals through numerous state and federal courts, the execution of an innocent individual today is almost impossible. Even the theoretical execution of an innocent person can be justified because the death penalty saves lives by deterring other killings.
TESTIMONY IN REBUTTAL TO INNOCENCE: Paul G. Cassell, Associate Professor of Law, University of Utah, College of Law, and former law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Statement before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Concerning Claims of Innocence in Capital Cases (July 23, 1993)
”Given the fallibility of human judgments, the possibility exists that the use of capital punishment may result in the execution of an innocent person. The Senate Judiciary Committee has previously found this risk to be ‘minimal,’ a view shared by numerous scholars. As Justice Powell has noted commenting on the numerous state capital cases that have come before the Supreme Court, the ‘unprecedented safeguards’ already inherent in capital sentencing statutes ‘ensure a degree of care in the imposition of the sentence of death that can only be described as unique.’” . . .
”Our present system of capital punishment limits the ultimate penalty to certain specifically defined crimes and even then, permit the penalty of death only when the jury finds that the aggravating circumstances in the case outweigh all mitigating circumstances. The system further provides judicial review of capital cases. Finally, before capital sentences are carried out, the governor or other executive official will review the sentence to insure that it is a just one, a determination that undoubtedly considers the evidence of the condemned defendant's guilt. Once all of those decision makers have agreed that a death sentence is appropriate, innocent lives would be lost from failure to impose the sentence.” . . .
”Capital sentences, when carried out, save innocent lives by permanently incapacitating murderers. Some persons who commit capital homicide will slay other innocent persons if given the opportunity to do so. The death penalty is the most effective means of preventing such killers from repeating their crimes. The next most serious penalty, life imprisonment without possibility of parole, prevents murderers from committing some crimes but does not prevent them from murdering in prison.”. . .
”The mistaken release of guilty murderers should be of far greater concern than the speculative and heretofore nonexistent risk of the mistaken execution of an innocent person.”
COUNTER ARGUMENT 4 ARBITRARINESS AND DISCRIMINATION The death penalty is applied unfairly and should not be used. In practice, the death penalty does not single out the worst offenders. Rather, it selects an arbitrary group based on such irrational factors as the quality of the defense counsel, the county in which the crime was committed, or the race of the defendant or victim. Almost all defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney. Hence, they are dependent on the quality of the lawyers assigned by the state, many of whom lack experience in capital cases or are so underpaid that they fail to investigate the case properly. A poorly represented defendant is much more likely to be convicted and given a death sentence. With respect to race, studies have repeatedly shown that a death sentence is far more likely where a white person is murdered than where a black person is murdered. The death penalty is racially divisive because it appears to count white lives as more valuable than black lives. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 158 black defendants have been executed for the murder of a white victim, while only 11 white defendants have been executed for the murder of a black victim. Such racial disparities have existed over the history of the death penalty and appear to be largely intractable.
It is arbitrary when someone in one county or state receives the death penalty, but someone who commits a comparable crime in another county or state is given a life sentence. Prosecutors have enormous discretion about when to seek the death penalty and when to settle for a plea bargain. Often those who can only afford a minimal defense are selected for the death penalty. Until race and other arbitrary factors, like economics and geography, can be eliminated as a determinant of who lives and who dies, the death penalty must not be used.
TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF ARBITRARINESS AND DISCRIMINATION Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.; President and Chief Executive Officer, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Inc. Excerpt from "Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice & the Death Penalty," (Marlowe & Company, 1996)
“Who receives the death penalty has less to do with the violence of the crime than with the color of the criminal's skin, or more often, the color of the victim's skin. Murder -- always tragic - seems to be a more heinous and despicable crime in some states than in others. Women who kill and who are killed are judged by different standards than are men who are murderers and victims.
The death penalty is essentially an arbitrary punishment. There are no objective rules or guidelines for when a prosecutor should seek the death penalty, when a jury should recommend it, and when a judge should give it. This lack of objective, measurable standards ensures that the application of the death penalty will be discriminatory against racial, gender, and ethnic groups. The majority of Americans who support the death penalty believe, or wish to believe, that legitimate factors such as the violence and cruelty with which the crime was committed, a defendant's culpability or history of violence, and the number of victims involved determine who is sentenced to life in prison and who receives the ultimate punishment. The numbers, however, tell a different story. They confirm the terrible truth that bias and discrimination warp our nation's judicial system at the very time it matters most -- in matters of life and death. The factors that determine who will live and who will die -- race, sex, and geography -- are the very same ones that blind justice was meant to ignore. This prejudicial distribution should be a moral outrage to every American.”
REBUTTAL TO ARBITRARINESS AND DISCRIMINATION The death penalty is applied fairly and may be used. Discretion has always been an essential part of our system of justice. No one expects the prosecutor to pursue every possible offense or punishment, nor do we expect the same sentence to be imposed jus t because two crimes appear similar. Each crime is unique, both because the circumstances of each victim are different and because each defendant is different. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a mandatory death penalty which applied to everyone convicted of first degree murder would be unconstitutional. Hence, we must give prosecutors and juries some discretion.
In fact, more white people are executed in this country than black people. And even if blacks are disproportionately represented on death row, proportionately blacks commit more murders than whites. Moreover, the Supreme Court has rejected the use of statistical studies which claim racial bias as the sole reason for overturning a death sentence.
Even if the death penalty punishes some while sparing others, it does not follow that everyone should be spared. The guilty should still be punished appropriately, even if some do escape proper punishment unfairly. The death penalty should apply to killers of black people as well as to killers of whites. High paid, skillful lawyers should not be able to get some defendants off on technicalities. The existence of some systemic problems is no reason to abandon the whole death penalty system. TESTIMONY IN REBUTTAL OF ARBITRARINESS AND DISCRIMINATION Justice Lewis Powell; United States Supreme Court Justice- excerpts from McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987)
(Mr. McCleskey, a black man, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1978 for killing a white police officer while robbing a store. Mr. McCleskey appealed his conviction and death sentence, claiming racial discrimination in the application of Georgia's death penalty. He presented statistical analysis showing a pattern of sentencing disparities based primarily on the race of the victim. The analysis indicated that black defendants who killed white victims had the greatest likelihood of receiving the death penalty. Writing the majority opinion for the Supreme Court, Justice Powell held that statistical studies on race by themselves were an insufficient basis for overturning the death penalty.)
“[T]he claim that [t]his sentence rests on the irrelevant factor of race easily could be extended to apply to claims based on unexplained discrepancies that correlate to membership in other minority groups, and even to gender. Similarly, since [this] claim relates to the race of his victim, other claims could apply with equally logical force to statistical disparities that correlate with the race or sex of other actors in the criminal justice system, such as defense attorneys or judges.
Also, there is no logical reason that such a claim need be limited to racial or sexual bias. If arbitrary and capricious punishment is the touchstone under the Eighth Amendment, such a claim could -- at least in theory -- be based upon any arbitrary variable, such as the defendant's facial characteristics, or the physical attractiveness of the defendant or the victim, that some statistical study indicates may be influential in jury decision making. As these examples illustrate, there is no limiting principle to the type of challenge brought by McCleskey. The Constitution does not require that a State eliminate any demonstrable disparity that correlates with a potentially irrelevant factor in order to operate a criminal justice system that includes capital punishment. As we have stated specifically in the context of capital punishment, the Constitution does not 'plac[e] totally unrealistic conditions on its use.' (Gregg v. Georgia)” This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source B: Messerli, Joe. “Should the Death Penalty be Banned as a Form of Punishment?” Balanced Politics.org, 2006. Web. August 2, 2014.
Website: http://www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm
Pro - YES Con NO 1.) Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is 1.) The death penalty gives closure to the victim's several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. families who have suffered so much. 2.)It is barbaric and violates the "cruel and unusual" 2.) It creates another form of crime deterrent. clause in the Bill of Rights. 3.) Justice is better served. 3.)The endless appeals and required additional 4.)Our justice system shows more sympathy for procedures clog our court system. criminals than it does victims. 4.)We as a society have to move away from the "eye for 5.)It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. life sentence. 5.)It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill 6.)DNA testing and other methods of modern crime people to show killing is wrong. scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all 6.)Life in prison is a worse punishment and a more uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence. effective deterrent. 7.)Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another 7.)Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a chance to kill. more favorable image of America. 8.)It contributes to the problem of overpopulation in 8.)Some jury members are reluctant to convict if it the prison system. means putting someone to death. 9.)It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the 9.)The prisoner's family must suffer from seeing their plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs loved one put to death by the state, as well as going in an overcrowded court system. through the emotionally-draining appeals process. 10.)The possibility exists that innocent men and women may be put to death. 11.) Mentally ill patients may be put to death. 12.) It creates sympathy for the monstrous perpetrators of the crimes. 13.)It often draws top talent laywers who will work for little or no cost due to the publicity of the case and their personal beliefs against the morality of the death penalty, increasing the chances a technicality or a manipulated jury will release a guilt person. 14.)It is useless in that it doesn't bring the victim back to life.
Overview/Background The United States remains in the minority of nations in the world that still uses death as penalty for certain crimes. Many see the penalty as barbaric and against American values. Others see it as a very important tool in fighting violent pre-meditated murder. Two things have once again brought this issue to national debate. One is the release of some highly publicized studies that show a number of innocents had been put to death. The second is the issue of terrorism and the need to punish its perpetrators. Yes
1. Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. Most people don't realize that carrying out one death sentence costs 2-5 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for the rest of his life. How can this be? It has to do with the endless appeals, additional required procedures, and legal wrangling that drag the process out. It's not unusual for a prisoner to be on death row for 15-20 years. Judges, attorneys, court reporters, clerks, and court facilities all require a substantial investment by the taxpayers. Do we really have the resources to waste?
2. It is barbaric and violates the "cruel and unusual" clause in the Bill of Rights. Whether it's a firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, or hanging, it's barbaric to allow state- sanctioned murder before a crowd of people. We condemn people like Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi, and Kim Jong Il when they murder their own people while we continue to do the same (although our procedures for allowing it are obviously more thorough). The 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the use of "cruel and unusual punishment". Many would interpret the death penalty as violating this restriction.
3. The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system.The U.S. court system goes to enormous lengths before allowing a death sentence to be carried out. All the appeals, motions, hearings, briefs, etc. monopolize much of the time of judges, attorneys, and other court employees as well as use up courtrooms & facilities. This is time & space that could be used for other unresolved matters. The court system is tremendously backed up. This would help move things along.
4. We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. The "eye for an eye" mentality will never solve anything. A revenge philosophy inevitably leads to an endless cycle of violence. Why do you think the Israeli-Palestine conflict has been going on for 60+ years? Why do you think gang violence in this country never seems to end? It is important to send a message to society that striking back at your enemy purely for revenge will always make matters worse.
5. It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Yes, we want to make sure there is accountability for crime and an effective deterrent in place; however, the death penalty has a message of "You killed one of us, so we'll kill you". The state is actually using a murder to punish someone who committed a murder. Does that make sense?
6. Life in prison is a worse punishment and a more effective deterrent. For those of you who don't feel much sympathy for a murderer, keep in mind that death may be too good for them. With a death sentence, the suffering is over in an instant. With life in prison, the pain goes on for decades. Prisoners are confined to a cage and live in an internal environment of rape and violence where they're treated as animals. And consider terrorists. Do you think they'd rather suffer the humiliation of lifelong prison or be "martyred" by a death sentence? What would have been a better ending for Osama bin Laden, the bullet that killed him instantly, or a life of humiliation in an American prison (or if he was put through rendition to obtain more information). 7. Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a more favorable image of America. It's no secret that anti-Americanism is rampant around the world. One of the reasons is America's continued use of the death penalty. We're seen as a violent, vengeful nation for such a policy. This is pretty much the same view that Europeans had of America when we continued the practice of slavery long after it had been banned in Europe.
8. Some jury members are reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death. Many states require any jury members to be polled during the pre-trial examination to be sure they have the stomach to sentence someone to death before they're allowed to serve. Even if they're against the death penalty, they still may lie in order to get on the panel. The thought of agreeing to kill someone even influences some jury members to acquit rather than risk the death. Some prosecutors may go for a lesser charge rather than force juries into a death-or-acquit choice. Obviously, in all these situations, justice may not be served.
9. The prisoner's family must suffer from seeing their loved one put to death by the state, as well as going through the emotionally-draining appeals process. One victim's innocent family is obviously forced to suffer from a capital murder, but by enforcing a death sentence, you force another family to suffer. Why double the suffering when we don't have to?
10. The possibility exists that innocent men and women may be put to death. There are several documented cases where DNA testing showed that innocent people were put to death by the government. We have an imperfect justice system where poor defendants are given minimal legal attention by often lesser qualified individuals. Some would blame the court system, not that death penalty itself for the problems, but we can't risk mistakes.
11. Mentally ill patients may be put to death.Many people are simply born with defects to their brain that cause them to act a certain way. No amount of drugs, schooling, rehabilitation, or positive reinforcement will change them. Is it fair that someone should be murdered just because they were unlucky enough to be born with a brain defect. Although it is technically unconstitutional to put a mentally ill patient to death, the rules can be vague, and you still need to be able to convince a judge and jury that the defendant is in fact, mentally ill.
12. It creates sympathy for the monstrous perpetrators of the crimes. Criminals usually are looked down upon by society. People are disgusted by the vile, unconscionable acts they commit and feel tremendous sympathy for the victims of murder, rape, etc. However, the death penalty has a way of shifting sympathy away from the victims and to the criminals themselves. An excellent example is the execution a few years ago of former gang leader "Tookie" Williams. He was one of the original members of the notorious Crips gang, which has a long legacy of robbery, assault, and murder. This is a man who was convicted with overwhelming evidence of the murder of four people, some of whom he shot in the back and then laughed at the sounds they made as they died. This is a man who never even took responsibility for the crimes or apologized to the victims -- NOT ONCE! These victims had kids and spouses, but instead of sympathy for them, sympathy shifted to Tookie. Candlelight vigils were held for him. Websites like savetookie.org sprang up. Protests and a media circus ensued trying to prevent the execution, which eventually did take place -- 26 years after the crime itself! There are many cases like this, which make a mockery of the evil crimes these degenerates commit. 13. It often draws top talent laywers who will work for little or no cost due to the publicity of the case and their personal beliefs against the morality of the death penalty, increasing the chances a technicality or a manipulated jury will release a guilt person. Top attorneys are world-class manipulators. They know how to cover up facts and misdirect thinking. They know how to select juries sympathetic to their side. They know how to find obscure technicalities and use any other means necessary to get their client off without any punishment. Luckily, most criminal defendants cannot afford to hire these top guns; they must make do with a low-paid public defender or some other cheaper attorney. However, a death penalty case changes everything. First of all, a death penalty case almost always garners significant media attention. Lawyers want that exposure, which enhances their name recognition & reputation for potential future plantiffs and defendants. Second of all, thousands of attorneys have made their personal crusade in life the stomping out of the death penalty. Entire organizations have sprung up to fight death penalty cases, often providing all the funding for a legal defense. For an example, look no further than the Casey Anthony trial, in which a pool of top attorneys took on a high profile death penalty case and used voir dire and peremptory challenges to craft one of the stupidest juries on record, who ended up ignoring facts and common sense or release an obviously guilty woman who killed her daughter. After the "not guilty" verdict was rendered, defense attorneys such as Cheney Mason went into long-winded speeches for the media about the evils of the death penalty.
14. It is useless in that it doesn't bring the victim back to life. Perhaps the biggest reason to ban the death penalty is that it doesn't change the fact that the victim is gone and will never come back. Hate, revenge, and anger will never cure the emptiness of a lost loved one. Forgiveness is the only way to start the healing process, and this won't happen in a revenge-focused individual. No
1. The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much.Some family members of crime victims may take years or decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Some may never recover. One of the things that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim. A death sentence brings finality to a horrible chapter in the lives of these family members.
2. It creates another form of crime deterrent.Crime would run rampant as never before if there wasn't some way to deter people from committing the acts. Prison time is an effective deterrent, but with some people, more is needed. Prosecutors should have the option of using a variety of punishments in order to minimize crime.
3. Justice is better served.The most fundamental principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime. When someone plans and brutally murders another person, doesn't it make sense that the punishment for the perpetrator also be death?
4. Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims.It's time we put the emphasis of our criminal justice system back on protecting the victim rather than the accused. Remember, a person who's on death row has almost always committed crimes before this. A long line of victims have been waiting for justice. We need justice for current and past victims. 5. It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a life sentence.What about people already sentenced to life in prison. What's to stop them from murdering people constantly while in prison? What are they going to do--extend their sentences? Sure, they can take away some prison privileges, but is this enough of a deterrent to stop the killing? What about a person sentenced to life who happens to escape? What's to stop him from killing anyone who might try to bring him in or curb his crime spree?
6. DNA testing and other methods of modern crime scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence.One of the biggest arguments against the death penalty is the possibility of error. Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. And even if DNA testing and other such scientific methods didn't exist, the trial and appeals process is so thorough it's next to impossible to convict an innocent person. Remember, a jury of 12 members must unanimously decide there's not even a reasonable doubt the person is guilty. The number of innocent people that might somehow be convicted is no greater than the number of innocent victims of the murderers who are set free.
7. Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another chance to kill.Perhaps the biggest reason to keep the death penalty is to prevent the crime from happening again. The parole system nowadays is a joke. Does it make sense to anyone outside the legal system to have multiple "life" sentences + 20 years or other jiverish? Even if a criminal is sentenced to life without possibility of parole, he still has a chance to kill while in prison, or even worse, escape and go on a crime/murder spree.
8. It contributes to the problem of overpopulation in the prison system.Prisons across the country face the problem of too many prisoners and not enough space & resources. Each additional prisoner requires a portion of a cell, food, clothing, extra guard time, and so on. When you eliminate the death penalty as an option, it means that prisoner must be housed for life. Thus, it only adds to the problem of an overcrowded prison system.
9. It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs in an overcrowded court system.The number of criminal cases that are plea bargained (meaning the accused admits guilt in return for a lesser sentence or some other concession) can be as high as 80 or 90 percent of cases. With the time, cost, and personnel requirements of a criminal case, there really isn't much of a choice. The vast majority of people that are arraigned are in fact guilty of the crime they are accused. Even if you believe a defendant only deserves life in prison, without the threat of a death sentence, there may be no way to get him to plead guilty and accept the sentence. If a case goes to trial, in addition to the enormous cost, you run the chance that you may lose the case, meaning a violent criminal gets off scot free. The existence of the death penalty gives prosecutors much more flexibility and power to ensure just punishments. This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source C:
Drehle, David von. “Death Penalty Use and Support Is Dropping.” Time Magazine online, December 21, 2010.
Website: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2039273,00.html
Enthusiasm for the death penalty continued to ebb in the United States during 2010. As Christmas approaches — a season of quiet in America's execution chambers, as death takes a holiday — there have been 46 inmates executed, down from 52 in 2009.
That's fewer than half the number put to death in the peak year of 1999, when 98 prisoners walked the last mile. Meanwhile, the number of new death sentences imposed in 2010 remained near the lowest level in 35 years.
Statistics collected by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) show that use of the death penalty was down across the country — even in Texas, which has carried out more than a third of all U.S. executions since the modern death penalty was instituted in 1976. Seventeen Texas inmates were executed in 2010, matching the lowest number in a year since 1996, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. That's a reduction of nearly 60% compared to the busiest year for the Texas executioner, when 40 inmates were put to death in 2000. Perhaps no statistic better illustrates the decline in the use of the death penalty than the fact that no death sentences — zero — were imposed by Virginia's courts in 2010. The commonwealth is a bastion of capital punishment, second only to Texas in the frequency of executions. Missouri, which ranks fifth in the number of executions in the modern era, also sent no new inmates to death row.
Experts offer a number of explanations for the diminished use of the death penalty in the United States. DPIC's annual report, published on Tuesday, points to at least four factors: *Shifts in public opinion: "The problems and risks of the death penalty have convinced the majority of Americans it is time to consider replacing this punishment with alternative sentences," the report asserts. This is based on DPIC's own recent polling, which found that only about 1 of 3 Americans prefers capital punishment to the alternative of life-without-parole — especially if the convicted prisoners are put to work earning money for a victim-restitution fund. This compares to overwhelming majorities in favor of the death penalty in the 1990s.
*Tight government budgets: Because of the cost of separate sentencing hearings, and lengthy appeals, death sentences are far more expensive than life sentences for aggravated murder. Forced by the recession to tighten their belts, prosecutors and opinion leaders are souring on the costly punishment. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, for example, recently called on state lawmakers to weigh the high cost of capital punishment. Small counties can't afford to take on death cases, he said, which raises the problem of unequal justice depending on whether a murder occurs in a small town or a big city. In Illinois, a government commission reported that the state had spent $100 million assisting small communities with death penalty cases over the past seven years — a period in which the state's budget deficit gaped, and no Illinois prisoners were executed.
*Risk of error: Public confidence in the death penalty has been shaken by the use of DNA evidence to prove that innocent defendants can indeed be sentenced to death. Of the 261 inmates exonerated by DNA evidence unearthed by The Innocence Project, 17 had been sent to death row.
These cases in turn make other claims of innocence more credible. In Texas, former death row inmate Anthony Graves was freed earlier this year after 16 years in prison. A special prosecutor declared that "not one piece of credible evidence" connected Graves to the crime. Nationwide, according to DPIC, the number of death-sentenced prisoners who have been exonerated is now 138.
More disturbingly, strong evidence now exists that even with all its safeguards, the American death penalty system can fail at the most fundamental level — leading to the execution of at least one innocent man. Cameron Willingham was put to death in Texas in 2004 for the murder of his three children in a house fire. A state commission on forensic science acknowledged this year that investigators had no scientific basis for accusing Willingham of arson.
*Uneven, and unpredictable, application: The use of the death penalty varies widely by region. Three out of four executions in 2010 took place in the South. California once again led the nation in new death sentences — and once again went all year without a single execution. At year's end, the death row population in the Golden State hovered around 700. Florida, with some 400 inmates on death row, carried out just one execution in 2010. Pennsylvania, with some 220 death row inmates, executed none.
Nationwide, according to DPIC, some 3,260 prisoners were sentenced to die as the year came to a close. Hundreds have been on death row more than 25 years. The average time spent on death row by the 46 inmates executed in 2010 was 14 years.
One other factor may do more than any of the rest to explain the declining hold of capital punishment on the American justice system: The steep decline in violent crime. Preliminary statistics from the FBI indicate that the murder rate for the first half of 2010 once again fell sharply, dropping by more than 7%. If, as the DPIC annual report suggests, Americans are more willing to consider alternatives to capital punishment, the fact that they are undeniably safer may be the best explanation of all. This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source D:
Bedau, Hugo Adam. “The Case Against the Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union website, December 11, 2012. Web. August 3, 2014.
website: http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/case-against-death-penalty
The Case Against the Death Penalty
The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings – especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.
Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system. The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice. Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment.
The ACLU’s opposition to capital punishment incorporates the following fundamental concerns:
* The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white
*The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.
*Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 140 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed. INTRODUCTION TO THE “MODERN ERA” OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE UNITED STATES
In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under then-existing laws "the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty… constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments." (Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238). The Court, concentrating its objections on the manner in which death penalty laws had been applied, found the result so "harsh, freakish, and arbitrary" as to be constitutionally unacceptable. Making the nationwide impact of its decision unmistakable, the Court summarily reversed death sentences in the many cases then before it, which involved a wide range of state statutes, crimes and factual situations. But within four years after the Furman decision, several hundred persons had been sentenced to death under new state capital punishment statutes written to provide guidance to juries in sentencing. These statutes require a two- stage trial procedure, in which the jury first determines guilt or innocence and then chooses imprisonment or death in the light of aggravating or mitigating circumstances. In 1976, the Supreme Court moved away from abolition, holding that "the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution." The Court ruled that the new death penalty statutes contained "objective standards to guide, regularize, and make rationally reviewable the process for imposing the sentence of death." (Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153). Subsequently 38 state legislatures and the Federal government enacted death penalty statutes patterned after those the Court upheld in Gregg. Congress also enacted and expanded federal death penalty statutes for peacetime espionage by military personnel and for a vast range of categories of murder. Executions resumed in 1977. In 2002, the Supreme Court held executions of mentally retarded criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Since then, states have developed a range of processes to ensure that mentally retarded individuals are not executed. Many have elected to hold proceedings prior to the merits trial, many with juries, to determine whether an accused is mentally retarded. In 2005, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed, resulting in commutation of death sentences to life for dozens of individuals across the country. As of August 2012, over 3,200 men and women are under a death sentence and more than 1,300 men, women and children (at the time of the crime) have been executed since 1976. ACLU OBJECTIONS TO THE DEATH PENALTY
Despite the Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in Gregg v. Georgia, et al, the ACLU continues to oppose capital punishment on moral, practical, and constitutional grounds:
Capital punishment is cruel and unusual. It is cruel because it is a relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society. It is unusual because only the United States of all the western industrialized nations engages in this punishment. It is also unusual because only a random sampling of convicted murderers in the United States receive a sentence of death.
Capital punishment denies due process of law. Its imposition is often arbitrary, and always irrevocable – forever depriving an individual of the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might warrant the reversal of a conviction, or the setting aside of a death sentence.
The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. It is applied randomly – and discriminatorily. It is imposed disproportionately upon those whose victims are white, offenders who are people of color, and on those who are poor and uneducated and concentrated in certain geographic regions of the country.
The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. When police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they mentioned curbing drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control. They ranked the death penalty as least effective. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront the true causes of crime.
Capital punishment wastes limited resources. It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and law enforcement personnel. It unduly burdens the criminal justice system, and it is thus counterproductive as an instrument for society's control of violent crime. Limited funds that could be used to prevent and solve crime (and provide education and jobs) are spent on capital punishment.
Opposing the death penalty does not indicate a lack of sympathy for murder victims. On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Because life is precious and death irrevocable, murder is abhorrent, and a policy of state-authorized killings is immoral. It epitomizes the tragic inefficacy and brutality of violence, rather than reason, as the solution to difficult social problems. Many murder victims do not support state- sponsored violence to avenge the death of their loved one. Sadly, these victims have often been marginalized by politicians and prosecutors, who would rather publicize the opinions of pro-death penalty family members. Changes in death sentencing have proved to be largely cosmetic. The defects in death-penalty laws, conceded by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s, have not been appreciably altered by the shift from unrestrained discretion to "guided discretion." Such so-called “reforms” in death sentencing merely mask the impermissible randomness of a process that results in an execution.
A society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social problems – the worst possible example to set for the citizenry, and especially children. Governments worldwide have often attempted to justify their lethal fury by extolling the purported benefits that such killing would bring to the rest of society. The benefits of capital punishment are illusory, but the bloodshed and the resulting destruction of community decency are real. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS NOT A DETERRENT TO CAPITAL CRIMES Deterrence is a function not only of a punishment's severity, but also of its certainty and frequency. The argument most often cited in support of capital punishment is that the threat of execution influences criminal behavior more effectively than imprisonment does. As plausible as this claim may sound, in actuality the death penalty fails as a deterrent for several reasons.
A punishment can be an effective deterrent only if it is consistently and promptly employed. Capital punishment cannot be administered to meet these conditions.
The proportion of first-degree murderers who are sentenced to death is small, and of this group, an even smaller proportion of people are executed. Although death sentences in the mid-1990s increased to about 300 per year, this is still only about one percent of all homicides known to the police. Of all those convicted on a charge of criminal homicide, only 3 percent – about 1 in 33 – are eventually sentenced to death. Between 2001-2009, the average number of death sentences per year dropped to 137, reducing the percentage even more. This tiny fraction of convicted murderers do not represent the “worst of the worst”.
Mandatory death sentencing is unconstitutional. The possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed by enacting mandatory death penalty laws was ruled unconstitutional in 1976 (Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280).
A considerable time between the imposition of the death sentence and the actual execution is unavoidable, given the procedural safeguards required by the courts in capital cases. Starting with selecting the trial jury, murder trials take far longer when the ultimate penalty is involved. Furthermore, post-conviction appeals in death-penalty cases are far more frequent than in other cases. These factors increase the time and cost of administering criminal justice.
We can reduce delay and costs only by abandoning the procedural safeguards and constitutional rights of suspects, defendants, and convicts – with the attendant high risk of convicting the wrong person and executing the innocent. This is not a realistic prospect: our legal system will never reverse itself to deny defendants the right to counsel, or the right to an appeal.
Persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence often do not premeditate their crimes.
Most capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment. Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended. Many capital crimes are committed by the badly emotionally-damaged or mentally ill. In such cases, violence is inflicted by persons unable to appreciate the consequences to themselves as well as to others. Even when crime is planned, the criminal ordinarily concentrates on escaping detection, arrest, and conviction. The threat of even the severest punishment will not discourage those who expect to escape detection and arrest. It is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is not premeditated. Furthermore, the death penalty is a futile threat for political terrorists, like Timothy McVeigh, because they usually act in the name of an ideology that honors its martyrs. Capital punishment doesn't solve our society's crime problem. Threatening capital punishment leaves the underlying causes of crime unaddressed, and ignores the many political and diplomatic sanctions (such as treaties against asylum for international terrorists) that could appreciably lower the incidence of terrorism.
Capital punishment has been a useless weapon in the so-called "war on drugs." The attempt to reduce murders in the drug trade by threat of severe punishment ignores the fact that anyone trafficking in illegal drugs is already risking his life in violent competition with other dealers. It is irrational to think that the death penalty – a remote threat at best – will avert murders committed in drug turf wars or by street-level dealers.
If, however, severe punishment can deter crime, then permanent imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime.
The vast preponderance of the evidence shows that the death penalty is no more effective than imprisonment in deterring murder and that it may even be an incitement to criminal violence. Death-penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death-penalty states. Use of the death penalty in a given state may actually increase the subsequent rate of criminal homicide. Why? Perhaps because "a return to the exercise of the death penalty weakens socially based inhibitions against the use of lethal force to settle disputes…. "
In adjacent states – one with the death penalty and the other without it – the state that practices the death penalty does not always show a consistently lower rate of criminal homicide. For example, between l990 and l994, the homicide rates in Wisconsin and Iowa (non-death-penalty states) were half the rates of their neighbor, Illinois – which restored the death penalty in l973, and by 1994 had sentenced 223 persons to death and carried out two executions. Between 2000-2010, the murder rate in states with capital punishment was 25-46% higher than states without the death penalty.
On-duty police officers do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide in abolitionist states than they do in death-penalty states. Between 1976 and 1989, for example, lethal assaults against police were not significantly more or less frequent in abolitionist states than in death-penalty states. Capital punishment did not appear to provide officers added protection during that time frame. In fact, the three leading states in law enforcement homicide in 1996 were also very active death penalty states: California (highest death row population), Texas (most executions since 1976), and Florida (third highest in executions and death row population). The South, which accounts for more than 80% of the country’s executions, also has the highest murder rate of any region in the country. If anything, the death penalty incited violence rather than curbed it. Prisoners and prison personnel do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide from life-term prisoners in abolition states than they do in death-penalty states. Between 1992 and 1995, 176 inmates were murdered by other prisoners. The vast majority of those inmates (84%) were killed in death penalty jurisdictions. During the same period, about 2% of all inmate assaults on prison staff were committed in abolition jurisdictions. Evidently, the threat of the death penalty "does not even exert an incremental deterrent effect over the threat of a lesser punishment in the abolitionist states." Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that prisoners sentenced to life without parole have equivalent rates of prison violence as compared to other inmates.
Actual experience thus establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty does not deter murder. No comparable body of evidence contradicts that conclusion.
Furthermore, there are documented cases in which the death penalty actually incited the capital crimes it was supposed to deter. These include instances of the so-called suicide-by-execution syndrome – persons who wanted to die but feared taking their own lives, and committed murder so that the state would kill them. For example, in 1996, Daniel Colwell, who suffered from mental illness, claimed that he killed a randomly-selected couple in a Georgia parking lot so that the state would kill him – he was sentenced to death and ultimately took his own life while on death row. Although inflicting the death penalty guarantees that the condemned person will commit no further crimes, it does not have a demonstrable deterrent effect on other individuals. Further, it is a high price to pay when studies show that few convicted murderers commit further crimes of violence. Researchers examined the prison and post- release records of 533 prisoners on death row in 1972 whose sentences were reduced to incarceration for life by the Supreme Court's ruling in Furman. This research showed that seven had committed another murder. But the same study showed that in four other cases, an innocent man had been sentenced to death. (Marquart and Sorensen, in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1989)
Recidivism among murderers does occasionally happen, but it occurs less frequently than most people believe; the media rarely distinguish between a convicted offender who murders while on parole, and a paroled murderer who murders again. Government data show that about one in 12 death row prisoners had a prior homicide conviction. But as there is no way to predict reliably which convicted murderers will try to kill again, the only way to prevent all such recidivism is to execute every convicted murderer – a policy no one seriously advocates. Equally effective but far less inhumane is a policy of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS UNFAIR
Constitutional due process and elementary justice both require that the judicial functions of trial and sentencing be conducted with fundamental fairness, especially where the irreversible sanction of the death penalty is involved. In murder cases (since 1930, 88 percent of all executions have been for this crime), there has been substantial evidence to show that courts have sentenced some persons to prison while putting others to death in a manner that has been arbitrary, racially biased, and unfair.
Racial Bias in Death Sentencing Racial discrimination was one of the grounds on which the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman. Half a century ago, in his classic American Dilemma (1944), Gunnar Myrdal reported that "the South makes the widest application of the death penalty, and Negro criminals come in for much more than their share of the executions." A study of the death penalty in Texas shows that the current capital punishment system is an outgrowth of the racist "legacy of slavery." Between 1930 and the end of 1996, 4,220 prisoners were executed in the United States; more than half (53%) were black.
Our nation's death rows have always held a disproportionately large population of African Americans, relative to their percentage of the total population. Comparing black and white offenders over the past century, the former were often executed for what were considered less-than-capital offenses for whites, such as rape and burglary. (Between 1930 and 1976, 455 men were executed for rape, of whom 405 – 90 percent – were black.) A higher percentage of the blacks who were executed were juveniles; and the rate of execution without having one's conviction reviewed by any higher court was higher for blacks. (Bowers, Legal Homicide 1984; Streib, Death Penalty for Juveniles 1987)
In recent years, it has been argued that such flagrant racial discrimination is a thing of the past. However, since the revival of the death penalty in the mid-1970s, about half of those on death row at any given time have been black. More striking is the racial comparison of victims. Although approximately 49% of all homicide victims are white, 77% of capital homicide cases since 1976 have involved a white victim.
Between 1976 and 2005, 86% of white victims were killed by whites (14% by other races) while 94% of black victims were killed by blacks (6% by other races). Blacks and whites are murder victims in almost equal numbers of crimes – which is a very high percentage given that the general US population is 13% black. African-Americans are six times as likely as white Americans to die at the hands of a murderer, and roughly seven times as likely to murder someone. Young black men are fifteen times as likely to be murdered as young white men. So given this information, when those under death sentence are examined more closely, it turns out that race is a decisive factor after all. Further, studies like that commissioned by the Governor of Maryland found that “black offenders who kill white victims are at greater risk of a death sentence than others, primarily because they are substantially more likely to be charged by the state’s attorney with a capital offense.”
The classic statistical study of racial discrimination in capital cases in Georgia presented in the McCleskey case showed that "the average odds of receiving a death sentence among all indicted cases were 4.3 times higher in cases with white victims." (David C. Baldus et al., Equal Justice and the Death Penalty 1990) In 1987 these data were placed before the Supreme Court in McCleskey v. Kemp and while the Court did not dispute the statistical evidence, it held that evidence of an overall pattern of racial bias was not sufficient. Mr. McCleskey would have to prove racial bias in his own case – a virtually impossible task. The Court also held that the evidence failed to show that there was "a constitutionally significant risk of racial bias...." (481 U.S. 279) Although the Supreme Court declared that the remedy sought by the plaintiff was "best presented to the legislative bodies," subsequent efforts to persuade Congress to remedy the problem by enacting the Racial Justice Act were not successful. (Don Edwards & John Conyers, Jr., The Racial Justice Act – A Simple Matter of Justice, in University of Dayton Law Review 1995) In 1990, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported to the Congress the results of its review of empirical studies on racism and the death penalty. The GAO concluded: "Our synthesis of the 28 studies shows a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty after the Furman decision" and that "race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process..." Texas was prepared to execute Duane Buck on September 15, 2011. Mr. Buck was condemned to death by a jury that had been told by an expert psychologist that he was more likely to be dangerous because he was African American. The Supreme Court stayed the case, but Mr. Buck has not yet received the new sentencing hearing justice requires.
These results cannot be explained away by relevant non-racial factors, such as prior criminal record or type of crime, as these were factored for in the Baldus and GAO studies referred to above. They lead to a very unsavory conclusion: In the trial courts of this nation, even at the present time, the killing of a white person is treated much more severely than the killing of a black person. Of the 313 persons executed between January 1977 and the end of 1995, 36 had been convicted of killing a black person while 249 (80%) had killed a white person. Of the 178 white defendants executed, only three had been convicted of murdering people of color. Our criminal justice system essentially reserves the death penalty for murderers (regardless of their race) who kill white victims. Another recent Louisiana study found that defendants with white victims were 97% more likely to receive death sentences than defendants with black victims.
Both gender and socio-economic class also determine who receives a death sentence and who is executed. Women account for only two percent of all people sentenced to death, even though females commit about 11 percent of all criminal homicides. Many of the women under death sentence were guilty of killing men who had victimized them with years of violent abuse. Since 1900, only 51 women have been executed in the United States (15 of them black).
Discrimination against the poor (and in our society, racial minorities are disproportionately poor) is also well established. It is a prominent factor in the availability of counsel.
Fairness in capital cases requires, above all, competent counsel for the defendant. Yet "approximately 90 percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were tried.") Common characteristics of death- row defendants are poverty, the lack of firm social roots in the community, and inadequate legal representation at trial or on appeal. As Justice William O. Douglas noted in Furman, "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in this society"(408 US 238).
Failure of Safeguards The demonstrated inequities in the actual administration of capital punishment should tip the balance against it in the judgment of fair-minded and impartial observers. "Whatever else might be said for the use of death as a punishment, one lesson is clear from experience: this is a power that we cannot exercise fairly and without discrimination."(Gross and Mauro, Death and Discrimination 1989) Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing for the Court in Furman, noted "… the history of capital punishment for homicides … reveals continual efforts, uniformly unsuccessful, to identify before the fact those homicides for which the slayer should die…. Those who have come to grips with the hard task of actually attempting to draft means of channeling capital sentencing discretion have confirmed the lesson taught by history…. To identify before the fact those characteristics of criminal homicides and their perpetrators which call for the death penalty, and to express these characteristics in language which can be fairly understood and applied by the sentencing authority, appear to be tasks which are beyond present human ability." (402 U.S. 183 (1971))
Yet in the Gregg decision, the majority of the Supreme Court abandoned the wisdom of Justice Harlan and ruled as though the new guided-discretion statutes could accomplish the impossible. The truth is that death statutes approved by the Court "do not effectively restrict the discretion of juries by any real standards, and they never will. No society is going to kill everybody who meets certain preset verbal requirements, put on the statute books without awareness of coverage of the infinity of special factors the real world can produce."
Evidence obtained by the Capital Jury Project has shown that jurors in capital trials generally do not understand the judge's instructions about the laws that govern the choice between imposing the death penalty and a life sentence. Even when they do comprehend, jurors often refuse to be guided by the law. "Juror comprehension of the law… is mediocre. The effect [of this relative lack of comprehension of the law]… is to reduce the likelihood that capital defendants will benefit from the safeguards against arbitrariness built into the… law."
Even if the jury's sentencing decision were strictly governed by the relevant legal criteria, there remains a vast reservoir of unfettered discretion: the prosecutor's decision to prosecute for a capital or lesser crime, the court's willingness to accept or reject a guilty plea, the jury's decision to convict for second-degree murder or manslaughter rather than capital murder, the determination of the defendant's sanity, and the governor's final clemency decision, among others.
Discretion in the criminal justice system is unavoidable. The history of capital punishment in America clearly demonstrates the social desire to mitigate the harshness of the death penalty by narrowing the scope of its application. Whether or not explicitly authorized by statutes, sentencing discretion has been the main vehicle to this end. But when sentencing discretion is used – as it too often has been – to doom the poor, the friendless, the uneducated, racial minorities, and the despised, it becomes injustice.
Mindful of such facts, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association (including 20 out of 24 former presidents of the ABA) called for a moratorium on all executions by a vote of 280 to 119 in February 1997. The House judged the current system to be "a haphazard maze of unfair practices."
In its 1996 survey of the death penalty in the United States, the International Commission of Jurists reinforced this point. Despite the efforts made over the past two decades since Gregg to protect the administration of the death penalty from abuses, the actual "constitutional errors committed in state courts have gravely undermined the legitimacy of the death penalty as a punishment for crime." (International Commission of Jurists, Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States 1996)
In 2009, the American Law Institute (ALI), the leading independent organization in the U.S. producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law, removed capital punishment from its Model Penal Code. The ALI, which created the modern legal framework for the death penalty in 1962, indicated that the punishment is so arbitrary, fraught with racial and economic disparities, and unable to assure quality legal representation for indigent capital defendants, that it can never be administered fairly. Thoughtful citizens, who might possibly support the abstract notion of capital punishment, are obliged to condemn it in actual practice.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS IRREVERSIBLE Unlike any other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irrevocable. Speaking to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830, years after having witnessed the excesses of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette said, "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me." Although some proponents of capital punishment would argue that its merits are worth the occasional execution of innocent people, most would hasten to insist that there is little likelihood of the innocent being executed.
Since 1900, in this country, there have been on the average more than four cases each year in which an entirely innocent person was convicted of murder. Scores of these individuals were sentenced to death. In many cases, a reprieve or commutation arrived just hours, or even minutes, before the scheduled execution. These erroneous convictions have occurred in virtually every jurisdiction from one end of the nation to the other. Nor have they declined in recent years, despite the new death penalty statutes approved by the Supreme Court. Disturbingly, and increasingly, a large body of evidence from the modern era shows that innocent people are often convicted of crimes – including capital crimes – and that some have been executed.
In 2012, a new report in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review chronicled the horrifying case of Carlos DeLuna, a man executed in Texas in 1989 for a murder that it was “common knowledge” had been committed by another man. DeLuna’s story demonstrates so many of the factors that can go wrong in a capital case: faulty eyewitness identification, prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct, a botched crime scene, destroyed DNA evidence, a poor person represented by ineffective by an ineffective inexperienced defense attorney overmatched by a professional prosecutor, and insufficient oversight from the bench. In its case against DeLuna, the State presented no blood or DNA evidence, no crime scene fingerprints, and no proof of hair or fibers from the victim having been found on the defendant. He was convicted largely based on eyewitness testimony made from the back of a police car in a dimly lit lot near the crime scene. Meanwhile, a violent criminal named Carlos Hernandez—a man who not only shared DeLuna’s name, but also looked like him—repeatedly boasted about how he had committed the murder and gotten away with it. These disturbing facts about DeLuna’s case, brought to light more than two decades after his execution, refute the claim, made by some proponents of capital punishment, that the United States has never executed an innocent person.
Consider this additional handful of cases of innocent people sentenced to die – some executed and some spared: In 2011, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis, a Black man who was almost certainly innocent of the murder of a white off-duty police officer. The circumstances of his execution raised an international outcry, for good reason. Davis was convicted based on eyewitness testimony, since there was no murder weapon or physical evidence presented by the prosecution. Seven of the nine eyewitnesses recanted or contradicted their trial testimony, many of them saying they were pressured or threatened by police at the time. Troy Davis came close to execution three previous times, because of the difficulty of getting any court to listen to new evidence casting doubt on his conviction. After passage of a federal law in 1996, petitioners are very limited in their ability to appeal death sentences, and courts routinely refuse to hear new testimony, even evidence of innocence. When Troy Davis finally did get a hearing on his evidence, the judge required “proof of innocence” – an impossibly high standard which he ruled that Mr. Davis did not meet. Despite the overwhelming call for clemency, supposed to be the “fail-safe” of the death penalty system, the Georgia Board of Pardons refused to commute the sentence to life and Mr. Davis was executed. Only one day after Troy Davis was executed, two men were freed by the special Innocence Commission of North Carolina after a decade apiece in prison. The two men had actually pled guilty to a crime they did not commit, because they were threatened with the death penalty.
In Texas in 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson-murder of his three children. Independent investigations by a newspaper, a nonprofit organization using top experts in the field of fire science, and an independent expert hired by the State of Texas all found that accident, not arson was the cause of the fire. There simply was no reliable evidence that the children were murdered. Yet even with these reports in hand, the state of Texas executed Mr. Willingham. Earlier this year, the Texas Forensic Science Commission was poised to issue a report officially confirming these conclusions until Texas Governor Rick Perry replaced the Commission’s chair and some of its members. Cameron Todd Willingham, who claimed innocence all along, was executed for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. As an example of the arbitrariness of the death penalty, another man, Ernest Willis, also convicted of arson-murder on the same sort of flimsy and unscientific testimony, was freed from Texas death row six months after Willingham was executed.
In 1985, in Maryland, Kirk Bloodsworth was sentenced to death for rape and murder, despite the testimony of alibi witnesses. In 1986 his conviction was reversed on grounds of withheld evidence pointing to another suspect; he was retried, re-convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. In 1993, newly available DNA evidence proved he was not the rapist-killer, and he was released after the prosecution dismissed the case. A year later he was awarded $300,000 for wrongful punishment. Years later the DNA was matched to the real killer. In Mississippi, in 1990, Sabrina Butler was sentenced to death for killing her baby boy. She claimed the child died after attempts at resuscitation failed. On technical grounds her conviction was reversed in 1992. At retrial, she was acquitted when a neighbor corroborated Butler's explanation of the child's cause of death and the physician who performed the autopsy admitted his work had not been thorough.
In 1990, Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida. He had been convicted in 1976 along with his wife, Sonia Jacobs, for murdering a state trooper. In 1981 Jacobs' death sentence was reduced on appeal to life imprisonment, and 11 years later her conviction was vacated by a federal court. The evidence on which Tafero and Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced was identical; it consisted mainly of the perjured testimony of an ex-convict who turned state's witness in order to avoid a death sentence. Had Tafero been alive in 1992, he no doubt would have been released along with Jacobs. Tafero’s execution went horribly wrong, and his head caught on fire during the electrocution. In Alabama, Walter McMillian was convicted of murdering a white woman in 1988. Despite the jury's recommendation of a life sentence, the judge sentenced him to death. The sole evidence leading the police to arrest McMillian was testimony of an ex-convict seeking favor with the prosecution. A dozen alibi witnesses (all African Americans, like McMillian) testified on McMillian's behalf that they were together at a neighborhood gathering, to no avail. On appeal, after tireless efforts by his attorney Bryan Stevenson, McMillian's conviction was reversed by the Alabama Court of Appeals. Stevenson uncovered prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence and perjury by prosecution witnesses, and the new district attorney joined the defense in seeking dismissal of the charges.
In 1985, in Illinois, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were convicted of abduction, rape, and murder of a young girl and were sentenced to death. Shortly after, another man serving a life term in prison for similar crimes confessed that he alone was guilty; but his confession was inadmissible because he refused to repeat it in court unless the state waived the death penalty against him. Awarded a new trial in 1988, Cruz was again convicted and sentenced to death; Hernandez was also re-convicted, and sentenced to 80 years in prison. In 1992 the assistant attorney general assigned to prosecute the case on appeal resigned after becoming convinced of the defendants' innocence. The convictions were again overturned on appeal after DNA tests exonerated Cruz and implicated the prisoner who had earlier confessed. In 1995 the court ordered a directed verdict of acquittal, and sharply criticized the police for their unprofessional handling of the case. Hernandez was released on bail and the prosecution dropped all charges.
In 1980 in Texas a black high school janitor, Clarence Brandley, and his white co-worker found the body of a missing 16-year-old white schoolgirl. Interrogated by the police, they were told, "One of you two is going to hang for this." Looking at Brandley, the officer said, "Since you're the nigger, you're elected." In a classic case of rush to judgment, Brandley was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The circumstantial evidence against him was thin, other leads were ignored by the police, and the courtroom atmosphere reeked of racism. In 1986, Centurion Ministries – a volunteer group devoted to freeing wrongly convicted prisoners – came to Brandley's aid. Evidence had meanwhile emerged that another man had committed the murder for which Brandley was awaiting execution. Brandley was not released until 1990. (Davies, White Lies 1991) This sample of freakish and arbitrary innocence determinations also speaks directly to the unceasing concern that there are many more innocent people on death rows across the country – as well as who have been executed. Several factors seen in the above sample of cases help explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never miscarry: overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, race, faulty police work, coerced confessions, the defendant's previous criminal record, inept and under-resourced defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction, among others. And when the system does go wrong, it is often volunteers from outside the criminal justice system – journalists, for example – who rectify the errors, not the police or prosecutors. To retain the death penalty in the face of the demonstrable failures of the system is unacceptable, especially since there are no strong overriding reasons to favor the death penalty. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS BARBARIC
Prisoners are executed in the United States by any one of five methods; in a few jurisdictions the prisoner is allowed to choose which one he or she prefers:
The traditional mode of execution, hanging, is an option still available in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington. Death on the gallows is easily bungled: If the drop is too short, there will be a slow and agonizing death by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the head will be torn off.
Two states, Idaho and Utah, still authorize the firing squad. The prisoner is strapped into a chair and hooded. A target is pinned to the chest. Five marksmen, one with blanks, take aim and fire.
Throughout the twentieth century, electrocution has been the most widely used form of execution in this country, and is still utilized in eleven states, although lethal injection is the primary method of execution. The condemned prisoner is led – or dragged – into the death chamber, strapped into the chair, and electrodes are fastened to head and legs. When the switch is thrown the body strains, jolting as the voltage is raised and lowered. Often smoke rises from the head. There is the awful odor of burning flesh. No one knows how long electrocuted individuals retain consciousness. In 1983, the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama was described by an eyewitness as follows:
"At 8:30 p.m. the first jolt of 1900 volts of electricity passed through Mr. Evans' body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flames erupted … from the electrode tied to Mr. Evans' left leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist clenched permanently. The electrode apparently burst from the strap holding it in place. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans' face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and declared that he was not dead.
"The electrode on the left leg was re-fastened. …Mr. Evans was administered a second thirty second jolt of electricity. The stench of burning flesh was nauseating. More smoke emanated from his leg and head. Again, the doctors examined Mr. Evans. [They] reported that his heart was still beating, and that he was still alive. At that time, I asked the prison commissioner, who was communicating on an open telephone line to Governor George Wallace, to grant clemency on the grounds that Mr. Evans was being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The request …was denied.
"At 8:40 p.m., a third charge of electricity, thirty seconds in duration, was passed through Mr. Evans' body. At 8:44, the doctors pronounced him dead. The execution of John Evans took fourteen minutes." Afterwards, officials were embarrassed by what one observer called the "barbaric ritual." The prison spokesman remarked, "This was supposed to be a very clean manner of administering death."
The introduction of the gas chamber was an attempt to improve on electrocution. In this method of execution the prisoner is strapped into a chair with a container of sulfuric acid underneath. The chamber is sealed, and cyanide is dropped into the acid to form a lethal gas. Execution by suffocation in the lethal gas chamber has not been abolished but lethal injection serves as the primary method in states which still authorize it. In 1996 a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California (where the gas chamber has been used since 1933) ruled that this method is a "cruel and unusual punishment." Here is an account of the 1992 execution in Arizona of Don Harding, as reported in the dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens: "When the fumes enveloped Don's head he took a quick breath. A few seconds later he again looked in my direction. His face was red and contorted as if he were attempting to fight through tremendous pain. His mouth was pursed shut and his jaw was clenched tight. Don then took several more quick gulps of the fumes. "At this point Don's body started convulsing violently.... His face and body turned a deep red and the veins in his temple and neck began to bulge until I thought they might explode. After about a minute Don's face leaned partially forward, but he was still conscious. Every few seconds he continued to gulp in. He was shuddering uncontrollably and his body was racked with spasms. His head continued to snap back. His hands were clenched. "After several more minutes, the most violent of the convulsions subsided. At this time the muscles along Don's left arm and back began twitching in a wavelike motion under his skin. Spittle drooled from his mouth. "Don did not stop moving for approximately eight minutes, and after that he continued to twitch and jerk for another minute. Approximately two minutes later, we were told by a prison official that the execution was complete.
“Don Harding took ten minutes and thirty one seconds to die." (Gomez v. U.S. District Court, 112 S.Ct. 1652) The latest mode of inflicting the death penalty, enacted into law by more than 30 states, is lethal injection, first used in 1982 in Texas. It is easy to overstate the humaneness and efficacy of this method; one cannot know whether lethal injection is really painless and there is evidence that it is not. As the U.S. Court of Appeals observed, there is "substantial and uncontroverted evidence… that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…. Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation." (Chaney v. Heckler, 718 F.2d 1174, 1983). Its veneer of decency and subtle analogy with life-saving medical practice no doubt makes killing by lethal injection more acceptable to the public. Journalist Susan Blaustein, reacting to having witnessed an execution in Texas, comments: "The lethal injection method … has turned dying into a still life, thereby enabling the state to kill without anyone involved feeling anything…. Any remaining glimmers of doubt – about whether the man received due process, about his guilt, about our right to take life – cause us to rationalize these deaths with such catchwords as ‘heinous,’ ‘deserved,’ ‘deterrent,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘painless.’ We have perfected the art of institutional killing to the degree that it has deadened our natural, quintessentially human response to death."
Botched Lethal Injections Nor does execution by lethal injection always proceed smoothly as planned. In 1985 "the authorities repeatedly jabbed needles into … Stephen Morin, when they had trouble finding a usable vein because he had been a drug abuser." In 1988, during the execution of Raymond Landry, "a tube attached to a needle inside the inmate's right arm began leaking, sending the lethal mixture shooting across the death chamber toward witnesses." Although the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the current method of lethal injection used is constitutional, several people have suffered because of this form of execution. In Ohio, Rommel Broom was subjected to 18 attempts at finding a vein so that he could be killed by lethal injection. The process to try to execute him took over two hours. Finally, the governor had to stop the execution and grant the inmate a one week reprieve. Mr. Broom has not been executed because he is challenging the state’s right to hold a second execution attempt. Nor was he the only Ohio inmate so maltreated. During his 2006 execution Joseph Clark screamed, “it don’t work” and requested to take something by mouth so the torture would end when his executioners took thirty minutes to find a vein. Christopher Newton’s execution took over two hours – so long that he had to be given a bathroom break.
Lethal Injection Protocol Issues Most lethal injections in the United States use a “cocktail” consisting of three drugs that sequentially render an inmate unconscious, cause paralysis and cease breathing, and stop an inmate’s heart. But in 2011, the sole American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a vital part of the three-drug cocktail, decided to discontinue production, forcing states to adapt their lethal injection methodology. Some states have replaced the three-drug cocktail with a single substance, while others have replaced thiopental in the three-drug sequence with another anesthetic. Both three-drug and single-drug executions raise vital concerns: the three-drug cocktail’s paralyzing sedative may mask the inmate’s pain and suffering, while the single-drug method takes about 25 minutes to end a life (if there are no complications), compared with the ten-minute three-drug process.
Although the Supreme Court held in 2008 that Kentucky’s three-drug lethal injection procedure did not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, it is unclear whether states’ adapted procedures pass muster. Indeed, in February 2012, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals admonished the Arizona Department of Corrections, stating that its approach to execution “cannot continue” and questioning the “regularity and reliability” of protocols that give complete discretion to the corrections director to determine which and how many drugs will be used for each execution. In Georgia, the state Supreme Court stayed the execution of Warren Hill hours before he was scheduled to die in July 2012 in order to review the Department of Corrections’ new single-drug lethal injection procedure. The Missouri Supreme Court imposed a temporary moratorium on executions in August 2012, declaring that it would be “premature” to set execution dates for death row inmates given a pending lawsuit about whether the state’s lethal injection procedures are humane. The state had amended its injection protocol to use a single drug, propofol, which advocates say causes severe pain upon injection.
Although similar suits are pending in other states, not all protocol-based challenges have succeeded; in Texas and Oklahoma, executions have continued despite questions about the potential cruelty of lethal injection and the type or number of chemicals used.
Regardless of whether states use one or three drugs for an execution, all of the major lethal injection drugs are in short supply due to manufacturers’ efforts to prevent the use of their products for executions and European Union restrictions on the exportation of drugs that may be used to kill. As a result, some state executioners have pursued questionable means of obtaining the deadly chemicals from other states and foreign companies, including a pharmaceutical wholesaler operating out of the back of a London driving school. These backroom deals—which, astoundingly, have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—are now the subject of federal litigation that could impact the legitimacy of the American death penalty system. In March 2012, six death row inmates argued that the FDA had shirked its duty to regulate lethal substances and raised concerns about the “very real risk that unapproved thiopental will not actually render a condemned prisoner unconscious.” A federal district judge agreed and ordered the FDA to confiscate the imported thiopental, but the agency has appealed.
Witnessing the Execution Most people who have observed an execution are horrified and disgusted. "I was ashamed," writes sociologist Richard Moran, who witnessed an execution in Texas in 1985. "I was an intruder, the only member of the public who had trespassed on [the condemned man's] private moment of anguish. In my face he could see the horror of his own death."
Revulsion at the duty to supervise and witness executions is one reason why so many prison wardens – however unsentimental they are about crime and criminals – are opponents of capital punishment. Don Cabana, who supervised several executions in Missouri and Mississippi reflects on his mood just prior to witnessing an execution in the gas chamber:
"If [the condemned prisoner] was some awful monster deemed worthy of extermination, why did I feel so bad about it, I wondered. It has been said that men on death row are inhuman, cold-blooded killers. But as I stood and watched a grieving mother leave her son for the last time, I questioned how the sordid business of executions was supposed to be the great equalizer…. The 'last mile' seemed an eternity, every step a painful reminder of what waited at the end of the walk. Where was the cold-blooded murderer, I wondered, as we approached the door to the last-night cell. I had looked for that man before… and I still had not found him – I saw, in my grasp, only a frightened child. [Minutes after the execution and before] heading for the conference room and a waiting press corps, I… shook my head. 'No more. I don't want to do this anymore.'" 1996)
Recently, Allen Ault, former executioner for the State of Georgia, wrote, “The men and women who assist in executions are not psychopaths or sadists. They do their best to perform the impossible and inhumane job with which the state has charged them. Those of us who have participated in executions often suffer something very much like posttraumatic stress. Many turn to alcohol and drugs. For me, those nights that weren’t sleepless were plagued by nightmares.”
For some individuals, however, executions seem to appeal to strange, aberrant impulses and provide an outlet for sadistic urges. Warden Lewis Lawes of Sing Sing Prison in New York wrote of the many requests he received to watch electrocutions, and told that when the job of executioner became vacant. "I received more than seven hundred applications for the position, many of them offering cut-rate prices." (Life and Death in Sing Sing 1928) Public executions were common in this country during the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the last ones occurred in 1936 in Kentucky, when 20,000 people gathered to watch the hanging of a young African American male. (Teeters, in Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society 1960)
Delight in brutality, pain, violence and death may always be with us. But surely we must conclude that it is best for the law not to encourage such impulses. When the government sanctions, commands, and ceremoniously carries out the execution of a prisoner, it lends support to this destructive side of human nature.
More than two centuries ago the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, in his highly influential treatise On Crimes and Punishment (1764), asserted: "The death penalty cannot be useful, because of the example of barbarity it gives men." Beccaria's words still ring true – even if the death penalty were a "useful" deterrent, it would still be an "example of barbarity." No society can safely entrust the enforcement of its laws to torture, brutality, or killing. Such methods are inherently cruel and will always mock the attempt to cloak them in justice. As Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg wrote, "The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality."(Boston Globe, August 16, 1976)
Death Row Syndrome Capital appeals are not only costly; they are also time-consuming. The average death row inmate waits 12 years between sentencing and execution, and some sit in anticipation of their executions on death row for up to 30 years. For these prisoners, most of whom are housed in solitary confinement, this wait period may cause “Death Row Phenomenon” or “Death Row Syndrome.” Although the terms are often used interchangeably, “Death Row Phenomenon” refers to the destructive consequences of long-term solitary confinement and the inevitable anxiety that results from awaiting one’s own death, while “Death Row Syndrome” refers to the severe psychological illness that often results from Death Row Phenomenon.
In solitary confinement, inmates are often isolated for 23 hours each day without access to training or educational programs, recreational activities, or regular visits. Such conditions have been demonstrated to provoke agitation, psychosis, delusions, paranoia, and self-destructive behavior. To inflict this type of mental harm is inhumane, but it also may prove detrimental to public safety. When death row inmates successfully appeal their sentences, they are transferred into the general inmate population, and when death row inmates are exonerated, they are promptly released into the community. Death Row Syndrome needlessly risks making these individuals dangerous to those around them.
Neither Death Row Syndrome nor Death Row Phenomenon has received formal recognition from the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychological Association. In 1995, however, Justices Stevens and Breyer, in a memorandum regarding the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari to death row inmate Clarence Lackey, highlighted the “importance and novelty” of the question “whether executing a prisoner who has already spent some 17 years on death row violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.” Further, as some scholars and advocates have noted, the mental deterioration symptomatic of Death Row Syndrome may render an inmate incompetent to participate in their own post-conviction proceedings.
Death Row Syndrome gained international recognition during the 1989 extradition proceedings of Jens Soering, a German citizen arrested in England and charged with committing murder on American soil. Soering argued, and the European Court of Human Rights agreed, that extraditing him to the United States would violate Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Court explained that, in the United States, “the condemned prisoner has to endure for many years the conditions on death row and the anguish and mounting tension of living in the ever-present shadow of death” such that extraditing Soering would violate protections against “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Similar conclusions have been reached by the United Kingdom’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and the Canadian Supreme Court.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS UNJUSTIFIED RETRIBUTION Justice, it is often insisted, requires the death penalty as the only suitable retribution for heinous crimes. This claim does not bear scrutiny, however. By its nature, all punishment is retributive. Therefore, whatever legitimacy is to be found in punishment as just retribution can, in principle, be satisfied without recourse to executions. Moreover, the death penalty could be defended on narrowly retributive grounds only for the crime of murder, and not for any of the many other crimes that have frequently been made subject to this mode of punishment (rape, kidnapping, espionage, treason, drug trafficking). Few defenders of the death penalty are willing to confine themselves consistently to the narrow scope afforded by retribution. In any case, execution is more than a punishment exacted in retribution for the taking of a life. As Nobel Laureate Albert Camus wrote, "For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life." (Reflections on the Guillotine, in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death 1960)
It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should be punished according to their just desserts – "making the punishment fit the crime." If this rule means punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable: It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again – punishments that are, of course, impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murder. If, however, the principle of just deserts means the severity of punishments must be proportional to the gravity of the crime – and since murder is the gravest crime, it deserves the severest punishment – then the principle is no doubt sound. Nevertheless, this premise does not compel support for the death penalty; what it does require is that other crimes be punished with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the punishment of murder.
Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and the severity of the punishment should be appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits – imposed by both justice and our common human dignity. Governments that respect these limits do not use premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy.
Murder Victims Families Oppose the Death Penalty Some people who have lost a loved one to murder believe that they cannot rest until the murderer is executed. But this sentiment is by no means universal. Coretta Scott King has observed, "As one whose husband and mother- in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder." (Speech to National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Washington, D.C., September 26, 1981) Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of the slain Senator Robert Kennedy, has written: "I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder.…But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, 'Please, God. Please don't take his life too.' I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family – another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief."(Foreword to Gray and Stanley, A Punishment in Search of A Crime 1989) Across the nation, many who have survived the murder of a loved one have joined Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation or Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, in the effort to replace anger and hate toward the criminal with a restorative approach to both the offender and the bereaved survivors. Groups of murder victims family members have supported campaigns for abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, Connecticut, Montana and Maryland most recently.
Barbara Anderson Young, the sister of James Anderson, who was allegedly run over by a white teenager in Mississippi in 2011, who reportedly wanted to hurt him because he was Black, wrote a letter to the local prosecutor on behalf of their family indicating the family’s opposition to the death penalty, which is “deeply rooted in our religious faith, a faith that was central in James’ life as well.” The letter also eloquently asks that the defendant be spared execution because the death penalty “historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites.” It continues, “[e]xecuting James' killers will not help balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment."
Lawrence Brewer, convicted of the notorious dragging death of James Byrd in Texas, was executed in 2011. Members of Mr. Byrd’s family opposed the death penalty, despite the racist and vicious nature of the killing. Of Brewer’s remorseless – he said he had no regrets the day he was executed – Byrd’s sister, Betty Boatner, said, “If I could say something to him, I would let him know that I forgive him and then if he still has no remorse, I just feel sorry for him.” Byrd’s daughter shared that she didn’t want Brewer to die because “it’s easy . . .(a)ll he’s going to do it go to sleep” rather than live every day with what he did and perhaps one day recognize the humanity of his victim. James Byrd’s son, Ross, points out "You can't fight murder with murder . . .(l)ife in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT COSTS MORE THAN INCARCERATION It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment.") A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs – including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs – are mostly borne by the taxpayer. The extra costs of separate death row housing and additional security in court and elsewhere also add to the cost. A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison. (N.Y. State Defenders Assn., "Capital Losses" 1982)
The death penalty was eventually reintroduced in New York and then found unconstitutional and not reintroduced again, in part because of cost.
In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years concluded that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence." In 1988 and 1989 the Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of more than $11 million. Florida, with one of the nation's most populous death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence." (David von Drehle, "Capital Punishment in Paralysis," Miami Herald, July 10, 1988) A 1993 study of the costs of North Carolina's capital punishment system revealed that litigating a murder case from start to finish adds an extra $163,000 to what it would cost the state to keep the convicted offender in prison for 20 years. The extra cost goes up to $216,000 per case when all first-degree murder trials and their appeals are considered, many of which do not end with a death sentence and an execution.
In 2011 in California, a broad coalition of organizations called Taxpayers for Justice put repeal of the death penalty on the ballot for 2012 in part because of the high cost documented by a recent study that found the state has already spent $4 billion on capital punishment resulting in 13 executions. The group includes over 100 law enforcement leaders, in addition to crime-victim advocates and exonerated individuals. Among them is former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, whose office pursued dozens of capital cases during his 32 years as a prosecutor. He said, "My frustration is more about the fact that the death penalty does not serve any useful purpose and it's very expensive." Don Heller, a Republican and former prosecutor, wrote "I am convinced that at least one innocent person may have been executed under the current death penalty law. It was not my intent nor do I believe that of the voters who overwhelmingly enacted the death penalty law in 1978. We did not consider that horrific possibility." Heller emphasized that he is not "soft on crime," but that "life without parole protects public safety better than a death sentence." Additionally, he said the money spent on the death penalty could be better used elsewhere, as California cuts funding for police officers and prosecutors. "Paradoxically, the cost of capital punishment takes away funds that could be used to enhance public safety."
From one end of the country to the other public officials decry the additional cost of capital cases even when they support the death penalty system. "Wherever the death penalty is in place, it siphons off resources which could be going to the front line in the war against crime…. Politicians could address this crisis, but, for the most part they either endorse executions or remain silent." The only way to make the death penalty more "cost effective" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's (and society's) only protection against the most aberrant miscarriages of justice. Any savings in dollars would, of course, be at the cost of justice: In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned.
In 1996, in response to public clamor for accelerating executions, Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal habeas corpus and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty "resource centers" charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts. (Carol Castenada, "Death Penalty Centers Losing Support Funds," USA Today, Oct. 24, 1995) These restrictions virtually guarantee that the number and variety of wrongful murder convictions and death sentences will increase. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS LESS POPULAR THAN THE ALTERNATIVES It is commonly reported that the American public overwhelmingly approves of the death penalty. More careful analysis of public attitudes, however, reveals that most Americans prefer an alternative; they would oppose the death penalty if convicted murderers were sentenced to life without parole and were required to make some form of financial restitution. In 2010, when California voters were asked which sentence they preferred for a first-degree murderer, 42% of registered voters said they preferred life without parole and 41% said they preferred the death penalty. In 2000, when voters were asked the same question, 37% chose life without parole while 44% chose the death penalty. A 1993 nationwide survey revealed that although 77% of the public approves of the death penalty, support drops to 56% if the alternative is punishment with no parole eligibility until 25 years in prison. Support drops even further, to 49%, if the alternative is no parole under any conditions. And if the alternative is no parole plus restitution, it drops still further, to 41%. Only a minority of the American public would favor the death penalty if offered such alternatives.
INTERNATIONALLY, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS WIDELY VIEWED AS INHUMANE AND ANACHRONISTIC An international perspective on the death penalty helps us understand the peculiarity of its use in the United States. As long ago as 1962, it was reported to the Council of Europe that "the facts clearly show that the death penalty is regarded in Europe as something of an anachronism…." 1962) Today, either by law or in practice, all of Western Europe has abolished the death penalty. In Great Britain, it was abolished (except for cases of treason) in 1971; France abolished it in 1981. Canada abolished it in 1976. The United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment." By mid-1995, eighteen countries had ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, outlawing the death penalty in peacetime.
Underscoring worldwide support for abolition was the action of the South African constitutional court in 1995, barring the death penalty as an "inhumane" punishment. Between 1989 and 1995, two dozen other countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Since 1995, 43 more abolished it. All told, 71% of the world’s nation’s have abolished the death penalty in law or practice; only 58 of 197 retain it.
International Law A look at international trends and agreements sheds light on the peculiarity of the United States’ continued imposition of capital punishment. Today, over 140 nations have abolished the death penalty either by law or in practice and, of the 58 countries that have retained the death penalty, only 21 carried out known executions in 2011. Furthermore, capital punishment has compelled the United States to abstain from signing or ratifying several major international treaties and perhaps to violate international agreements to which it is a party: In 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the UN’s primary human rights treaties. Parties to the Protocol must take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty and protect their citizens’ right not to be executed, although signatories may reserve the right to apply the death penalty for serious military criminals during wartime. The United States has yet to join the 35 signatories or 75 parties to the Protocol, trailing behind the world’s leading democracies in the protection of human rights.
Although the Second Protocol to the ICCPR is the only worldwide instrument calling for death penalty abolition, there are three such instruments with regional emphases. Adopted by the Council of Europe in 1982 and ratified by eighteen nations by mid-1995, the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides for the abolition of capital punishment during peacetime. In 2002, the Council adopted the Thirteenth Protocol to the ECHR, which provides for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, including times of war or imminent threat of war. In 1990, the Organization of American States adopted the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which provides for total abolition but allows states to reserve the right to apply the death penalty during wartime.
The United States has ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), an international treaty setting forth a framework for consular relations among independent countries. Under Article 36 of the VCCR, local authorities are obligated to inform all detained foreigners “without delay” of their right to request consular notification of their detention and their right to demand and access opportunities to communicate with their consular representatives. Local authorities have repeatedly disregarded this obligation, resulting in the International Court of Justice holding in 2004 that states had violated the VCCR by failing to inform 51 named Mexican nationals of their rights. All 51 were sentenced to death. When the State of Texas refused to honor this judgment and provide relief for the 15 death-row inmates whose VCCR rights it had violated, President George W. Bush sought to intervene on the prisoners’ behalf, taking the case to the United States Supreme Court. The Court denied the President’s appeal, and Texas has gone on to execute inmates whose VCCR rights it had failed to honor. In 1994, the United States signed the United Nations (UN) Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). The treaty, which has now been ratified or signed by 176 nations,
outlaws the imposition of physical or psychological abuse on people in detention. While it does not explicitly prohibit capital punishment, the treaty does forbid the intentional infliction of pain. Since 1976, however, more than 20 executions in the United States have involved prolonged, painful, or shocking errors, such as an inmate’s head catching fire or a lengthy and torturous search for a vein suitable for lethal injection. Additionally, accidents aside, our methods of execution—lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, gas chamber, and hanging—may be inherently painful. The CAT also forbids the infliction of pain and suffering “based on discrimination of any kind,” yet racial inequality is endemic to our death rows.
Also in 1994, the United States ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), a treaty intended to protect against racial discrimination, whether intentional or resulting from seemingly neutral state policies. To meet its obligations as a party to ICERD, the United States must take steps to review and amend policies and procedures that create or perpetuate racial discrimination, including capital punishment.
Once in use everywhere and for a wide variety of crimes, the death penalty today is generally forbidden by law and widely abandoned in practice, in most countries outside the United States. Indeed, the unmistakable worldwide trend is toward the complete abolition of capital punishment. In the United States, opposition to the death penalty is widespread and diverse. Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious groups are among the more than 50 national organizations that constitute the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
The Case Against the Death Penalty was first published by the ACLU as a pamphlet in 1973. The original text was written by Hugo Adam Bedau, Ph.D., who also contributed to several subsequent editions of the pamphlet. This version was most recently revised by the ACLU in 2012. This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source E :
“History of Death Penalty Laws.” ProCon.org website, May 5, 2013. Web. August 3, 2014.
Website: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php? resourceID=001172
History of Death Penalty Laws by State
The death penalty is legal in 32 states and illegal in 18 states (and DC). The "legal" and "illegal" designations in the "Death Penalty Status" column are based on the US Department of Justice's "Capital Punishment" reports. The June 29, 1972 Furman v. Georgia Supreme Court case placed a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in America. Many states amended their laws to comply with the mandates of the Furman decision and reinstate capital punishment. STATE DEATH PENALTY STATUS SUMMARY OF DEATH PENALTY HISTORY (click for statute)
Alabama Legal 1976 Alabama reinstated capital punishment in 1976. [5, 14] Alaska Illegal 1957 The last execution in Alaska was in 1950 in Juneau. [5, 10, 14] Arizona Legal 1973 The death penalty was abolished in 1916, reinstated in 1918, and reinstated post-Furman in 1973. [5, 10, 14] Arkansas Legal 1973 As his last act as Governor, Winthrop Rockefeller granted clemency to all death-row inmates in 1970. Capital punishment was reinstated by legislature and Governor Bumpers in 1973. On June 22, 2012, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled the death penalty law invalid until the state specifies the type and quantity of drug to be used for lethal injections. [3, 5, 6, 10, 14] California Legal 1977 California Supreme Court case, People v. Anderson, temporarily ended capital punishment in 1972 but it was reinstated via voter approval of Proposition 17 in 1972. The Supreme Court of California again found the death penalty statute unconstitutional in 1976, but it was revised and reinstated in 1977. [5, 14] Colorado Legal 1975 Capital punishment was abolished in 1897 and reinstated in 1901 by the legislature. Colorado was the last state to perform an execution (1967) before Furman. Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1975. [5, 14]
Connecticut Illegal 2012 Connecticut's capital punishment was reinstated post- Furman in 1976 and was abolished by legislature and Governor Malloy on Apr. 25, 2012. The 2012 repeal was not retroactive and death row inmates may still be executed. [1, 5, 8, 14] Delaware Capital punishment was abolished in 1958 and Legal 1974 subsequently reinstated in 1961. It was reinstated post- Furman in 1974. [5, 10, 14] District of The death penalty was repealed by the DC Council in 1981. Illegal 1981 Columbia [5, 14] Florida Legal 1973 Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1972. [5, 14] Georgia Legal 1973 The death penalty was reinstated post-Furman in 1973. Georgia's capital punishment system received international attention with the 2011 execution of Troy Davis; Davis' supporters cited a lack of physical and DNA evidence. [5, 10, 14] Hawaii Illegal 1957 Hawaii abolished the death penalty before being granted statehood in 1957. [5, 10 14] Idaho Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1973. [5, Legal 1973 14] Illinois Illinois reinstated capital punishment post-Furman in 1974. Governor Ryan instituted a moratorium on executions on Illegal 2011 Jan. 31, 2000 and Governor Quinn signed legislation to abolish the death penalty on Mar. 9, 2011. [5, 14] Indiana Legal 1973 The death penalty was reinstated post-Furman in 1973. [5, 14] Iowa Illegal 1965 Governor Carpenter abolished the death penalty in 1872. The legislature and Governor Gear reinstated capital punishment in 1878. Governor Hughes signed a death penalty abolition bill in 1965. [5, 7, 10, 14] Kansas Kansas banned many applications of the death penalty in Legal 1994 1872 and all applications in 1907. It was reinstated in 1935 and again post-Furman in 1994. [5, 14] Kentucky Legal 1975 Capital punishment was reinstated in 1975 post-Furman. [5, 14] STATE DEATH PENALTY STATUS SUMMARY OF DEATH PENALTY HISTORY (click for statute) Louisiana The death penalty was reinstated in 1973 post-Furman. [5, Legal 1973 14] Maine Illegal 1887 The legislature abolished the death penalty in 1876, reinstated it in 1883, and abolished it again in 1887. [5, 14] Maryland Illegal 2013 The death penalty was reinstated post-Furman in 1978. In May 2001, Governor Glendening established a morotorium on executions which was lifted by his successor, Governor Ehrlich. [5, 14] Governor O’Malley signed legislation to abolish the death penalty on May 2, 2013. [16] Massachusetts Illegal 1984 Capital punishment was reinstated by voter amendment in 1982 post-Furman. The law establishing capital punisment was ruled unconstitutional in 1984 with state court case Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz. [5, 14] Michigan Michigan banned the death penalty in 1846 for all crimes Illegal 1846 but treason; voter referendum in 1963 banned the death penalty for all crimes, including treason. [5, 10, 14] Minnesota Illegal 1911 Over 20 bills to reintroduce the death penalty have been proposed since 1911, all of which have been unsuccessful. [5, 14] Mississippi Legal 1974 Capital punishment was reinstated in 1974 post-Furman. [5, 14] Missouri Legal 1975 Capital punishment was abolished in 1911, reinstated in 1917, and reinstated 1975 post-Furman. [5, 14] Montana Capital punishment was reinstated in 1974 post-Furman. [5, Legal 1974 14] Nebraska Legal 1973 The death penalty was reinstated in 1973 post-Furman. [5, 14] Nevada Legal 1973 The death penalty was reinstated in 1973 post-Furman. [5, 14] New Hampshire Legal 1991 Capital punishment was reinstated in 1991 post-Furman. New Hampshire only allows the death penalty for murder under specific circumstances. [5, 14] New Jersey Illegal 2007 The death penalty was reinstated in 1982 post-Furman then abolished by Governor Corzine in 2007. [5, 14] New Mexico Illegal 2009 Capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 post-Furman. Governor Richardson signed abolition of the death penalty into law in 2009. The state still has a law allowing for execution for espionage, but the DOJ considers New Mexico to have no capital punishment. [5, 10, 14] New York Illegal 2004 Capital punishment was reinstated by Governor Pataki in 1995 post-Furman, and ruled unconstitutional in the state court's People v. Lavalle 2004 decision. The 2007 decision People v. Taylor found part of the sentencing statute unconstitutional and no defendants may be sentenced to death until the statute is corrected. Governor Paterson issued an executive order in 2008 to remove all capital punishment equipment from Green Haven Correctional Facilty in 2008. The death penalty has not been abolished by law and may be used if the unconstitutional sentencing statute is revised by legislature. [5, 10, 14] North Carolina Legal 1977 The death penalty was reinstated in 1977 post-Furman. [5, 14] North Dakota Illegal 1973 Capital punishment ws abolished in 1915 for all crimes excluding treason and murder committed by already jailed inmates. In 1973 the legislature voted to make no crimes eligible for the death penalty. [5, 14] Ohio Capital punishment was reinstated in 1974 post-Furman. [5, Legal 1973 14] Oklahoma The death penalty was reinstated in 1973 post-Furman. [5, Legal 1984 14] Oregon Legal 1984 Capital punishment was abolished in 1914 by a public vote and reinstated in 1920 at the urging of Governor West. In 1964 Oregon voted to abolish the death penalty and in 1978 voted to reinstate capital punishment. A 1981 state Supreme Court Case ruled the 1978 measure unconstitutional, and in 1984 voters approved a measure that overturned the 1978 decision making the death penalty legal again. In 2011 Governor Kitzhaber placed a moratorium on executions. [4, 5, 10, 14, 15] STATE DEATH PENALTY STATUS SUMMARY OF DEATH PENALTY HISTORY (click for statute) Pennsylvania Legal 1978 A 1972 state Supreme Court case (Commonwealth v. Bradley) ruled Pennsylvania's application of capital punishment unconstitutional. The legislature reinstated the death penalty in 1974, only to have the State Supreme court rule its reinstatement unconstitutional in 1977. In 1978 the legislature passed an edited death penalty bill to correct the constitutional concerns raised by the state Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. [5, 14] Rhode Island Illegal 1984 Capital punishment was abolished in 1852 and reinstated by legislature in 1873. After Furman, the state rewrote its death penalty law to mandate capital punishment for certain crimes. That mandate was ruled unconstitutional in 1979. In 1984 the legislature abolished capital punishment entirely. [5, 14] South Carolina Legal 1974 Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1974. [5, 14] South Dakota Legal 1979 The death penalty was abolished in 1915, reinstated in 1918, and reinstated post-Furman in 1979. [5, 12, 14] Tennesee Tennessee abolished capital punishment in 1915, reinstated Legal 1974 it in 1939, and reinstated it post-Furman in 1974. [5, 14] Texas Legal 1974 Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1974. Texas has carried out the most executions in the United States since Furman with 483 executions as of July 18, 2012. [5, 13, 14] Utah The death penalty was reinstated post-Furman in 1973. [5, Legal 1973 10, 14] Vermont Illegal 1987 The legislature effectively abolished capital punishment in 1965 unless a warden, prison employee, or law enforcement officer was murdered. But Vermont's jurors never used the death sentence option when available so legislators removed that exception in 1987. Vermont law still allows for execution for treason but the DOJ considers Vermont to have no capital punishment. [5, 9, 10, 11, 14] Virginia Legal 1975 The first recorded execution in an English American colony occurred in Virginia in 1608. Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1975. [5, 14] Washington Legal 1975 Capital punishment was abolished in 1913, reinstated in 1919, and reinstated post-Furman in in 1975. [5, 14] West Virginia Illegal 1965 West Virginia was the last state pre-Furman to abolish the death penalty. [5, 10, 14] Wisconsin Illegal 1853 The death penalty was abolished in 1853. [5, 14] Wyoming Legal 1977 Capital punishment was reinstated post-Furman in 1977. [5, 14]
Eleven States That Authorize the Death Penalty for Crimes Other Than Murder STATE CRIME (statute) Arkansas Treason (§ 5-4-104) California Treason (CA Penal Code § 37-38) Colorado Treason (§ 18-11-101) Florida Drug Trafficking (§ 921.142) Hijacking an aircraft (§ 16-5-44) Georgia Treason (§ 16-11-1) Louisiana Treason (R.S. 14:113) Aircraft Piracy (§ 97-25-55) Mississippi Treason (§ 97-7-67) Missouri Treason (§ 576-070) New Mexico Espionage (§ 20-12-42) Vermont Treason (13 V.S.A. § 3401) Washington Treason (§ 9.82.010) This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source F: Lowe, Wesley. “Capital Punishment and its Costs.” Pro Death Penalty website, January 11, 2011. Web. August 4, 2014.
Website: http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#constitution
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND ITS COSTS:
There's a claim that it is more expensive for the state to execute a criminal than to incarcerate him for life. Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ("LWOP") at a cost of $1 million for 50 years. Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA (Justice for All) estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million - $3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases.
And life without parole prisoners face, on average, 30 or 40 years in prison while the annual cost of incarceration is $40,000 to $50,000 a year for each prisoner or more! There is no question that the up-front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive - from $1.2 to $3.6 million - than death penalty cases. Opponents ludicrously claim that the death penalty costs, over time, 3-10 times more than LWOP.
The $34,200 is conservative, if TIME Magazine's (2/7/94) research is accurate. TIME found that, nationwide, the average cell cost is $24,000/yr. and the maximum security cell cost is $75,000/yr. (as of12/95). Opponents claim that LWOP should replace the DP. Therefore, any cost calculations should be based specifically on cell costs for criminals who have committed the exact same category of offense - in other words, cost comparisons are valid only if you compare the costs of DP-equivalent LWOP cases to the cost of DP cases. The $34,200/yr. cell cost assumes that only 20% of the DP-equivalent LWOP cases would be in maximum security cost cells and that 80% of the DP-equivalent LWOP cases would be in average cost cells. A very conservative estimate. The $60,000/yr., for those on death row, assumes that such cells will average a cost equal to 80% of the $75,000/yr. for the most expensive maximum security cells. A very high estimate. Even though we are calculating a 75% greater cell cost for the DP than for equivalent LWOP cases, equivalent LWOP cases appear to be significantly more expensive, over time, than their DP counterparts. For years, opponents have improperly compared the cost of all LWOP cases to DP cases, when only the DP equivalent LWOP cases are relevant.
Annual cost increases are based upon: 1) historical increases in prison costs, including judicial decisions regarding prison conditions, and the national inflation rate; 2) medical costs, including the immense cost of geriatric care, associated with real LWOP sentences; 3) injury or death to the inmate by violence; 4) injury or death to others caused by the inmate (3 and 4 anticipate no DP and that prisoners, not fearing additional punishment, other than loss of privileges, may increase the likelihood of violence. One could make the same assumptions regarding those on death row. The difference is that death row inmates will average 6 years incarceration vs. 50 years projected for LWOP); 5) the risk and the perceived risk of escape; and 6) the justifiable lack of confidence by the populace in our legislators, governors, parole boards and judges, i.e. a violent inmate will be released upon society.
$75,000 for trial and appeals cost, for DP-equivalent LWOP cases, assumes that the DP is not an option. It is believed that this cost estimate is very low. It is over-estimated that DP cases will cost twenty times more, on average, or $1.5 million. This exaggerated estimate states that the DP will have twenty times more investigation cost, defense and prosecution cost, including court time, guilt/innocence stage, sentencing stage and appellate review time and cost than DP equivalent LWOP cases. Even though abolitionists have greatly exaggerated the cost of DP cases, DP cases still prove to be significantly less expensive, over time, than the DP equivalent LWOP cases. 6 years on death row, prior to execution, reflects the new habeas corpus reform laws, at both the state and federal levels. Some anti-death penalty groups speculate that such time may actually become only 4 years. If so, then DP cases would cost even that much less than the DP equivalent LWOP cases. However, the average time on death row, for those executed from 1973-1994, was 8 years. Therefore, 6 years seems more likely. Even using the 8 year average, the DP equivalent LWOP cases are still $1 million more expensive than their DP counterparts ($2 million @ 2% annual increase).
Also, U.S. states that repeal death penalty laws do not see a significant savings in trial costs. In states where the death penalty is the maximum punishment, a larger number of defendants are willing to plead guilty and receive a life sentence. The greater cost of trials where the prosecution does seek the death penalty is offset, at least in part, by the savings from avoiding trial altogether in cases where the defendant pleads guilty.
The study -- The Death Penalty and Plea Bargaining of Life Sentences -- examined data gathered by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics from 33 large urban counties. The study examined how many of the murder cases were resolved by guilty plea, how many went to trial and how many resulted in a sentence of at least 20 years. In states with the death penalty, the average county obtained sentences of 20 years or more in more than 50 percent of cases where the defendant was convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter. In states without the death penalty, sentences of 20 years or more were obtained in just more than 40 percent of such cases, but only 5 percent of those were guilty pleas, or just more than a quarter of the number in the death penalty states. And if the death penalty is abolished, abolitionists will turn to eliminate life without parole as well and will drive the appeals costs higher than death penalty appeals since there is no execution to end the process of a life without parole prisoner.
Lastly, the cost for justice does not have to be so high for the execution of murderers. If we only allowed appeals that are relevant in proving one's innocence and eliminated the many more that are used merely as delaying tactics, it would save millions in taxpayer dollars.
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:
Abolitionists claim that the death penalty is un-constitutional by quoting the eighth amendment which forbids "cruel and unusual punishment." "Cruel and unusual" has never been defined by our founding fathers, but let's examine the issue anyway.
Where does the Supreme Court stand on the "cruel and unusual" claim of the abolitionists? In several cases the Justices of the Supreme Court have held that the DP is not cruel and/or unusual , and is in fact, a Constitutionally acceptable remedy for a criminal act.
In Trop v. Dulles, Chief Justice Earl Warren, no friend of the death penalty, said: "Whatever the arguments may be against capital punishment, both on moral grounds and on grounds and in terms of accomplishing the purposes of punishment.... the death penalty has been employed throughout our history, and in a day when it is still widely accepted, it cannot be said to violate the conceptional concept of cruelty".
Indeed, the Supreme Court has constantly held that the death penalty in itself, as a sentence for a crime, is neither cruel or unusual. In Furman vs. Georgia, the court said: "The punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there is something more inhuman and barbarous, than the mere extinguishment of life." There are those who insist that the Constitution does not support the death penalty. This is simply not true. The fifth amendment states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Note: "...a capital, or otherwise infamous crime...... be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb...... nor be deprived of life...without due process of law..."
So the constitution does allow capital punishment through indirect references such as these.
Former Justice Marshall McComb of the California Supreme Court wrote in 1972: It is my opinion that the death penalty is constitutional, as determined...in innumerable cases. Therefore, since it is the duty of the Legislature of the electorate, and not the judiciary, to decide whether it is sound public policy to empower the imposing of the death penalty, it is my opinion that if a change is to be made, it should be effected through the legislative process of by the people through the initiative process.
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed this analysis in 1997 when he said: "No fewer than three of the Justices with whom I have served (Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun) have maintained that the death penalty is unconstitutional, even though its use is explicitly contemplated in the Constitution. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments says that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law; and the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment says that no person shall be held to answer for a capital crime without grand-jury indictment."
Sydicated columnist Jeff Jacoby states where Constitutional law stands on this issue well when he wrote: It is up to the law to speak to them-to speak for all grief-stricken survivors confronted with the butchery of someone near and dear. Capital punishment says to them: We, the community, take your loss with the utmost seriousness. We know that you are filled with rage and pain. We know that you may cry for vengeance, may yearn to strangle the murderer with your bare hands. You are right to feel that way. But it is not for you to wreak retribution. As a decent and just society, we will do it. Fairly. After due process. In a court of law.
I would imagine that the Founding Fathers could not have conceived of a world or nation without capital punishment. Indeed, in those days, there was absolutely no question of the value of public safety and personal responsibility. Had they foreseen the rise in violent crime we have had in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s, they might have declared the death penalty in the preamble!
THE MORALITY OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:
On a final note, how can murder be taken seriously if the penalty isn't equally as serious? A crime, after all, is only as severe as the punishment that follows it. As Edward Koch once said: "It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life."
Award-winning Chicago journalist Mike Royko strongly defended this position by stating: "When I think of the thousands of inhabitants of Death Rows in the hundreds of prisons in this country...My reaction is: What's taking us so long? Let's get that electrical current flowing. Drop those pellets [of poison gas] now! Whenever I argue this with friends who have opposite views, they say that I don't have enough regard for the most marvelous of miracles - human life. Just the opposite: It's because I have so much regard for human life that I favor capital punishment. Murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is an insult to the victim and society. It says..that we don't value the victim's life enough to punish the killer fully."
Lord Justice Denning, Master of the Rolls of the Court of Appeals in England said to the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in 1950: "Punishment is the way in which society expresses its denunciation of wrong doing; and, in order to maintain respect for the law, it is essential that the punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them. It is a mistake to consider the objects of punishments as being a deterrent or reformative or preventive and nothing else... The truth is that some crimes are so outrageous that society insists on adequate punishment, because the wrong doer deserves it, irrespective of whether it is a deterrent or not."
In J.J. Rousseau's The Social Contract written in 1762, he says the following: Again, every rogue who criminously attacks social rights becomes, by his wrong, a rebel and a traitor to his fatherland. By contravening its laws, he ceases to be one of its citizens: he even wages war against it. In such circumstances, the State and he cannot both be saved: one or the other must perish. In killing the criminal, we destroy not so much a citizen as an enemy. The trial and judgments are proofs that he has broken the Social Contract, and so is no longer a member of the State.
Over the decades, public safety has become an insignificant, meaningless thing, not worth defending anymore, and the death penalty has been persecuted for just that reason. It has become a trend for most western, industrialized nations to treat public safety as though it were a trivial privilege that they can ignore, neglect, and deny their decent, law-abiding citizens, even though it is recognized as a human right under Article 12 of the UN's Universal
Declaration of Human Rights: Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
And still, too many nations feel entitled to neglect their moral duty to defend the honor and dignity of decent, law abiding citizens from violent criminals. They no longer consider it a priority, let alone a human right. Indeed, no other time in the history of the world has public safety ever been more trivialized than it is today. But there are indications that this will change.
A former prime minister of Hungary and the leader of its center-right opposition, Viktor Orban, has called on Europe to lift its ban. His announcement came after eight people were killed in a bank robbery in Hungary - and after his party lost national elections. Early in 2006, Kaczynski of Poland called for a debate on the restoration of the death penalty in his country and throughout Europe.
Countries that give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death," Kaczynski said in July. His coalition partner, the far- right League of Polish Families, wants to change the country's penal code so that pedophiles convicted of murder would face execution.
As the flagship of democracy, it is the United States responsibility to demonstrate that public safety is not some trivial privilege, but an unalienable human right for every decent citizen. Therefore, the USA should set the example that every civilized nation has a moral responsibility to defend the safety of their decent civilians at least as diligently as they defend national security with an army.
As aptly pointed out by Professor Donald Atwell Zoll from Arizona State University, who holds a masters in political science: "Capital punishment ought not to be abolished solely because it is...repulsive, if infinitely less repulsive than the acts which invoke it...If we are to preserve a humane society we will have to retain sufficient strength of character and will to do the unpleasant in order that tranquillity and civility may rule comprehensively. It seems very likely that capital punishment is a...necessary, if limited, factor in that maintenance of social tranquillity and ought to be retained on this ground. To do otherwise is to indulge in the luxury of permitting a sense of false delicacy to reign over the necessity of social survival."
Every country in the world is ready and willing to kill thousands, even millions of human beings in brutal, merciless ways to defend their nation from the aggression of other countries. I don't see why public safety doesn't deserve as much respect and protection as a nation's national security does. In fact, it can be reasonably argued that supporting armies and waging war is far more barbarous than the death penalty is. So I find it hypocritical that the same countries who have abolished capital punishment because it is "barbaric" to defend public safety that way are at the same time prepared to enforce political power and defend their territorial claims through infinitely more violence and bloodshed than the death penalty would ever require. It seems to me that those nations are just trying to rationalize their apathy and scorn for any institution that doesn't serve their self-serving and political interests. Even famed Russian author of "War and Peace" and pacifist Leo Tolstoy referred to capital punishment's morality to criticize warfare when he said: "For the executioner only holds himself in readiness to kill those who have been adjudged to be harmful and criminal, while a soldier promises to kill all who he is told to kill, even though they may be the dearest to him or the best of men."
The whole reason why nations and governments exist is to defend their decent citizens from vicious criminals. When it fails to do that, they become of little use to its citizens. When a society ignores their moral duty to defend the safety and security of their decent citizens and leaves them at the mercy of violent criminals, they are not being "civilized," they are being negligent.
I am certain that there will come a time when all the nations in the world will be forced to agree after decades of experience on this issue, that capital punishment, like the military and the police force and taxes, is an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of every civilized society and it will no longer be a question of whether or not a nation should have the death penalty, but rather how it should be used.
While I believe that prompt and consistent executions would have a deterrent effect, there remains one great virtue, even for infrequent executions. The recidivism rate for capital punishment is zero. No executed murderer has ever killed again. You can't say that about those sentenced to prison, even if you are an abolitionist. This page is purposefully left blank between DIFFERENT articles that you may use for your paper. Source G: “Numbers of Executions.” P.A.P. blog, April 16, 2013. Web. August 1, 2014.
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Numbers of Executions Three quarters of executions worldwide occur in Asia. 95% of Asians live in jurisdictions that carry out capital punishment. China alone accounts for 90% of all executions in Asia and executes more people than all other countries combined. Exactly how many is difficult to say. The country executed approximately 5000 people in 2008 but correct numbers are unavailable because of secrecy rules. That’s a rate per capita dozens of times higher than in the U.S., and yet it’s a steep drop for the numbers of some decades earlier. Apart from China, Syria and Egypt – countries for which data are unobtainable – Amnesty International recorded 682 executions in 21 countries in 2012. Three-quarters took place in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In Iraq the number roughly doubled in a year, to 129 in 2012, of which 34 were carried out in one day.
Apart from Asia and the Middle East, the US is the most high profile “retentionist” country (meaning the opposite of abolitionist). The US killed 43 criminals in 2012, but this is a lot less than the 98 executions performed in 1999. In 2012, the United States ranked fifth for the highest number of executions, behind China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia but ahead of Yemen and the Sudan. More numbers on the US are here.
India is also “retentionist” but only executed 4 persons in the last two decades. Singapore used to kill a similar proportion of its citizens as China, but the rate has dropped recently. Japan, on the contrary, is executing more and more people. Saudi Arabia is known for its particularly gruesome methods. Just 21 countries in the world carried out the death penalty in 2012. That number is down from 28 countries just a decade earlier. All numbers of executions are underestimates given the large number of secret or unreported executions, extra-judicial executions, deaths caused while incarcerated, etc. Some more recent figures:
The graph below ranks countries according to the estimated number of executions compared to total population, which is a more accurate indication:
This is a nice summary of some key figures:
(source) (source) A summary for the U.S.: Texas executes most people, but on a per capita basis, Oklahoma leads the pack.
(source) The number of executions has dropped as well:
number of executions in the US, by year