Dealth Penalty

Dashardra Woodard

Dr. Insignares

Speech 220

Persuasive

28 April 2002

Why the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished?

Why should the death penalty be abolished? The death penalty should be abolished because of many reasons. Many people believe the saying, "an eye for an eye". But when will people realize that just because someone may have killed a love one that the best thing for that person is to die also. People don't realize that they are putting the blood of another person life on their hands. This makes them just as guilty as the person who committed the crime: the only difference is that they didn't use weapon except their mouth to kill them. The death penalty should be abolished because it is racist, punishes the poor, condemns those who are innocent to death, and is a cruel punishment.

Saleh-Hanna, a contributor

to the book "The Case for Penal Abolition " recently done some research and found that, "research and evidence has shown that most prisoners are poor, they come from minority populations and have faced great discrimination and racism in the community both before they committed their crimes and during the criminal justice process." The death penalty is racist because there are higher percentages among those of ethical background. Quoted from the book, Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment, Death-penalty opponents respond that the race card plays a role in other ways. When a defendant has been convicted of killing a white person the odds that the defendant will be executed by the state are much higher. Eighty-five percent of those who have been executed since 1976 were convicted for killing a white person, while only 13% were executed for killing a black person. When will people realized that just because a person is of another race that they are more dangerous than another race.

For instance, the 1972 Furman V. Georgia case abolished the death penalty for four years on the grounds that capital punishment was extensive with racial inequalities (Latzer 21). Over twenty five years later, those inequalities are higher than ever. The statistics says that African Americans are twelve percent of the U.S. population, but are 43 percent of the prisoners on death row. Although blacks make up 50 percent of all murder victims, 83 percent of the victims in death penalty cases are white. Since 1976 only ten executions involved a white defendant who had killed a black victim. In all, only 37 of the over 18,000 executions in this country's history involved a white person being punished for killing a black person. A Georgia study found that killers of whites are 4.3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than killers of blacks. More than 75 percent of those on federal death row are non-white. Of the 156 federal death penalty prosecutions approved by the Attorney General since 1988, 74 percent of the defendants were non-white (governmentguide.com) . This shows that there is something definitely wrong with the judicial system. If this isn't enough to convince you that the death penalty is wrong. Then people may need to look at other reasons.

The death penalty, does not only show unequal rights, but it also punishes the poor. It shows in recent studies that if an inmate can afford good legal representation, they might can get a lesser charge than death row. It also shows that ninety percent of defendants cannot afford to hire an experienced criminal defense lawyer. Since they cannot afford to hire one, they are forced to use inexperienced court-appointed attorneys that are being underpaid for their services. The less the court-appointed attorneys make, the less they want to make their defense so that they can get rid of this case, and start back making their usual amount of money.

There has been many inmates sentenced to death row that innocent. Since 1973, more than 99 people have been released from prison after being sentenced to death despite their innocence, The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: