Death Penalty

I am against capital punishment for many reasons. Capital punishment remains in the United States, even though it has been abolished in many of the other first world countries of the world. The death penalty needs to be eliminated because it is proven to not be a deterrent to crime, it has a very high cost, the guilt of a victim can never be one hundred percent determined, and it is cruel and unusual, directly violating eighth amendment.

Capital punishment is at a very high cost. According to a study from the state of Kansas, capital trials cost, on average, 70% more the non-capital cases. It was determined that the average cost for a capital case was about 1.26 million dollars opposed to $740,000 for a case not involving the death penalty. Keep in mind, this is just in Kansas. In North Carolina, since 1976, over one billion dollars have been used in death penalty related cases, according to a study from Duke University in May of 1993. These costs are astounding. These prices make a strong case on there own. The money saved could be used to better equip police officers, improve school to help our country's youth, or go to anything but murder.

What about capital punishment as a deterrent to murder? Well, Authors John Sorenson, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, and James Marquart examined executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997. Their results showed no correlation between the number of executions, and the murder rate. All that can be said of the death penalty is that it is a specific deterrent. That is, it makes sure the one person who committed the crime will never have the chance at murder ever again. This isn't worth a life. These days with all of the technology and security in maximum security prisons, inmates can be stopped from have direct contact with anyone again. If they can't get to someone, it must be hard to kill. This is why the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide is not a valid argument.

A huge point to make is that there is never one hundred percent certainty of a person's guilt. Since 1971, 113 inmates on death row's cases have been overturned because of new evidence that comes up. If that many people on death row were found to be innocent, what makes