A death penalty, also called capital punishment, refers to the execution of a criminal after being convicted in court for capital crimes or serious offenses, especially murder (Schnurbush 33). The death penalty has attracted a lot of debate on the basis of controversial considerations, such as its morality, effectiveness in deterring capital crimes, fairness, justice and the cost of capital punishment judicial processes. A wide range of reasons are provided in support and in providing counterarguments against the justification and validation of the death penalty. This essay presents an argument that the death penalty is not effective in deterring crime because of the associated high costs and the fact that it is unfair, inhumane and immoral, and therefore should be banned.
Researchers reveal that one of seven people who face the death penalty or execution is innocent (Shetty 42). This high error rate demonstrates that the death penalty is ineffective in punishing individuals with death as the preferred consequence of capital crime. The extent into which people deserve to die under the provisions of the death penalty, with the risk of some innocent people being executed, reveals why the death penalty is unfair or unfair and therefore needs to be banned. Furthermore, statistical research evidence reports disparities in death penalty sentencing, which are characterized by racial bias. For instance, statistics on death row inmates reveals that more than 50% of them are African American. This is regardless of the fact that the African Americans ethnic group makes only 13% of the US population (Schnurbush 35). This means that the administration of the death penalty is not only effective in ensuring equity in criminal justice processes, but is unfair and inhumane. Statistical evidence should motivate lawmakers and policy makers within judicial systems to ban the death penalty.
The death penalty is not cost effective. A review of the cost of the death penalty across states in the United States reveals it has a common characteristic of net expenses for taxpayers and states (Prejean 625). The death penalty has been criticized for being more expensive than criminal justice systems handling similar cases with life imprisonment sentencing. Therefore, there is need to stop the implementation of the unfair death penalty and opt for humane and moral approaches or mechanisms of punishing capital offenders (Gregg v. Georgia). The trials of death penalty cases are overly lengthy. This reveals that it is inefficient in terms of both the time criminal justice resources are engaged in capital punishment sentencing and in the costs of paying legal professionals. This is demonstrated by the fact that the death penalty needs more than twice the number of attorneys and legal experts than other ordinary cases (Prejean 626). It is because of this that life imprisonment, which is more effective and less costly is recommended as a viable, fair, humane and practical replacement of capital punishment.
Because of the ineffectiveness of the death penalty in deterring crime, inefficiency in achieving equity in capital punishment sentencing and its high costs, it should not be legalized. The taxpayers’ money which is used to pay for death penalty judicial systems should be used to implement changes within the criminal justice system, such as providing meaningful health care facilities for prisoners (Koch n. p). The reallocation of the financial resources that are used in executing death sentence trials to social programs the humane, moral and fair option for the judicial systems across all states. Alternative approaches, such as life sentencing should be adopted by states in place of the death sentence in order to overcome the negative, moral, ethical, economic and societal implications that occur due to the effecting of the death penalty. The fact that life sentencing is more humane, reasonable, fair and moral than taking the lives of criminals for taking other lives demonstrates why states should ban capital punishment.
More time is allocated for preparation of death sentence cases and they often take even longer to get into trial, which demonstrates that the death penalty is generally an inefficient judicial mechanism for punishing capital crimes. The costs or expenses that are associated with the execution of capital punishment judicial processes are attributed to the delays that have been put into the current judicial system on cases on the death penalty (Prejean 627). This illustrates that the processes of death penalty cases are more than normal or ordinary cases; which translates into higher costs. Furthermore, the time allocated for the selection of the jury and case trials in these cases are significantly extended. More notably, death penalty cases are more complex, non-ordinary and characterized by frequent appeals. Motions on the death penalty are also described as continuous and lengthy. These processes in death penalty cases are therefore argued to have significantly increased the amount of financial resources and time to an extent that it is far more costly as compared to the costs associated with keeping a convict in prison for the rest of his or her life (Shetty 46).
Those who seek to justify capital punishment or death penalty argue that it is effective in mitigating or deterring murder, but there is no empirical evidence that proves this claim (Schnurbush 32). States with laws that provide for capital punishment do not have statistically lower rates of murder as compared to those that have illegalized it. This reveals that the support of the death penalty on the pretext that it deters crime is not informed by evidence. Social science researchers oppose arguments that execution of capital offenders deters or reduces serious offenses (Koch n. p). Scientific evidence on the ineffectiveness of the death penalty should be used to oppose its legalization. Nonetheless, the lack of evidence to validate the taking of lives in the implementation of capital punishment by judicial systems should be used to stop this inhumane act. The death penalty and the associated negative effects on convicts and their families is argued to be against their freedoms and privileges for life. In this sense, the death penalty is generally immoral and unfair, and therefore needs to be banned under all judicial jurisdictions (Callins v. Collins).
Supporting arguments for capital punishment maintain that keeping a convict in prison for life is not less costly. This is due to the constitutional right which makes individuals who are serving life to stage appeals (Prejean 625). This is related to the illustration that convicts who are serving life in state prisons spend most of their time conceiving on how they world stage the unlimited habeas corpus petitions. In this regard therefore life imprisonment is more expensive and costly for the government and the taxpayer (McLaughlin 679). On the other hand the complexity that the constitution offers death penalty cases is argued to be the reason why they are more costly than life imprisonment. The constitutional provision on the death penalty is aimed at ensuring that innocent individuals are not convicted. Regardless of this it is argued further that these protections by the constitution do not completely eliminate the risk of execution of an innocent individual (Shetty 44). This is reflective that the expenditure on death penalty cannot be justified fully and instead a life imprisonment is a more viable option.
Contradictory utterances from various attorneys on the other hand have opposed the high costs that are argued to be incurred in the death penalty cases. Such attorneys argue that death penalty executions should not cost the American taxpayer anything. In this sense, suggestions for volunteer members of the firing squad with their own ammunition and guns have been suggested (McLaughlin 682). However these are obviously against the legal framework and procedures for capital cases and punishment. The main oppositions have been staged against the death penalty are motivated by illustrations that the involvement of the Department of Justice, in authorizing death penalty cases as federal cases, makes them to be about eight times more time consuming and costly than the death eligible cases which are not authorized as federal death penalty cases (McLaughlin 684). Therefore it is argued that death penalty costs the government much more than life imprisonment. Since these costs are passed to taxpayers, it is argued that the death penalty is unfair to the society, and as a result it should be banned (Shemtob and Lat n. p).
In the light of the above argumentative discussion, it is increasingly apparent that the death penalty is by far ineffective and more costly approach of deterring crime as compared to life imprisonment. The high costs that are associated with the death penalty, such as the complexity of judicial processes in death penalty cases, long attorney time, an extra penalty phase and long duration of preparations, selection of the jury and constitutional guarantees make it an ineffective judicial mechanism of deterring crime. The passing of the costs of capital punishment to taxpayers is argued to be unfair and immoral. In addition, the taking of the lives of convicts for taking the lives of others is equally immoral and inhumane. It is therefore conclusive that if the government abolishes the death penalty the high costs that the taxpayer incurs will be used for other social and health programs in addition to enforcement of the law by the police departments and agencies. Negative moral, ethical, social and economic effects that occur due to the death sentence would be mitigated if it is banned.