Did you know that in 1977 and 1981, that only one person was executed in the United States that year? Also, in the United States the years of 1976, 1978 and 1980 there were no executions recorded. Capital punishment is one of the most debatable topics of the criminal justice system. When capital punishment is discussed there are two sides to this controversial issue. Those who support it and those who are against it. Determining whether to impose the death penalty on a person is a very difficult decision to make as another person’s life is in the hands of the government and its people. In the United States there are only thirty states that still carry out capital punishment while the other twenty states have abolished it altogether. Capital punishment seems to become a thing of the past as it is rarely carried out anymore. In 1999, the highest number of executions that were carried out was ninety-eight since then it have dramatically decreased as this year of 2018, there have only been twenty-five executions. The twentieth and twenty-first century has saw a dramatic increase and then a dramatic decrease of the execution of capital punishment. My thesis statement is that capital punishment should be abolished in the United States. It is a clear violation of the eight and fourteenth amendments, there is no clear and convincing evidence of deterrence, and it is a very costly method.
Road Map
My paper will briefly explore the background history of capital punishment in the United States. Then I will begin to defend my thesis statement by discussing the violation of the eighth and fourteenth amendment of the Constitution by capital punishment. My paper will then discuss the different goals of punishment and show how each goal cannot be accomplished successfully when capital punishment is applied. The difference in the legal costs, the costs of incarceration and the costs of administering the execution comes into play as it disproves a commonly held belief that it is a cheaper and a more cost-saving method when dealing with such high-risk criminals.
Background
Capital punishment is defined as “punishment by death : the practice of killing people as punishment for serious crimes” The United States of America is the only constitutional democracy and one of the few nations that punishes certain crimes the death sentence. When the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights were being sanctioned, capital punishment was commonplace among the American people. Murderers and thieves were hung and even woman who were found guilty of murdering their husbands were burned to death by American colonists. In the seventeenth century, people who were suspected of witchcraft were also burned to death. Executions from the beginning up until the eighteenth century were public spectacles that were used to set as an example and to help deter crime. Present day executions are carried out surrounding circumstances of absolute privacy and only a small quantity of people are allowed to witness them. Although capital punishment has declined in today’s American society, it is still deemed as a sensitive and controversial issue.
Conflict of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment
Capital punishment is in conflict with the Eighth and the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution. The Eighth Amendment is “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” What exactly constitutes as “cruel and unusual” punishments? Cruel and unusual punishment does have an exact definition, but it is any punishment that is inhumane and/or violates crucial human dignity can be concluded as “cruel and unusual.” Basically, when the punishment is inordinate to the crime it constitutes as illegal because of the cruel and unusual nature of the punishment. Torture is constituted as cruel and unusual punishment, however the concern with torture is more about the ban of excessive punishment rather than pain. The maturing of society will therefore see that there are more humane ways of effective punishment that are used today and will soon see the demise of capital punishment. The Court’s interpretation of this clause in the Eighth amendment is constantly changing as society matures. This clause sets restrictions on the state court’s power and the federal court’s power as a result from the Fourteenth Amendment. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Capital punishment when applied is unfair and prejudiced. The application of capital punishment depends on race, gender, money and how skilled their attorney is. A study was conducted in Texas from 1924 to 1968 that showed that seventy-five out of the four hundred and sixty cases that involved white and negro codefendants. These co-defendants were given separate trials, where the white codefendant was sentences to life imprisonment while the person of color was sentenced the death penalty. The American Law Institute created the legal framework for the death penalty in 1962 and stated “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.” “After all, the fewer states that apply the punishment, the more "unusual", and therefore unconstitutional, it becomes.”
Goals of Punishment
What exactly are the goals of punishment when it comes to criminal procedures? There are four important and influential perspectives as to what is to become accomplished by the punishment imposed upon such offenders. Retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation are the goals that should and must be achieved from punishing offenders. Retribution is the philosophy of punishment that said offenders should be punished because they deserve it and that the people (society) is entitled to revenge against the offender. This philosophy of course contradicts the law’s own ends as it looks to the ways of the past. It is based on detrimental and hostiles desires for revenge. Deterrence is another philosophy of punishment to prevent offenders from re-offending as well as to prevent others from committing such crimes. There are two types of deterrence, general and specific. General deterrence is to keep others involved in the society from partaking in the same behavior of the offender. Specific deterrence is to prevent the offender from committing a further offense. The reason behind a punishment is to generate fear into that offender from ever wanting to commit that crime again. When it comes to capital punishment it has a much greater effect on general deterrence rather than specific. It induces fear into the society as they are bystanders to this punishment. It does not allow the offender who has endured the death penalty to experience that fear because they are no longer alive. Therefore, the punishment is not justified when there is no likelihood for the reoccurrence of a crime. For specific deterrence to become applied successfully, sentencing the offender to become incarcerated is a more feasible and logical approach rather than capital punishment. In order to achieve both types of deterrence, the punishment must be successful in inducing fear into the offender and society from wanting to commit that very crime. Incapacitation correlates to deterrence. Deterrence focuses on the psychological prevention of committing a crime while incapacitation is a physical prevention. It allows the people to become reassured of their safety, as the wrongdoer’s whereabouts are known at all times. While the criminal is incarcerated this also allows for them to become rehabilitated. We simply cannot expect a criminal who has been confined in prison to return to the society as a model citizen if we do not conduct rehabilitative services. We must do so in order to help them control their unhealthy mental capacity and behaviors that led to them to a life of crime. In the year of 2006, a study was conducted by the United States Department of Justice that stated that more than half of all inmates, including prison and jail, had a mental health problem. The study concluded that “fifty-six percent of state prisoners, forty-five percent of federal prisoners and sixty-four percent of jail inmates,” had mental health problems that were of a very serious nature. Capital punishment disregards the personhood aspect that criminals are capable of becoming rehabilitated. If those who were incarcerated and undergone rehabilitation reenter as valuable members of society. This return can show that the government holds the power to reform such hardened criminals and gives hope to the people that the government is still effective.
Costly Effect of Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is a huge drain on the taxpayer’s money. It is said that each inmate on death row costs relatively $1.12 million more than inmates who are in the general population with no specific type of treatment received. Why exactly is the cost so much higher? The costs accounts for the legal fees, the annual cost of incarceration and the costs to administer the execution. The largest expense for cases that involve seeking the death penalty is the legal fees. The longer the case lasts the more expensive it is. Throughout the United States there is no straightforward and precise lists of crimes that can and must be punished by the death penalty, because of the differences that are apparent throughout the state’s legal systems. A 2015 study conducted in Maryland showed that the overall costs of legal fees for a case in 2008 that sought the death penalty was $2,400,00 and the legal fees for a case that was not seeking the death penalty was $1,100,00. The difference in cost in 2015 dollars was $1,430,650. In 2010, the Bureau of Justice statistics, stated that every state that allows the death penalty can seek it in case involving the first-degree murder, even though there must be some aggravating circumstances involved. The jury in a capital trial case is burdened with the challenging and grueling task of handing down the death penalty. They must be willing to do so with their careful deliberations that looks into the murderer’s past, and mental capacity. Imposing this binding punishment allows the jury to become an unwilling participant in “state-sanctioned murder.” With a person’s life put on the line there are several restrictions and legal guidelines that must occur in order to uphold the law. As a result, handing down the death penalty is a very lengthy process as careful deliberations and cases involving the death penalty usually involve the appeals process. The appeals process delays the executing of a death sentence and this allows the costs to increase as a death row inmate is incarcerated. Back in 1960, the average time to execute a death sentence was two years. Now in 2018, it takes nearly eighteen years or more for the death sentence to be carried out. Death row inmates are normally kept in a higher security section of the prison. They are high-risk inmates that must be kept separate from the general population of prison. Inserted below is a table that shows the general population costs per inmate for forty different states as compared to the costs of death row inmates in twenty-seven states at both the federal and state level. This table shows that at the Federal level, the difference between death row inmates and general population inmates is $8,793 and at the state level the difference is $10,772.
Death Row Inmates General Population
Annual Daily Annual Daily
Federal Level $36,871 $101 $28,078 $76.93
State Average $44,770 $122.66 $33,998 $90.26
Both the federal government and the state government spends on average more each day and every year to house death row inmates than those inmates in the general population. In the United States there are five different methods of execution that are still used today. Lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging and the firing squad. Each of these methods have expenses whether higher or lower depending on the type of punishment. One of the most expensive and albeit commonly used method of execution is lethal injection. Finding the correct drugs that are used to perform lethal injections have become scarcer and scarcer as some countries, the European Union, banned exporting these drugs to be used for the lethal injections. As they become harder to find, the cost tends to increase as a result. Involving such drugs being administered, results in having someone in the medical profession, such as a doctor, to be present. There is also another issue at hand. Not only is the hourly rate of a doctor high but these medical professionals should not be compelled to violate the ethics regarding the medical field. It is therefore hard for this type of execution to be performed without having a medical professional involved in the process. The risks are high when it comes to performing executions without a medical professional present which is why the Committee recommends that they must be present while also taking full responsibility of all the elements that are medically-related in this execution. “Of course, some physicians may choose to engage in these executions under the veil of secrecy and anonymity, but their actions and the state laws that grant these privileges are inconsistent with the principles of medical professionalism and medical ethics.” Firing squad is considered a more cost-effective method of execution, albeit it is a more heinous procedure. Death row inmates may allow to choose death through the firing squad as an alternative method to lethal injection, only based on the grounds if they were convicted before a certain date. Last but not least, is lawsuits of botched executions. These lawsuits seek to end the use of such drugs and to completely change the procedures associated with them. More strict guidelines could be set in place when it comes to the selection of such drugs. This can lead to the possibility of a higher costs from the execution and an even longer delay in order to abide by these new guidelines. When you take into account, the legal fees, the annual costs of incarceration and the cost to administer an execution it is more expensive in every aspect rather than just incarcerated an offender for the remainder of his or her life. Choosing to make a decision to not seek the death penalty calls for repercussions that have are cost-savings and the sooner that decision is made the more substantial the savings will be.
Conclusion
The abolishment of capital punishment would greatly benefit the United States. It is merely in violation of the eighth and fourteenth amendment as it arbitrarily discriminates based on race, gender, money and the skill set of the attorney. It is becoming more and more unusual as capital punishment is not being carried out as often to make a real difference. There is honestly no real effect of deterrence on the offender as the offender is no long a part of the picture. The whole reason behind the punishment is to deter the wrongdoer. Last but not least, is the waste of taxpayer’s money as the cost of the legal fees, the incarceration and the actual execution is relatively one million dollars over the cost of cases and inmates that have not sought the death penalty. Ironically enough, America’s death penalty has killed itself.