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Why does the United States allow states to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? Do the people who support the death penalty believe in the fundamentalist view of the bible where it reads an "eye for eye” or a “ tooth for tooth” (Ex. 21:24)? Do they think as a society that we can change people by intentionally inflicting pain upon them or deter others from repeating the same crimes as those who are executed? I don't think we can change people by intentionally inflicting pain on them, in my experiences this only makes people angrier. The death penalty actually nurtures hatred and violence by eroding the reverence for life. The use of the death penalty in the United States should be abolished because it is morally reprehensible and considered to be cruel punishment done in the name of justice.
Jesus, the most influential moral teacher in the history of the world, changed the "eye for an eye" in Matthew 5:38 when He said, "You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Bible).
The right to life should be so highly honored in our society that those who do not honor another’s right to life would make void their own right to be part of our society. These violators must be punished for their crime in order to maintain the right to life in our society. However, careful consideration must be used in order to ensure that the punishment does not deny the criminal the very thing we are punishing him for denying to someone else. Do we teach children that hitting someone is wrong by hitting him or her when they hit someone? No, we don’t because that would make us hypocrites.
Those criminals who show no respect for human life should be permanently removed from our society so they can no longer endanger the citizens of our society. If we want to teach people to show mercy we have to be willing to show mercy ourselves. We cannot teach others to show mercy if we are unwilling to be merciful. Life without the possibility of parole should be our way of showing mercy to those who have shown no mercy.
Do the people who support the death penalty believe it is a deterrent for criminals who contemplate murder? If so they would then bear the burden of proving that the death penalty is a deterrent that justifies the execution of people who murder. Former US Attorney General Janet Reno concedes that the death penalty has no effect in dissuading others from committing murder (UCLA). In May of 1979 the state of Florida executed John Spenkelink. In the three years prior to his execution there was on average “904 murders annually while in the three years after his death the number averaged 1,400 – a 59% increase” (Sherrill).
In countries where the death penalty has been abolished there are lower homicide rates than those found in the United States where the death penalty is utilized in 38 states. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 and more people were murdered in the United States last year than were murdered in Canada where “police recorded 548 murders” in the entire country (Schatzker). Even in the United States there is a significant difference in the homicide rates of states that utilize the death penalty and states where the death penalty has been abolished. A state by state analysis confirms the “homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48 percent to 101 percent higher than in states without the death penalty” (Bonner).
The death penalty is truly indicative of the "eye for an eye" mentality, and therefore the majority of civilized nations have long rejected this outdated and cruel form of punishment. In our use of the death penalty we frequently run afoul of the human rights treaties we seek to enforce upon other nations. The United States stands with such rogue nations as China, Iran, and Libya in a widespread and indiscriminate embrace of capital punishment.
Those who support the death penalty do so because they see it as justice but what they don’t see is how barbaric the death penalty actually is. Between the years 1982 and 2001, “at least thirty-two executions went brutally awry” (Sherrill). When the state of Florida executed Jesse Tafero in 1990 “witnesses said foot long blue and orange flames shot” from the side of his head and in 1997 when Pedro Medina was executed flames came out of his head as well (Sherrill). When Florida electrocuted Allen Lee Davis in 2000, “blood poured from his mouth” (Sherrill). The efforts toward finding a more humane way to employ the death penalty are made to make them more acceptable to those who carry out the executions, to the people who watch, and the governments who allow the execution of convicted criminals.
What is particularly sad about the Jesse Tafero case is that Florida probably killed an innocent man. Tafero, along with his wife Sonia, was convicted in 1976 for the murder of a Florida State trooper. Sonia’s death sentence was eventually overturned by a federal court because the evidence used to convict her and her husband “consisted mainly of the perjured testimony of an ex-convict who turned state’s witness in order to avoid a death sentence” himself (Bedau). Her husband had already been put to death when her sentence was overturned.
The United States justice system is fallible and therefore the execution of innocent people cannot be eliminated. It has been well documented that innocent people are wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. In Illinois former Governor George Ryan suspended all executions because more people had been exonerated and released from death row than had been executed (Eskenazi).The cruelest aspect of the death penalty is the process required by the state to engage in an execution with the same planning that qualifies a murderer as a candidate fit for capital punishment.
Death penalty supporters argue that the death penalty is less expensive than a sentence of life without parole because taxpayer money is used in order for criminals to spend the rest of their lives in prison. The truth of the matter is that the financial cost of a death penalty case far exceeds the total cost of a sentence of life in prison. According to John G. Morgan, comptroller of the treasury for the state of Tennessee, “murder cases in which the prosecution has filed a notice to seek the death penalty cost more than life without parole” (Morgan). Additionally, United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall has said, “when all is said and done, there can be no doubt that it costs more to execute a man than to keep him in prison for life” (Morgan).
Millions of dollars could be saved if these criminals were initially sentenced to life in prison. By allowing the execution of these criminals the U.S. is encouraging victims and their families to seek revenge and a vengeful act may justify retaliation, thus creating a cycle of violence. Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the money used for death row appeals were used to provide them with grief counseling and other forms of financial assistance.
Society can appropriately protect and punish without having to rely on execution. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall has said that “the death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment” (Death Penalty).
What good does it do to put a murderer to death? Taking the life of a criminal will only make him or her suffer for a brief time before their death and a decent and humane society should not deliberately kill human beings. The government actually lends support to the destructive side of human nature when it authorizes the execution of a prisoner. An execution is a public spectacle of a violent homicide that teaches the permissibility of killing people which is a gruesome and horrifying example to set for society. Imagine the heartache felt by the friends and families of the executed when people cheer and celebrate outside the prisons of our country when they learn that person has been put to death. How can we, as the civilized nation we claim to be, celebrate death?
Reliance on the use of the death penalty creates a greater harm to society by reinforcing the idea that violence is a solution to society's problems. The death penalty will not overcome violent crime any more than abortion will end the problem of unwanted pregnancy. A better solution is for those criminals on death row being forced to live out their lives in prison, largely forgotten, daily confronting the futility of the murders they committed.
Human rights are inalienable which means they are accorded equally to every citizen regardless of race, economic, or social class. However, the death penalty has been repeatedly shown to discriminate and used disproportionately against the poor and minorities. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall has stated “It is evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant, and the underprivileged members of society” (Death Penalty Q & A). Unfortunately, people who are executed are not always those who commit the worst crimes but instead are those who have the least amount of money.
In 1987 the US Supreme Court case of McKlesky v. Kemp established that in Georgia someone who kills a white person is four times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who kills a black person. Numerous studies show that defendants whose victims were white were more likely to be sentenced to death than those whose victims were non-white were.
The death penalty can and should be eliminated. The frequent freeing of people on death row in recent years - for reasons of recanted testimony, new DNA evidence, shoddy prosecution and unprepared lawyers - has uprooted any complacency in the notion that the death penalty can be trusted to be evenly and fairly applied. The overwhelming majority of death row inmates are poor. The more affluent can afford good legal defense and generally escape the death sentence.
My heart becomes heavy whenever I hear that someone has been put to death. Killing someone is cruel regardless of who is doing the killing. How can a just society think it is OK to kill people? If they abhor killing wouldn’t they abhor all killing? Would those who support the death penalty be willing to put someone to death?
Would those who support the death penalty be willing to watch someone be put to death? Most people who observe an execution are both horrified and disgusted by the act. In 1985 Sociologist Richard Moran witnessed an execution and says that he “was ashamed” and felt like an intruder who had “trespassed” on the condemned man’s “private moment of anguish” (Bedau). Hauntingly he goes on to say that in his own face this man “could see the horror of his own death” (Bedau). Many prison wardens have become opponents of the death penalty because of their duty to supervise and witness executions.
My deepest sympathies go out to both the victims of violent crimes and their families. I do not condone the crimes committed by those who are sentenced to die. I do not want to add to the suffering of the family members who remain. However there are alternatives to the death penalty that are more effective and do not involve the killing of another human being in the name of justice.
Coretta Scott King, whose own husband was a victim of murder, said it best when she said, “ I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder” (King). The death penalty only serves to create more victims and allows the cycle of violence to continue. We are sending the wrong message to our society. We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing to prove the point. If we honestly believe that killing is wrong then we must stop using the death penalty to kill people.
Bedau, Hugo Adam. The Case against the Death Penalty. 20 Nov 2004. http://archive.aclu.org/library/case_against_death.html.
Bonner, Raymond. States Without the Death Penalty Have Lower Homicide Rates. 3 Dec 2004. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/092200-01.htm.
Death Penalty: Human Rights Concerns. Amnesty International. 30 Nov. 2004 http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/summary.do.
Death Penalty Q & A. Amnesty International. 30 Nov. 2004. http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/dp_qa.html.
Eskenazi, Michael. A Slow Death for the Death Penalty in Illinois? 2 Dec 2004. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,38488,00.html.
King, Coretta Scott. Texas Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty. 7 Dec. 2004. http://www.tcadp.org/.
Morgan, John G. Tennessee’s Death Penalty: Cost and Consequences. 1 Dec 2004. http://www.comptroller.state.tn.us/orea/reports/deathpenalty.pdf.
Schatzker, Erik. Canada’s Murder Rate Fell to Lowest in Three Decades in 2003. 3 Dec 2004. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=aGEsdK7xB3M8&refer=canada.
Sherrill, Robert. Death Trip: The American Way of Execution. The Nation. December 21 2000. 30 Nov 2004. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010108&s=sherrill.
The Bible. King James Version.
The Death Penalty Information Center. Deterrence. 2004. 11-16-2004. http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/arguments/argument1b.htm.
UCLA. Reno Finds No Evidence that Death Penalty Deters Crime. 2 Dec 2004. http://archive.aclu.org/news/2000/w012400a.html.
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