Ben La Scola
Professor Kerr
EN 101-23
27 November, 2011
The Death Penalty
Capital punishment is viewed by many to be inherently wrong because the taking of another’s life is the ultimate evil. Capital punishment is in fact more humane then solitary confinement which can cause mental illnesses and severe psychiatric harm (http://www.prisoncommission.org/statements/grassian_stuart_long.pdf). The death penalty is also more humane than a lobotomy. A lobotomy is an operation in which part of the brain is cut in order to treat some mental disorders. The death penalty is a deterrent, provides a way of retribution, and overall can cost less than life imprisonment.
For years the death penalty has been used as a way to deter crime and to punish those who commit capital crimes. Studies have proven over and over again that the death penalty is a successful deterrent to crime by showing a strong link between when the death penalty isn’t used and is used to increases and decreases in capital crimes (http://deathpenalty.procon.org). When the death penalty was suspended in 1972 statistics were gathered across the country. In 1960 there were 56 executions and 9,140 murders. In 1969 there were only 15 executions but 9,250 murders. In 1969 there were no executions and a huge rise to 14,590 murders. In 1975 there were 20,510 murders which rose to 23,040 in 1980 (http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm). Since the death penalty was resumed in 1982, the number of Harris Count, Texas murders dropped from 701 to 241 a year (http://wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter).
The other side would say, when someone commits a crime either they premeditated on it, which means that they planned out the crime or gave extended thought to committing the crime beforehand, or they didn’t. When a crime isn’t premeditated it is a spur of the moment decision based off large amounts of stress, or being under the influence of drugs (http://users.rcn.com/mwood/deathpen.html#Deterrence). They would argue that there is no proof that the death penalty is deterrence to capital crimes and that life sentences are as much deterrence to capital crimes as the death penalty (http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org). They would also say that crime rates have not gone down, the murder rate is six times that of Britain and five times Australia and neither countries use the death penalty (http://www.antideathpenalty.org/reasons.html).
Although opponents against the death penalty claim that most murders are not premeditated and are instead instant decisions based on the situation an individual is currently in and therefore the consequences of murder are not taken into effect; Luis Vera, a man who burglarized Rosa Velez’s apartment in Brooklyn and shot her stated that “Yeah, I shot her, and I knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.” This is a statement that clearly disproves the theory that people do not consider the consequences of their actions. This man clearly states that he considered the consequence of shooting Velez but knowing he would not be sentenced to death, chose to shoot her. This is also not a premeditated murder because Vera did not expect Velez to be home at the time (http://wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter). While opponents do not recognize the statistics that show the death penalty is a deterrent and claim that because some states that do not have the death penalty have lower crime rates than states that do they conclude that the death penalty encourages crime instead of deterring it (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#D.Cost). For example, Texas has twice the murder rate of Wisconsin even though Texas heavily enforces the death penalty and Wisconsin does not enforce the death penalty at all (http://www.antideathpenalty.org/reasons.html). This conclusion is not only flawed but completely ridiculous; the reason some states that enforce the death penalty have higher crime rates than those that do not enforce the death penalty is because the death penalty is enforced because of a high crime rate, not the other way around. So if the states with lower crime rates had higher crime rates then they would probably start enforcing the death penalty.
The use of the death penalty provides retribution for those who have been made victims by the actions of a criminal. Louis P. Pojman, author and professor of philosophy U.S. Military Academy states that “When someone takes a life, the balance of justice is disturbed. Unless that balance is restored, society succumbs to a rule of violence. Only the taking of the murderer's life restores the balance and allows society to show convincingly that murder is an intolerable crime which will be punished in kind” (http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/arguments.PDF). Retribution is often confused with revenge. Revenge is to inflict hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong done to oneself. Retribution is punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved. Retributivism is the theory that a criminal deserves to be punished in proportion to the magnitude of his or her crime, whether it is desired by the victim or not. When society does not punish criminals in a just way then the public might take the law into their own hands, such as somebody assaulting or lynching a criminal that got away with murder. In Gregg v Georgia, the Supreme Court wrote that "the instinct for retribution is part of the nature of man" (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/deathpenalty/i/death_penalty_2.htm).
There are two major arguments against the death penalty as retribution; the first, that retribution is just another excuse for revenge, and the second, that punishment equivalent to the crime isn’t morally correct. People argue that retribution is just another word for revenge and that revenge is not enough to justify the taking of one’s life (http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/arguments.PDF). Daughter of Robert Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, wrote: “I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder.... But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed” (http://users.rcn.com/mwood/deathpen.html#Retribution). The death penalty as punishment in proportion to the crime committed is considered wrong by some because we don’t torture someone who committed torture, or rape a rapist, so it is wrong to murder someone who committed murder. In order for punishment to be equal to the crime, execution does not have to be the end result (http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/11/death-penalty-and-retribution.html).
Retribution by definition is punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved. Revenge by definition is the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for a wrong suffered at their hands. The difference in definition is clear; retribution is morally right and fully deserved. However, vengeance is not inherently wrong, victims should be avenged, just in a morally and just way (http://akorra.com/2010/03/04/top-10-arguments-for-the-death-penalty/). Whether or not the victim or the victim’s family wants retribution it is the government’s duty to avenge victims of crime and to protect society. The death penalty is necessary for capital crimes because even if a criminal is sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) they can still receive clemency and be released. An instance of such was in 2009 when the governor of Michigan freed a 71 year old man who was sentenced to LWOP in 1967 for murdering a man (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/lwop.htm).
The potential cost of death penalty cases is much less than that of life without parole cases. A common argument against the death penalty is that it costs significantly more than life imprisonment. According to Deathpenaltyinfo.org, an execution in Maryland costs up to $37 million and life imprisonment costs about $1 milling a year (http://akorra.com/2010/03/04/top-10-arguments-for-the-death-penalty/). The problem with these figures is that because somebody on death row only has a limited number of appeals so they are factored into the cost. However, someone with life imprisonment without parole has an unlimited amount of appeals so the costs of their appeals are not factored in (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html).
Opponents of the death penalty advocate that the cost of the death penalty is much greater than life without parole. They believe that because the death penalty has so many appeals, reviews, and post-trial hearings that it ends up costing around 6 times the amount of life without parole (http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mstevens/410/410lect26.htm). Opponents of the death penalty argue that not only does it cost much more than incarceration but the difference in cost could better be used to increase the number of police which would lower violent crime rates better than the threat of being executed (http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/case-against-death-penalty).
Although the death penalty is widely perceived to overall cost more than life without parole; the death penalty costs more in the beginning, but over time the cost of life without parole cases end up topping the costs of the death penalty by $1.2 to $3.6 million (http://deathpenalty.procon.org). If the death penalty was taken away completely, then abolitionists would try to take away life without parole next and it would hike up the costs of appeals because there would be no execution to end the process of a life without parole (http://wesleylowe.com/cp.html#cost). Also, a way to minimize the costs for the death penalty would be to only allow appeals that were relevant to proving one’s innocence (http://wesleylowe.com/cp.html#cost).
The death penalty is a very controversial and much debated topic mostly based off its deterrence to crime, the moral factor of retribution, and the cost. The death penalty has been proven through multiple studies and history as deterrence to capital crimes. Retribution is a basic instinct and need of every human being and it is the government’s duty to provide retribution for the victims of a crime. The cost of the death penalty at a quick look costs more than life imprisonment without parole, but overtime LWOP costs more than the death penalty.
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