"Society should use the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment"

I present the following evidence to support my position that society should not execute prisoners. 1. The Death Penalty Does Not Deter Criminals Proponents of the death penalty have long claimed that executions of criminals will save the lives of innocent people by deterring future murders. This claim is based on the idea that the prospect of execution, as opposed to life-time imprisonment, is less appealing and will prevent some percentage of future criminals from committing heinous acts of violence. However, the viewpoint that capital punishment deters violence is a product of belief and not based on empirical evidence.[1] Research suggests that the death penalty has no clear deterrence effect. Consider the following studies: A study examining police killings found that “police do not appear to have been afforded an added measure of protection against homicide by capital punishment.”[2] A Texas study, using monthly observations from 1984 to 1997, found that there was no relationship between executions and felony murder rates.[3] A second Texas study, examining local effects, found that there was no evidence of executions during homicides during the period between 1999 and 2004.[4] And finally, another study found that there is no systematic evidence that the execution rate influences crime rates during the period between 1950 and 1990.[5] Thus, there is little evidence to support the position that the death penalty deters future crime, any more than life-time imprisonment. 2. The Death Penalty is More Expensive than Life Without Parole The financial costs of executing prisoners is extraordinarily high as compared to life-term imprisonment, and results in millions of wasted taxpayer dollars. In California, the cost of the death penalty has totaled over $4,000,000,000 since 1978.[6] These costs include pre-trial and trial costs, automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, federal habeas corpus petitions, and costs of incarceration. It’s estimated that confining prisoners to death row costs $90,000 per year, per inmate more than confining prisoners to maximum security prisons under life without parole.[7] One Maryland study found that lifetime cost to taxpayers for the execution of just five prisoners was over $186,000,000. [8] Thus, the costs of procedural and incarceration costs of maintaining death row prisoners is extraordinarily high, with no clear benefit. Millions of wasted taxpayer dollars could be saved if states simply removed the death penalty. 3. The Death Penalty May Lead to the Execution of Innocent Prisoners While there are numerous reasons to remove the death penalty, perhaps the most important is the risk of error. The criminal justice system is a fallible system created and run by fallible people. There is an inherent risk of error that innocent people will be convicted of crimes they did not commit, and there is risk that these people may be executed. It is well-established that many innocent people have been wrongfully convicted as a result of various factors, including: (1) eyewitness misidentification, (2) unvalidated forensic science, (3) false confessions, (4) government misconduct, (5) and bad lawyering.[9] It is presumed that only a small fraction of innocently convicted individuals are actually exonerated. Often these exonerations are due to DNA evidence, which is not available in most cases. One conservative estimate, based on the 300 DNA exonerations that have occurred since the late 1980s, calculates that approximately 20,000 current U.S. prisoners are innocent.[10] With the risk of error so high, and the cost of the process so great, there is simply no justification to take human life through execution. 4. The Death Penalty Punishes the Poor The death penalty unfairly punishes the poor more than it punishes the rich. Poor defendants must rely on state-appointed attorneys, whereas the rich can acquire their own. One study found that poor criminal defendants who face the prospect of the death penalty with a state-appointed attorney are 28% more likely to be convicted and 44% more likely to be sentenced to death than wealthy defendants who can hire their own lawyers.[11] CONCLUSION There are simply too many reasons to not execute prisoners. The execution of prisoners has no deterrent effect on future crime. The process is extraordinarily wasteful and costly to taxpayers. There is a significant risk that the prisoners being executed are actually innocent. And, the death penalty unfairly punishes the poor who cannot attain adequate defense counsel. All of these factors strongly weigh against the execution of prisoners, and demonstrate that society should not use execution as a form of criminal punishment. SOURCES [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [2] W. Bailey and R. Peterson, Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence: A Review of the Evidence and an Examination of Police Killings, 50 Journal of Social Issues 53, 71 1994 [3] Jon Sorensen, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, & James Marquart Capital punishment and deterrence: Examining the effect of executions on murder in Texas Crime and Delinquency, vol. 45, no.4, pp. 481-493 (Oct. 1999) [4] Randi Hjalmarsson Does Capital Punishment have a "Local" Deterrent Effect on Homicides? American Law and Economics Review, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 310-334 (2009) [5] Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt & Ellen Shustorovich Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence American Law and Economics Review, vol. 5, issue 2, pages 318-343 (Fall 2003) [6] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [7] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [8] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [9] http://www.innocenceproject.org... [10] http://www.motherjones.com... [11] David Dow, Executed on a Technicality, pg 83 (2005)