The Death Penalty

But in fact, death seems to be way too good of a punishment for someone who mercilessly murdered someone/people. Example: Why do you think that people who have murdered their families, kill themselves immediately after word? They commit suicide because they can't LIVE with what they have done. They don't want to accept responsibility for their crime. They refuse to be locked up in prison for the rest of their life because that is truly what they fear the most. Death is just an escape for them. If you really wanted to punish them, you would send them to life for the rest of their lives to rot in prison. There has also been evidence of people who have actually murdered all in the hope of getting a death penalty as a form of indirect suicide. . http://www.uni.edu... So in short, if you wanted to truly PUNISH the murderer who killed your daughter, you better hope that he suffers in prison for a lifetime, living with his murders rather than get out of the situation easily through death Death Penalty does not help families with closure . http://ejusa.org... Families constantly have to deal with the hardships of appeals and decisions and processes that emotionally drain families and constantly pick on the scab of the pain that has been cause by the death of their loved one. There are quotes from families that concern this. "A serial killer ripped Deirdre away from us in 1982. My family had no idea, then, that our ordeal was just beginning. All we knew was that the worst of the worst had happened, and the person who did it should pay the ultimate price – the death penalty. From 1982 until 1990 I lived day to day, appeal to appeal, decision to decision. We woke up every day wondering what might happen that day. Will there be another appeal? Another motion? What new decision might come down? The toll it took on me and my family was horrendous…Eight years of trials and retrials changed my mind about the death penalty. I learned the hard way that the death penalty is an albatross over the heads of victims' families. " —Jim O'Brien, whose daughter, Deirdre, was murdered "I'm here to tell you, as the mother of a homicide victim, that the death penalty brings as much pain as it does relief, that it creates an entirely new layer of pain, and that many survivors of homicide victims would prefer that the offender in their case spend a lifetime of unimaginably painful confinement before dying a lonely and often painful death behind bars. And then still face whatever comes next. " —Janice Greishaber, whose daughter, Jenna, was murdered Vengeance as a message claiming to be "just" What is the death penalty teaching society? Kill those who kill because killing is wrong? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It makes us no better than the criminals themselves. What would this teach children? If there was a bully in school who killed a boy's brother, would it be "just" for the boy to go out in revenge with anger and contempt aching in his heart to go and viciously murder the bully's mother after ward? Would it be "just" because it was "what the bully deserved? " Capital Punishment is also useless in the fact that it can't really bring the victim back to life or solve anything by murdering the criminal, when you could save psychological difficulties from families and plenty of money that could be used for more serious crime issues *Technical Issues Death Sentences are handed out unfairly While serial killers Gary Ridgeway and Charles Cullen got sentenced for life, poor extremely mentally ill killers like David Cocker was executed after a one day trial. Basically, the killers who can afford better lawyers, AKA been wealthier have a much better chance of not getting the death penalty, while the very poor criminals who have killed around the same number of people/or less, get backslapped by the corrupt justice system There are also plenty of other examples of rigged/corrupted trials . http://www.time.com... Executions are around four times more expensive than life in prison Here are a few fun facts about how much more expensive the death penalty is than life in prison *California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. *California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement. *California Cost Studies:  Report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (2008)  "The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California's current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually. " Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year. . https://death.rdsecure.org... * New Study Reveals Costs in Maryland: $186 Million for Five Executions * Death Penalty has Cost New Jersey Taxpayers $253 Million . http://deathpenaltyinfo.org... Capital Punishment is not a deterrent . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... States without capital punishment also had a consistent lower amount of murder rates than in states with capital punishment 1990 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States=9.5 Murder Rate in Non-Death Penalty States=9.16 1991 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States=9.94 Murder Rate in Non-Death Penalty States=9.27 1998 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States=6.51 Murder Rate in Non-Death Penalty States=4.61 2009 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States=5.26 Murder Rate in Non-Death Penalty States=3.90 2010 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States=5.00 Murder Rate in Non-Death Penalty States=4.01 There are much more of the statistics are in the website below . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... Innocent People Being Executed There are many stories of people being wrongly executed. What is also frightening is the number people executed that no one ever figures out are innocent. . http://acanderson24.hubpages.com...