Death penalty

C1: cost California alone: Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year. [1] For Maryland: Of the 162 capital cases, there werer 106 cases in which a death sentence was sought but not handed down in Maryland. Those cases cost the state an additional $71 million compared to the cost non-death penalty cases. [1] How much money does it cost per case? Le's find out: Various state governments estimate that a single death penalty case, from the point of arrest to execution, ranges from $1 million to $3 million per case. [2] Other studies have estimated the cost to be as high as $7 million. [2] let's compare to LWOP (life without parole) Cases resulting in life imprisonment average around $500,000 each, including incarceration cost. [2] C2: the death penalty does not deter crime Criminologists: A recent survey of the most leading criminologists in the country from found that the overwhelming majority did not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Eighty-eight percent of the country's top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide [3] so 88% of the professionals think it doesn't work. Experts suggest that criminal behavior and the nation's murder rate may best be curbed by addressing the environmental and social factors that contribute to violent crime. Groner explains, "The murder rate is most closely associated with the socioeconomic health of the country. The murder rate in the U.S. was highest during the Depression. " [4] So also the site says capital punishment isn't the reason for the crime drops, it is the economy. The DP =/= deterrence of crime, the economy does. Also the states without the DP have lower crime rates: overall the no DP states have: 4.01 CRIME RATE Dp states have: 5.00 [5] C3: The DP infringes international law UN declaration of human rights article 3: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." [6] You will then argue the murderer infringed that right, but just because he did it doesn't mean he shouldn't. All lives are = no matter the craziness. C4: Risk of executing innocents Since Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing The Danger of Mistaken Executions was released in 1993, 21 more cases have been added to the list of mistaken convictions in capital cases. [7] Any criminal justice system carries the risk of punishing innocent persons, but the punishment of death is unique and requires greater precautions. [8] The risk of executing innocent human beings is the focus of this paper. I believe that this risk is so significant that it constitutes a decisive reason for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States. [8] C5: Death sentences are racist and unfair They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks. [9] Nationwide, blacks and whites are victims of homicide in roughly equal numbers, yet 80 percent of those executed had murdered white people. [9] I tell people that if you're going to commit murder, you want to be white, and you want to be wealthy — so that you can hire a first-class lawyer — and you want to kill a black person. And if [you are], the odds of your being sentenced to death are basically zero. [10] why it is unfair: (1) is fraught with error; (2) discriminates on the basis of socioeconomic status, race, and geography; [11] And it has like 6 more reasons but these are the biggies. The DP is unfair and racist. =conclusion= The DP is bad and should be abolished, it is unfair, kills innocents, and doesn't even serve it's deterrence purpose, and on top of that is is expensive. VOTE CON sources: http://deathpenaltyinfo.org... [1] http://www.ncadp.org... [2] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [3] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [4] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [5] http://www.un.org... [6] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [7] http://www.bu.edu... [8] http://www.nytimes.com... [9] http://www.time.com... [10] http://www.aclu.org... [11]