Death Penalty

There are many reasons why we should abolish the death penalty. It is expensive, cruel, flawed, and not doing anyone any favors. Skeptical? Maybe the following facts will change your mind! 1. It's expensive. As of April 30th, 2013, the US National Debt is over 16 trillion dollars. We can't afford to add to this tremendous amount! In California ALONE, over $4 BILLION dollars were spent on capital punishment ITSELF since 1978. And $184 million has been additionally spent EVERY YEAR in California on the capital trials, security on death row, and legal representation. In Maryland, taxpayers have spent AT LEAST $186 million on the death penalty since 1978. 2. It's inhumane. Many execution methods are cruel. Take the gas chamber, for example. "At first there is evidence of extreme horror, pain, and strangling. Their eyes pop. The skin turns purple and the victim begins to drool." says Clifton Duffy, former Penitentiary warden of San Quenton, California. Hanging is also an unacceptable means of capital punishment. According to "Executions- Preparing Staff for the Hard Time Ahead" and J. Weisburg, author of "This is Your Death," execution by hanging is rarely instantaneous, and that " If the inmate has strong neck muscles, is very light, if the 'drop' is too short, or the noose has been wrongly positioned, the fracture-dislocation is not rapid and death results from slow asphyxiation. If this occurs the face becomes engorged, the tongue protrudes, the eyes pop, the body defecates, and violent movements of the limbs occur." The firing squad is no better. The shooter is supposed to aim for the inmate's heart for a more human means of killing, but if they miss, the inmate slowly bleeds to death. Lethal Injection may sound like a good option, then, if a death without pain is best, but it's risky. The chemical that kills the inmate is supposed to be injected into a working vein so the death is painless, but sometimes, the needle is mistakenly injected into their muscle. This causes an extremely painful death. These methods of executions clearly show that execution is torturous and inhumane. 3. Many executed people are actually innocent. According to Columbia University professor James Liebman, 5% of inmates executed are later found to be innocent. 5%! This is similar to 1 student in every classroom at an elementary school being killed. 1 in 20 people are killed, sometimes torturously, for only seeming guilty. This is NOT in any means acceptable. 4. It's not justice. Many families of murder victims are against the death penalty. One is Aba Gayle, whose teenage daughter Catherine Blout was murdered by Douglas Mickey. Says Gayle, "I did not want state-sanctioned murder to tarnish the life of my beautiful child." Another is Vicki Schieber, whose daughter was murdered in Pennsylvania in 1998, who disagrees with the death penalty, saying "The system is just too painful." Many families of murder victims agree that the money annually wasted on the death penalty could be used to help counsel and support survivors. The death penalty is wrong on many counts, such as its over the top pricing, its cruelty, its murdering of innocent people, and its inability to serve justice. If two wrongs don't make a right, why do we murder murderers? Why do we kill to show that killing is wrong?