Capital punishment is a flawed system

-I apologize for my ambiguity in defining flawed. By flawed I am referring to it being the following: -Ineffective financially and is a waste of time -Fails to operate as a deterrent -Results in the unnecessary deaths of innocent individuals -Violates our right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment 1) Ineffective financially and is a waste of time -Capital punishment is an ineffective method of punishment. The expenses required by the court and the amount of money stemming from the taxpayer that is squandered is exponential. Life in prison without parole, while not ideal, is a more efficient and cost effective way of containing a criminal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A new study of the cost of the death penalty in Colorado revealed that capital proceedings require six times more days in court and take much longer to resolve than life-without-parole (LWOP) cases. The study, published in the University of Denver Criminal Law Review, found that LWOP cases required an average of 24.5 days of in-court time, while the death-penalty cases required 147.6 days. The authors noted that selecting a jury in an LWOP case takes about a day and a half; in a capital case, jury selection averages 26 days. In measuring the comparative time it takes to go from charging a defendant to final sentencing, the study found that LWOP cases took an average of 526 days to complete; death cases took almost 4 calendar years longer--1,902 days. The study found that even when a death-penalty case ends in a plea agreement and a life sentence, the process takes a year and a half longer than an LWOP case with a trial. (J. Marceau and H. Whitson, "The Cost of Colorado's Death Penalty," 3 Univ. of Denver Criminal Law Review 145 (2013)). California Assessment of Costs by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Prof. Paula Mitchell (2011, updated 2012) The authors concluded that the cost of the death penalty in California has totaled over $4 billion since 1978: "$1.94 billion--Pre-Trial and Trial Costs "$925 million--Automatic Appeals and State Habeas Corpus Petitions "$775 million--Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals "$1 billion--Costs of Incarceration The authors calculated that, if the Governor commuted the sentences of those remaining on death row to life without parole, it would result in an immediate savings of $170 million per year, with a savings of $5 billion over the next 20 years." http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... 2) Fails to operate as a deterrent -One of the main arguments in favor of capital punishment is its supposed ability to deter future crime. This is not the case, and it can be shown statistically that states without the death penalty have lower homicide rates than those that possess the death penalty. Deterrence is not achieved by condemning one to death; the laborious and cumbersome system delays the process and proves ineffective in lowering crime. "One argument in support of capital punishment is that the threat of death deters murder more effectively than prison. However, research indicates that the death penalty is no more effective as a deterrent to murder than the punishment of life in jail. States with the death penalty on average do not have lower rates of homicide than states without the penalty. The average murder rate per 100,00 people in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5 and the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was 3.6 (US Dept. of Justice, 2001). A study examining executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997 found that the murder rate was steady and that there was no evidence of a deterrent effect. The number of executions was found to be unrelated to murder rates (Sorenson, Wrinkle, Brewer and Marquart, 1999). Furthermore, a survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association shows that the overwhelming majority of these experts do not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect (Radelet and Akers, 1995). Additionally, Attorney General Janet Reno stated at a Justice Department news briefing, "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point." (US Dept. of Justice, 2001)." http://www.uvm.edu... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "An early approach consisted of comparing homicide rates in states with and without capital punishment, choosing groups of neighboring states as nearly alike as possible in other respects. Such comparisons were made by Thorsten Sellin for the years from 1920 to 1958.4 This method is a far cry from the controlled experiment performed to test the Salk vaccine, since "other things being equal" is never exactly true when comparing units as large and varied as states. Still, if deterrence plays a significant role its effect should show up as lower homicide rates in the death penalty states when compared to similar, neighboring abolition states. Here are Sellin's conclusions: The data examined reveal that 1. The level of the homicide death rates varies in different groups of states. It is lowest in the New England areas and in the northern states of the middle west and lies somewhat higher in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. 2. Within each group of states having similar social and economic conditions and populations, it is impossible to distinguish the abolition state from the others. 3. The trends of the homicide death rates of comparable states with or without the death penalty are similar. The inevitable conclusion is that executions have no discernible effect on homicide death rates which, as we have seen, are regarded as adequate indicators of capital murder rates." www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/JLpaper.pdf 3) Results in the unnecessary deaths of innocent individuals -Countless examples exist in the archives of history in which innocent men and women have been executed unfairly. Men and women exonerated after their deaths, biased witnesses provide false accounts in order to appease some higher power, and discrimination against minorities or prejudice against those with past offenses. "Unfortunately innocent people are often placed on death row. In a study of executions in 34 states between 1973 and 1995, Columbia University professor James Liebman found that: 'An astonishing 82 percent of death row inmates did not deserve to receive the death penalty. One in twenty death row inmates is later found not guilty.' Most death row inmates do not have the resources or time necessary to determine their innocence before it is too late." http://madamenoire.com... -------------------------------------------------------------- Alabama: Daniel Wade Moore, acquitted in 2009 "When Moore was originally found guilty for murder and sexual assault of Karen Tipton in 2002 he was sentenced to death by the judge overruling the jury's original consensus. However, he was acquitted in 2009 when 256 pages of withheld evidence were finally revealed. Texas: Anthony Graves, charges dismissed in 2010 " Graves was convicted in 1994 of assisting Robert Carter in multiple murders in 1992. There was no physical evidence linking Graves to the crimes, and his conviction relied on Carter's testimony that Graves was his accomplice, a claim Carter later recanted. In 2006 it was found that prosecuters elicited false statements and withheld testimony that could have influenced the jurors. A special prosecutor hired to re-examine the case said "we found not one piece of credible evidence that links Anthony Graves to the commission of this capital murder. He is an innocent man." Florida: Seth Penalver, acquitted in 2012 " Penalver was arrested in 1994 for the brutal murder of three individuals. There was no physical evidence linking him to the murder; the only "evidence" police had was a poor-quality video in which the murderer's face could not be seen. He remained in custody until 2012 when the jury at his most recent trial acquitted him of all charges. http://www.amnestyusa.org... 4) Violates our right to life and our right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Such punishment as would amount to torture or barbarity, any cruel and degrading punishment not known to the Common Law, or any fine, penalty, confinement, or treatment that is so disproportionate to the offense as to shock the moral sense of the community. "The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment for federal crimes. The amendment states, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted." The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars the states from inflicting such punishment for state crimes, and most state constitutions also prohibit the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment." http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com... (I will explain in the next round why capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. http://www.un.org...