Death Penalty??????????????????????????????????????

Question

-Interesting facts abt it
-Ur opinions on it

Answer 1

This issue should be all about the facts, not revenge or an eye for an eye mentality. This will be a long answer because the topic is so important.

A 2006 Gallup Poll found that 47% of all Americans prefer capital punishment while 48% prefer life without parole. The more Americans learn about the death penalty the more they prefer alternative methods of keeping us safe. Here are some facts about the death penalty- all are verified and fully sourced.

Re: Possibility of executing an innocent person
Over 120 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence. Once someone is executed the case is closed. If we execute an innocent person we are not likely to find that out and, also, the real criminal is still out there.

Re: DNA
DNA is available in no more than 10% of murder cases. It is not a miracle cure for sentencing innocent people to death. It’s human nature to make mistakes. Many people do not know this.

Re: Appeals
Our appeals system is designed to make sure that the trial was in accord with constitutional standards, not to second guess whether the defendant was actually innocent. It is very difficult to get evidence of innocence introduced before an appeals court. Also not generally known.

Re: Deterrence
The death penalty isn’t a deterrent. Murder rates are actually higher in states with the death penalty than in states without it. Moreover, people who kill or commit other serious crimes do not think they will be caught (if they think at all.)

Re: cost
The death penalty costs far more than life in prison. The huge extra costs start to mount up even before the trial. There are more cost effective ways to prevent and control crime.

Re: Alternatives
48 states have life without parole on the books. It means what it says, is swift and sure and is rarely appealed. Being locked in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, forever, is certainly no picnic.

Re: Who gets the death penalty
The death penalty isn’t reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but rather for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was sentenced to death, let alone executed??

Re: Race
The system is racist but not in the way you may think. It is the race of the victim which matters. A defendant is twice as likely to face the death penalty if the victim was white than if the victim was non white. Surprising to many people.

Re: Victims families
The death penalty is very hard on victims’ families. They must relive their ordeal in the courts and the media. Life without parole is sure, swift and rarely appealed. Some victims families who support the death penalty in principal prefer life without parole because of how the death penalty affects families like theirs.

Opposing the death penalty doesn’t mean you condone brutal crimes or excuse people who commit them. It means that you are looking at the hard facts and applying common sense.

PS
Correcting some mistakes- professionaleccentric is wrong in saying that evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent is anecdotal. I urge you to take a look at FBI stats- and compare them to the lists of states with the death penalty and without it.
(http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/standard_links/regional_estimates.html, the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2005. Right now, only preliminary stats are available for 2006) Stats found here can be compared to stats on the number of executions in different states.

-How_Would_I_Know- statistics do not support your statement. “Speaks for itself” is not a credible source.

-Rick M- it is legal to execute a mentally ill person as long as they are sane enough at the time of their execution to understand what is happening. Charles Singleton (Arkansas) was forcibly medicated for this purpose alone. Larry Robison and Charles Coburn had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenics before the murders and the state of Texas executed them. Several other cases are pending.

-to Castlekeepr- You are confusing the ideas of deterrence (convincing other people not to commit the crime someone was punished for) with incapacitation (preventing the criminal from committing the same crime again.)

Otherwise, you have received terrific answers and sources.

Answer 2

The people who claim that it isn't a deterrant always use anecdotal evidence. If they looked at the overall trend they'd find that nationwide in the USA there were eight hundred or so executions a year in the country around 1950 & there were about three thousand murders, but in 1983 when there were no executions at all the number of murders topped twenty-four thousand for the first time.

Answer 3

Given that the ADMINISTRATION of the death penalty is so inherently flawed and biased, I have to be totally against it.

From the decision whom to charge with capital murder throughout the hearing processes, through jury selection and trial, the arbitrary and capricious way that the sentence is implemented has to be unconstitutional.

For one example, people who are opposed to the death penalty are NOT ALLOWED to sit on a capital jury. This automatically biases the jury in favor of finding a death sentence. Further, numerous research studies have shown that so called "death qualified jurors" differ substantially from those who oppose the penalty on matters such as their belief in due process, the presumption of innocence and their conviction-proneness.

Not to mention that jurors are questioned about their ability to impose the death penalty PRIOR TO even deciding a defendant's guilt. This also predisposes them to a guilty verdict. They reason, "if we are discussing punishment, he must be guilty."

Now for a couple of comments on some of the answers already here. Roger N - the State is supposed to rise above the basest of its citizens in its actions. It is supposed to set an example. What example do we set if we 'do not think of" citizens' rights?!?

How Would and professional...are BOTH blatantly incorrect. First of all, professional, one cannot use mere numbers of murders over time as a measure of the efficacy of the penalty. Just think how many OTHER crimes also increased in number simply because of the dramatic rise in population between 1950 and 1983. One must look at murder RATES, per population. All of these statistics indicate NO SIGNIFICANT increase in murder RATES during times when the death penalty was not in place. Further, at concurrent times, states without the death penalty show NO HIGHER murder RATES than those with, and many show lower murder rates than those state with the death penalty.

Rick m - it is NOT currently illegal to execute a mentally ill person. It has only recently been decided by the SCOTUS that it is unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded person. And the requirements to demonstrate retardation are quite restrictive. We execute mentally ill persons all the time. Mentally ill is NOT the same as mentally incompetent. It IS illegal to execute mentally incompetent people. This creates the somewhat paradoxical phenomenon of treating mentally ill persons to bring them to a point of health so they can understand that they are going to be executed! Bizarre at best.

Finally, the US has signed a number of international treaties which require that we NOT have the death penalty. We have chosen to use a "line item veto" on that issue of the treaties, however, when we accuse OTHER countries of violating international treaties, we have no ground to stand on as long as we are in violation ourselves.

Susan S - your response is thoughtful and outstanding. I hope I have added to it.

Answer 4

I find it interesting that our society allows people to use deadly force to defend their own lives, or the lives of others - when there is the threat of deadly force of substantial bodily harm. Yet, if a perpetrator is successful in causing death or substantial bodily harm, that right apparently vanishes (except for dangerous fleeing felon laws). The government should have the same right to use deadly force against the perpetrator. Our system is about justice. If you only look at one side of the coin - the person who is still alive - you can never attain it.

--Z--

Answer 5

Only the most socially backwards countries in the planet, like Saudi Arabia, China and the USA, execute dozens of people every year.

The Death Penalty is equivalent to saying: "we have failed as a society."

Answer 6

It punishes the family of the person that committed the crime more than the criminal.....

Also, for the person that said crime went up after the death penalty was suspended, I would love to see a link, because I have never heard of any such thing.....

Answer 7

In America it is illegal to execute a mentally ill person, and since I believe that one must be suffering from one form of mental illness or another in order to commit the kinds of crimes that demand the death penalty, it is unlawful to enforce a death warrant.

Answer 8

When the death penalty was put on hold.. the murder rate rose by about 100%.

Speaks for itself.

Answer 9

Everyones got to get dead sometime, some people just need it before others.

Capital punishment isn't excercised enough here in the US of A.

Murderers, Rapists, and Thieves deserve to be tortured.

Answer 10

i disagree with the death penalty...too many innocent lives have already been taken and too many have been ruined because of faulty verdicts...unless the judge/jury saw the person do it; it's wrong.