Why would any one claim that the death penalty doesn't work?

Question

Who cares whether it deters others or not? No murderer who was executed for his crimes has EVER killed anybody else after sentence was carried out! Would you rather pay out tax dollers to feed and provide cable tv for a serial killer for the rest of your life? It works, use it! Your thoughts?

I Chong: I don't have to admit that, because I don't believe it. Murder is murder and execution of a murderer is justice.

Answer 1

don't get me started.. a prison inmate sucks up 78K a year and teachers make carp wages.. whats wrong with that picture.. euthinize all the lifers and deathrowers for starts that would free up billions for education and maybe we can eliminate prisons all together..

Answer 2

Most people do care about what is happening and whether our criminal justice system is working.

You don't have to condone brutal crimes or want the criminals who commit them to avoid a harsh punishment to ask whether the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and whether it risks killing innocent people.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

124 people on death rows have been released with proof that they were wrongfully convicted. DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and isn’t a guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

We have a good alternative. Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.

The death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 3

I’ve been told that the death penalty is not a deterrent, but if one of my loved ones was murdered, I would want to kill them personally. Perhaps it’s not a deterrent because those sentenced to death (at least in California) can look forward to 25 years of retirement in solitude before being painlessly injected with drugs that make the death as easy as having a simple surgical procedure. I think the punishment should be as close to the crime as possible. In crimes involving rape, torture, and murder, the punishment should be just as heinous. Immoral; perhaps… Unchristian like; perhaps… Just; in my opinion, yes. Most people say it is wrong to want revenge. Most of these people also believe in a ‘vengeful’ god that will do the dirty work for them. I don’t believe in such god so I am left thinking that if there is any vengeance at all it will be during this life. Some people might argue that I am creating bad karma by taking or even wanting revenge. I would argue that if karma exists, then I am merely rebalancing the situation by returning an evil for an evil. Why do people worship a vengeful god and at the same time say revenge is a sinful desire? The death penalty might even have a deterrent value if it was carried out in a more medieval fashion and it would be less expensive if the sentence was carried out more expeditiously. I think it’s worth at least trying it out for ten or twenty years, you know, just to compare statistics.

Answer 4

If it's an absolute certainty that the person committed the crimes and all evidence for or against the crime has been submitted, then I guess my feelings of it would be a lot worse to rot in prison for the rest of your life don't matter. However, I do have a problem with the execution of the mentally retarded and when new evidence has been found that would clear someone, but it's not allowed.

Answer 5

My main problem with the death penalty is the unevenness with which its parceled out. Why should some 1st degree murderers be sentenced to death while other 1st degree murderers get to live and perhaps even reenter society one day? I don't get it. The death penalty has such finality and certainty to it, I think that the crimes that warrant the death penalty should have a similar certainty. Otherwise, the door is wide open for those who determine the judgments to operate on their own biases and beliefs instead of the facts of the case.

Answer 6

It costs more to carry a death penalty case through the courts than it does to house, medicate, feed, and bury a life-sentenced person. Anyone kept in prison for life also never killed anyone in the larger community (although it remains possible behind bars).

However, by all comparative US percentages, there are no fewer murders in jurisdictions with the death penalty than there are in jurisdictions that do have the death penalty.

Answer 7

Unfortunately there are just too many appeals and time waiting measures in place so it really costs substantially more to kill someone in the end.

I am mostly for the death penalty, but only in very certain cases. We had the Bernardo case up here years ago where they had videotaped evidence of him raping and killing teen girls. I think in that case he should have been walked out back of the court house and shot in the head with the cheapest bullet the Province/State can buy.

Answer 8

If you are worried about the cost, get rid of the death penalty immediately. It costs far more to execute someone in the USA than it does to keep them in prison for life. Executing someone is ridiculously expensive when you take into account the legal costs of all the appeals and the cost of housing the condemned in special parts of the prison with special guards to look after them for years. Condemned prisoners do not work either so they are making no contributions to prison life.

Anyone worried about costs should be calling for the abolition of capital punishment. When you add that to the horror of executing innocent people - which happens in all jurisdictions - there is no justification for it.

Any country that kills its citizens is a barbaric country. My country, Australia, became civilised in 1985 when Western Australia finally abolished the death penalty. One of these days, the USA might become civilised - but I won't hold my breath waiting.

Answer 9

The death penalty is certainly effective in that regard, but the problem is twofold:

- there are numerous documented cases of innocent people being executed for crimes they didn't commit

- the checks and balances in the system designed to prevent the above, end up being outrageously expensive. Life in prison (actual life, no way out), makes much more sense.

Answer 10

Only one thing is required to believe in the death penalty: The belief in the infallibility of the State.
At last count 12% of those on death row are not guilty of the crimes that they were convicted of and that the State will fry them for.Apparantley to you that seem to be an acceptable percentage of innocent people to kill to enact a penalty that doesn't work and in fact may encourage more people to be murdered..
Think about it for a second ;
Dirtbag criminal robs a house , Dad tries to stop him, DBC kills Dad and quickly realizes that the State of Texas will definetly execute him for Dad's murder.What's DBC's incentive not to kill the rest of the family at that point ?

Answer 11

I claim that the death penalty doesn't work, because it is a definite fact that many innocent people, who have been wrongly convicted, have been put to death. Look up the facts on the net and you will see what I mean.