disadvantages of capital punishment essay

Capital Punishment: Advantages and Disadvantages Essay

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Advantages of Capital Punishment

Disadvantages of capital punishment.

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Within the realms of the American laws, criminal justice system comprises of the law creators (legislative), courts (adjudication), and correctional facilities such as probation, parole, prisons, and jails. American criminal justice system comprises of the jurisdictional, normative, functional, and institutional components.

These components work simultaneously in defining the goals of procedural laws and decision to be taken by the court of law. Factually, these activities take place at different points. This paper analyses impact of death penalty at the Walnut Street Jail of Philadelphia.

Actually, capital punishment refers to a death sentence on individuals who have committed unlawful deeds. Indeed, such punishment arises due to capital offences. Death penalty is normally conducted by knocking out head from an individual’s body. Initially, death penalty was practiced by many countries but currently several nations have abandoned the practice.

Indeed, many positions have been raised due to religious and cultural explanations, and political principles. In fact, the Holy Bible justifies death penalty against criminal offenses such as murder. This paper examines death penalty from an impartial view by considering disadvantages and advantages of capital punishment in society.

First, according to Teeters, death penalty eradicates criminal activities in a community. Indeed, capital punishment is an important mission for every person simply because it instills moral while discouraging criminal activities in society. Actually, dead victims would not commit more illegal actions either when freed from jail or in jail.

Secondly, money is ever a limited commodity. In this case, nations would utilize wisely their scarce resources to care their citizens who need help rather than spending such resources in imprisoning criminals for long term basis. Capital punishment is hence cost-effectual. Indeed, infinite appeals would spend much time and more resources in resolving death disputes.

Death penalty is therefore cost-valuable. Thirdly, Teeters views that death penalty is a retribution action in which a victim is punished because of offenses committed. In fact, capital punishment is an eye for an eye formula which is revengeful with no forgiveness. Lastly, capital punishment is a deterrent device that has discouraged crimes. Actually, before committing crimes, criminals have to perceive possible impacts of their actions because they are aware of what death penalty justifies.

Teeters explains that there is a conviction that innocent persons would be killed and therefore there would be no alternative manner for compensating and rehabilitating such people. Secondly, death penalty is an unkind, barbaric and unashamed inhuman act, regardless how atrocious offense is.

Indeed, human being has self-respect to exist which is a natural law from religious perspective. In addition, human being has dignity to exist with self-respect which should be key priority for any government objective for people. Moreover, there has been a big concern how a government would tread on persons’ dignity and right.

Third, according to Teeters, death penalty never gives a victim possibility to be regretful of his actions. Actually, capital punishment has never treated criminals with a just prospect to recover their deeds. Lastly, there is no tangible proof that death penalty has been capable to prevent latent victims from performing offensive acts.

Furthermore, mitigating capital punishment as way to prevent future unlawful acts is likely to be an obvious one-dimension justification to several people. Indeed, this should not be the case. Actually, people should look for objective justifications that support every person, even criminal offenders.

Though parole and probation are community correction strategies which functioning on the concept of community supervision, they are different in many aspects. Despite these differences, they were initiated to mitigate the magnitude and severity of the punishment process. Parole was introduced in America in the mid 19 th century.

Under this arrangement credit marks are awarded for behavior change, and release from detaining heavily relies on the cumulative score per prisoner. After probation, the suspected offender is passed through criminal justice system, and if found guilty, may be sentenced to a jail term. Since these detention camps have parole officers, prisoners are registered in parole programs and the best behaved released before full jail term. Generally, these processes are designed to promote positive behavior change initiated by the suspect.

Capital punishment had been a controversial dispute since ancient era, though remains certainty in some nations in the world. Actually, India and other countries still endow death penalty for most terrible unlawful acts. However, Human Right Advocates have remained persistent to resist against capital punishment in order to restore human dignity. However, some States have embraced death penalty as an eventual sentence so long as unlawful deeds typifies intense brutal act.

Teeters, Negley. “The Cradle of the Penitentiary: The Walnut Street Jail at Philadelphia 1773-1835.” Temple University, 2001

The Death Penalty in the Modern Society
Death Penalty: James a Inciardi Perspective
The U.S. Federal Parole System
Does Parole Work? Effectiveness of Parole
What is Juvenile Probation?
Death Penalty Issues in Tennessee State
Death Penalty for Young People
Capital Punishment as an Option in Maryland
Debates on Death Penalty in the United States
Capital Punishment Role in the World
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16 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Death Penalty and Capital Punishment

Human civilizations have used the death penalty in their set of laws for over 4,000 years. There have been times when only a few crimes receive this consequence, while some societies, such as the seventh century B.C.’s Code of Athens required the punishment for all crimes to be death.

The death penalty in the United States came about because of the influences of the colonial era. The first recorded execution in the colonies occurred in 1608 in Jamestown. Captain George Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. It only took four more years for Virginia to institute the death penalty for minor offenses such as stealing grapes or trading with Native Americans.

Today, capital punishment is reserved for brutal and heinous crimes, such as first-degree murder. Some countries use the death penalty for repetitive violent crime, such as rape and sexual assault, or for specific drug offenses. Here are the pros and cons of the death penalty to review as we head into 2021 and beyond.

List of the Pros of the Death Penalty

1. It is a way to provide justice for victims while keeping the general population safe. There is an expectation in society that you should be able to live your life without the threat of harm. When there is someone who decides to go against this expectation by committing a violent crime, then there must be steps taken to provide everyone else the safety that they deserve. Although arguments can be made for rehabilitation, there are people who would continue their violent tendencies no matter what. The only way to keep people safe in those circumstances, and still provide a sense of justice for the victims, is the use of the death penalty.

2. It provides a deterrent against serious crimes. The reason why there are consequences in place for criminal violations is that we want to have a deterrent effect on specific behaviors. People who are considering a breach of the law must see that the consequences of their actions are worse if they go through without that action compared to following the law.

Although up to 88% of criminologists in the United States report that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to homicide, the fact that it can prevent some violence does make it a useful tool to have in society.

3. It offers a respectful outcome. A critical component of justice in modern society involves punishing criminal behavior in a way that is not cruel or unusual. That societal expectation has led the United States to implement capital punishment by using lethal injections. Although some regions struggle to purchase the necessary drugs to administer lethal injections, the process of putting someone to sleep before they stop breathing eliminates the pain and negative outcomes associated with other execution methods.

Modern processes in modern societies are much more compassionate compared to the historical methods of hanging, firing squads, or other gruesome methods of taking a life under the law.

4. It maintains prison populations at manageable levels. Over 2 million people are currently part of the prison population in the United States. About one in five people currently in jails across the country are awaiting trial for charges that they face. That is about the same amount of people who are labeled as being violent offenders. By separating those who are convicted of a capital crime, we create more room for individuals who want to work through rehabilitation programs or otherwise improve their lives and live law-abiding futures. This structure makes it possible to limit the financial and spatial impacts which occur when all serious crimes require long-term prisoner care.

5. It offers society an appropriate consequence for violent behavior. There are criminals who have a desire to rehabilitate their lives and create new futures for themselves within the bounds of the law. There are also criminals who desire to continue their criminal behaviors. By keeping capital punishment as an option within society, we create an appropriate consequence that fits the actions taken by the criminal. The death penalty ensures that the individual involved will no longer be able to create havoc for the general population because they are no longer around. That process creates peace for the victims, their families, and society in general.

6. It eliminates sympathetic reactions to someone charged with a capital crime. The United States offers a confrontational system of justice because that is an effective way to address the facts of the case. We make decisions based on logic instead of emotion. The law must be able to address the actions of a criminal in a way that discourages other people from conducting themselves in a similar manner. Our goal should be to address the needs of each victim and their family more than it should be to address the physical needs of the person charged with a capital crime.

7. It stops the threat of an escape that alternative sentences would create. The fastest way to stop a murderer from continuing to kill people is to eliminate their ability to do so. That is what capital punishment does. The death penalty makes it impossible for someone convicted of murder to find ways that kill other people. Failing to execute someone who is taking a life unjustly, who is able to kill someone else, makes us all responsible for that action. Although there are issues from a moral standpoint about taking any life, we must remember that the convicted criminal made the decision to violate the law in the first place, knowing full well what their potential outcome would be.

List of the Cons of the Death Penalty

1. It requires one person to kill another person. In an op-ed published by the New York Times, S. Frank Thompson discussed his experience in executing inmates while serving as the superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary. He talked about how the death penalty laws forced him to be personally involved in these executions. He came to a point where, on a moral level, he decided that life either had to be honored or not. His job required him to kill someone else. Whether someone takes a life through criminal means, or they do so through legal means, there still is an impact on that person which is unpredictable.

2. It comes with unclear constitutionality in the United States. In the 1970s, the Supreme Court of the United States found the application of the death penalty unconstitutional, but four years later, allowed the death penalty to resume with certain limitations on when and how it must be carried out. Some justices have called for a review of the death penalty due to current information about the risk of sentencing innocent people to death and other concerns about the death penalty.

After four decades of surveys, studies, and experiences with the death penalty, there are three specific defects that critics state exist. There is unreliability in the systems that are used to put prisoners to death, there are delays that can last for 20 years or more before executing a prisoner, and the application of capital punishment has been called arbitrary.

3. It does not have a positive impact on homicide rates. The United States implemented the death penalty 22 times in 2019, and imposed 34 death sentences. Crime statistics for that year indicate that there were 16,425 reported murders and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the U.S. Some claim that criminals do not think they’ll be caught and convicted, so the death penalty has a limited deterrence effect. Statistics on crimes show that when the death penalty is abolished, and replaced with a guaranteed life in prison, there are fewer violent acts committed.

4. It creates a revenge factor, which may not best serve justice. No one can blame families of victims for wanting justice. There is enough reason because of their pain and loss to understand concepts like vengeance. The problem with the death penalty is that it implements only one form of justice. It can be seen to create the framework for allowing for an eye for an eye, rather than taking a morally higher ground. If we permit the killing of people as a consequence of their own murderous decisions, then do we devalue life itself? It cannot be assumed that something that is legal is necessarily morally correct.

5. It costs more to implement the death penalty. The average case brought to trial which involves the death penalty costs taxpayers $1.26 million (counted through to execution). Cases that are taken to a jury which do not involve capital punishment cost an average of $740,000 (counted through to the end of incarceration). When you compare the costs of maintaining a prisoner in the general population compared to keeping someone on death row, taxpayers save money by avoiding the death penalty.

Maintaining a prisoner on death row costs $90,000 more per year than keeping that person in the general population. When one considers the cost of keeping someone on death row for 20 years or more, it is cheaper to sentence someone to life in prison without the possibility of parole in most states that it is to put them to death.

6. It comes with a risk that an innocent person could be executed. Although we like to think that our criminal justice systems are perfect, it is not. A study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that at least 4% of the people that are on death row are likely to be innocent. Since 1973, over 170 people have been taken off of death row because evidence showed that they were innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.

The justice system has flaws in our justice system. There have been cases where prosecutors knowingly withheld exculpatory information. There have been times when the justice system has introduced false evidence against defendants. People can be coerced into entering a guilty plea, or admitting their guilt, because of external pressures placed on them.

7. It does not always provide the sense of justice that families require. Research published in 2012 by the Marquette Law Review found that the victim’s family experienced higher levels of psychological, physical, and behavioral health when the convicted criminal was sentenced to life in prison, instead of the death penalty. The death penalty might be considered to be the ultimate form of justice, but it does not always provide the satisfaction people think it will once it is administered.

8. It does not seek alternative solutions. About one in every nine people in the U.S. is the population is currently serving a life sentence. Many more are serving a sentence that keeps them in prison for the rest of their lives because it will last for 15 years or more. Violent crime has declined dramatically since it peaked in the early 1990s. According to FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018, and using the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it fell 71% during that same period. In 2016, 2,330 prisoners escaped from prison in the U.S.

There are numerous ways to prevent someone from breaking out of prison and hurting someone else, and the decreased number of violent crimes should mean a smaller prison population to work with to seek alternative solutions.

9. It automatically assumes that the criminal cannot be rehabilitated. There will always be people who decide they will live with a disregard for others. These people may never successfully complete a rehabilitation process after committing a crime. Sentencing someone to death makes the assumption that the person cannot be rehabilitated and suggests that there is no other way to help society except to get rid of that criminal.

These death penalty pros and cons are not intended to serve as a moral framework but are an attempt at a balanced look at reasons why capital punishment is a useful tool within societies, as well as reasons to the contrary. There are also specific outcomes that occur when the death penalty is not a potential sentence, which can be beneficial. That is why these critical points must continue to be discussed so that we all can come to the best possible decision to keep one another safe.

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Should We Not Abolish Capital Punishment? Words: 4287
The Moral Dilemma of the Capital Punishment Words: 1929
A Utilitarian Analysis of Capital Punishment Words: 1388
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Capital Punishment: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages of capital punishment, disadvantages of capital punishment, works cited.

This paper analyses impact of death penalty. Actually, capital punishment refers to a death sentence on individuals who have committed unlawful deeds. Indeed, such punishment arises due to capital offences. Death penalty is normally conducted by knocking out head from an individual’s body. Initially, death penalty was practiced by many countries but currently several nations have abandoned the practice.

However, capital punishment has been a controversial issue in many nations. Indeed, many positions have been raised due to religious and cultural explanations, and political principles. In fact, the Holy Bible justifies death penalty against criminal offenses such as murder. In 1723, England parliament passed legislation that allowed capital punishment to curb criminal cases in the nation. This paper examines death penalty from an impartial view by considering disadvantages and advantages of capital punishment in society.

First, according to Zimring, death penalty eradicates criminal activities in a community (5). Indeed, capital punishment is an important mission for every person simply because it instills moral while discouraging criminal activities in society. Actually, dead victims would not commit more illegal actions either when freed from jail or in jail. Secondly, money is ever a limited commodity.

In this case, nations would utilize wisely their scarce resources to care their citizens who need help rather than spending such resources in imprisoning criminals for long term basis (Vermeules & Sunstein 56) Capital punishment is hence cost-effectual. Indeed, infinite appeals would spend much time and more resources in resolving death disputes. Death penalty is therefore cost-valuable.

Thirdly, Haney views that death penalty is a retribution action in which a victim is punished because of offenses committed (20). In fact, capital punishment is an eye for an eye formula which is revengeful with no forgiveness. Lastly, capital punishment is a deterrent device that has discouraged crimes. Actually, before committing crimes, criminals have to perceive possible impacts of their actions because they are aware of what death penalty justifies.

First, Vermeules & Sunstein explains that there is a conviction that innocent persons would be killed and therefore there would be no alternative manner for compensating and rehabilitating such people (58). Secondly, death penalty is an unkind, barbaric and unashamed inhuman act, regardless how atrocious offense is. Actually, “Human Right Advocates perceive capital punishment as an overt infringement of individual’s right of existence” (Zimring 7).

Actually, capital punishment has never treated criminals with a just prospect to recover their deeds. Lastly, there is no tangible proof that death penalty has been capable to prevent latent victims from performing offensive acts. Furthermore, mitigating capital punishment as way to prevent future unlawful acts is likely to be an obvious one-dimension justification to several people. Indeed, this should not be the case. Actually, people should look for objective justifications that support every person, even criminal offenders.

Haney, C. Death by Design: Capital Punishment as Social Psychological System. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

Vermeules, A., & Sunstein C. “Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? Acts, omission, and life-life tradeoffs.” Stanford Law Review, 58 (2005): 10-14. Print.

Zimring, Franklin. The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.

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18 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Death Penalty

The death penalty, or “capital punishment” if one prefers a friendlier term, is the planned killing of an individual by a government or ruling entity in response to a crime. It is considered the just punishment for a person legally convicted of an action which is deemed a safety threat to society.

Most states in the U.S. which allow for the death penalty due so because of murder. Capital punishment is a legal penalty at the federal level in the United States for murder as well, along with treason, espionage, piracy, certain drug-trafficking offenses, or the attempted murder of a juror, court officer, or witness in some situation.

As of 2018, every prisoner under a federal death sentence was convicted of aggravated murder. There were 63 offenders on “death row” at the Federal Bureau of Prisons as of September 2018. The U.S. military has a death penalty as well, and the branches have executed 135 people since 1916. That includes Private Eddie Slovik, who was executed on January 31, 1945 under the conviction of desertion.

There are passionate people on both sides of this debate, so it is imperative to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty with an open mind whenever possible.

List of the Advantages of the Death Penalty

1. A sentence of life in prison is disproportionate to the capital crime. Almost all death sentences handed out by the United States or state-level justice systems are for aggravated murder. Only two people were on death row for a non-murder offense when the Supreme Court last ruled on the validity of the death penalty in 2008. Both inmates were convicted of the aggravated rate of a child under the age of 13, including Patrick Kennedy who was sentenced for raping his step-daughter.

“As it relates to crimes against individuals… the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2008 when the sentence was overturned. If a convicted criminal receives life in prison for taking a life, proponents argue that this is not justice because the outcome is disproportionate to the action taken.

2. The death penalty can provide a deterrent against violent crime. When many criminologists define deterrence in terms of the death penalty, they are looking at how the presence of this sentencing can stop violent acts by preventing someone to commit them in the first place. It becomes a value proposition. Do I want to risk my life because I have a willingness right now to take the life of another? In that circumstance, 88% of criminologists agree that the presence of the death penalty is not useful.

What we must look at for this advantage is the actual convicted person. Capital punishment creates an irreversible deterrent that the murderer will never get the chance to take a life again. It is a form of incapacitation that helps to protect society by preventing future crime in this manner.

“Capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else,” said Ernest van den Haag, Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University. “They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts. Whatever people fear most is likely to deter the most.”

3. It doesn’t need to be carried out with brutality. The focus of the death penalty in the United States today is focused on ending life as quickly and as peacefully as possible. That is why the process is typically carried out through the use of a lethal injection, creating a medically-imposed death that involves the least amount of pain possible.

At various points in history, the death penalty was carried out by beheading, stoning, crucifixion, electrocution, shooting, or hanging. Saudi Arabia still carries out sword-based executions, while India, Japan, and Singapore use hanging. China uses a single shot to the back of the head, while Indonesia uses a firing squad.

4. The death penalty does not re-victimize the affected family. There is rightful sympathy or empathy directed toward the family of someone accused of a capital crime. These people are losing a loved one because of this legal structure. The family of the victim has also lost someone as well. The person who does not deserve sympathy is the criminal who decided to commit the capital act (usually aggravated murder) in the first place. When the death penalty is one of the possible consequences that someone faces for their conduct, then it shields the family of the victim from another form of victimization.

If given life without parole, there is always the possibility that the criminal could discuss their side of the case, describe the actions they took, or issue threats to other members of the family. Capital punishment eventually stops this issue so that the victim’s family can feel like they can be safe again.

5. It eliminates the possibility of an escape and future victims. Drug lord Joaquin Guzman, better known as “El Chapo,” has a long history of being captured and escaping from maximum security prisons. In 2001, with the help of guards that he bribed, he escaped in a dirty laundry cart, and then into the trunk of a waiting Monte Carlo. He hid in tunnels for days when captured in Mazatlan in 2014. He then escaped through a tunnel in 2015 out of Mexico’s top-security prison.

When there is a life in prison sentence, then an individual has nothing to lose with their effort to escape. What can the criminal justice system do to that person except add more time to their life sentence? By using capital punishment, this threat disappears – which means there will be no future victims either.

6. The application of capital punishment in just ways can limit prison overpopulation issues. People are living longer today than arguably at any other time in history. California’s criminal justice system became so overcrowded with prisoners that the federal courts had to step in to order changes or risk letting convicted prisoners loose because there was no room to house them. The state has the largest death room in the country, and with new capital convictions happening every month, their prison ran out of room.

There were 750 people on death row in California in 2015, up from 646 in 2006. By managing this process so that it is efficient, including any appeals or pleadings which are legally permitted, it becomes possible to manage the population and limit costs without creating the potential for harm in the rest of society.

List of the Disadvantages of the Death Penalty

1. It is the ultimate denial of human rights when implemented. Amnesty International describes the implementation of capital punishment like this. “The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights,” the organization says. “It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. There can never be any justification for torture or cruel treatment.”

The definition of justice can be a tricky element. How a society chooses to punish its offenders is more reflective of them than it is the choices that criminals make. Sparing someone’s life, even if that person took the life of another, takes vengeance out of the scenario. Being pro-life by definition means that one must be for every life.

2. The death penalty can execute someone who is possible innocent. Ever since the United States reinstated the death penalty after a Supreme Court ruling allowed for it as part of the justice system, over 1,400 people have been executed by the state or federal government. Courts in the U.S. don’t usually entertain a claim of innocence until after the convicted individual dies of natural causes or goes through with the execution. There are 15 cases where there is strong evidence to suggest innocence out of this number, with the latest being Carlton Michael Gary, who was executed in 2018 by the state of Georgia.

A police statement withheld from the defense indicated that the witness who identified Gary in court was actually asleep at the time and that she could not describe or identify her attacker. DNA evidence left at the scene excluded him as well. Improper handling of evidence and a lack of presentation of other items were also part of the issue, along with a lack of federal review despite all of these concerns.

Even one innocent person being put to death by the state is too many.

3. The cost to prosecute the death penalty is much higher than other cases. When the state of Oklahoma examined the differences in cases where capital punishment was the desired outcome sought with a conviction rather than life in prison, the overall cost of pursuing the death penalty was 3.2 times higher. This data is similar to that found in a review of 15 state studies that looked at the cost of this issue and found that seeking the death penalty raises the average cost of a case by over $700,000. Even the most conservative estimates from this information finds that there is a $110,000 increase in expense.

When you incorporate the time spent on death row, the cost of the lengthy appeals process in the United States, and the issues with secure housing, it can cost over $1 million more to proceed with capital punishment instead of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

4. There may not be any deterrence to crime with the death penalty in place. “I know that in practice, the death penalty does more harm than good,” said Police Chief James Abbot of West Orange, NJ. “So, while I hang on to my theoretical views, as I’m sure many of you will, I stand before you to say that society is better off without capital punishment. Life in prison without parole in a maximum-security detention facility is the better alternative.

When examining data between states with and without the death penalty, there are five specific conclusions to draw.

States with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without it.
National trends do not impact local decisions by criminals to break the law, whether the death penalty is present or not.
There is no apparent correlation between the death penalty and changes in murder rates.
Capital punishment has no discernible effect on the killing of law enforcement officials.
The abolition of the death penalty occurs most often in states where the murder of police officers is a very low percentage of all homicides.

In 2014, there were 14,000 murders that took place in the United States, but there were only 35 executions that took place.

5. It is used to control political messages. The United States uses the death penalty exclusively for the punishment of crimes as defined by legal code and precedent. It is a principle which is not consistent for other countries in the world. 78% of global executions because of capital punishment come from just four countries when excluding China: Iraq, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Some countries, including Sudan and Iran, use the death penalty as a political tool. It becomes a way to punish political opponents who might want to take their country in a different direction. There were a total of 2,500 death sentences recorded in 54 countries in 2018, with about 20,000 people currently under sentence around the world at the end of the year.

6. Children are sometimes put to death through the use of capital punishment. There are at least 97 kids who were put to death by capital punishment laws in Iran since 1990. Another 145 child executions have happened in China, the Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria – and the United States.

Scott Hain, Toronto Patterson, T.J. Jones, Napoleon Beazley, Gerald Mitchell, Shaka Sankofa, Glen McGinnis, and Steven Roach were all put to death in the United States for a crime that they committed at age 17. Sean Sellers was executed when he was 29 for a crime that he committed when he was 16.

7. There is no going back after the execution takes place. When we carry out a death sentence, it is an irreversible sentence. Over 160 people sent to death row in the United States have either been exonerated of the crime or released because there was direct evidence of their innocence. Even though a grand jury must indict someone and then the case and sentencing are both held before another jury in the U.S., their finding that someone is guilty does not mean the individual is innocent.

Conservative estimates on the number of innocent people convicted in the United States suggest that at least 0.4% of convicted criminals are not guilty of the crimes for which they are accused. If the death penalty were not in place, then there would be time to reverse an unjust conviction.

8. The evidence obtained to justify the death penalty is sometimes tainted. There are specific guidelines in the United States today that limit how and when law enforcement can obtain evidence during questioning. This structure of protection is not always available around the world. There are numerous people executed after being convicted during an unfair trial, often on the basis of evidence or confessions obtained through the use of torture. Some defendants were not given adequate legal representation.

Some countries even use the death penalty as a mandatory punishment for specific offenses, which means the judge cannot consider the circumstances of the crime during the sentencing phase of a trial.

9. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way. “The weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those with less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic, or religious minority,” writes Amnesty International. The Women Donors Network found that 95% of the elected prosecutors in the United States are white, and 79% of them are white men. In nine of the death penalty states, there was not a single elected prosecutor who came from a minority group.

Professor Katherine Beckett of the University of Washington found that jurors were 4.5 times more likely to impose a capital punishment sentence on a defendant who was black compared to a white defendant in a similar circumstance in an examination of 285 cases.

10. Family members of a victim are adversely impacted by the death penalty. The Marquette Law Review found that when family members go through the capital punishment process after someone they love becomes a victim, they have higher levels of mental, physical, and behavioral health problems when compared to when the perpetrator receives a sentence of life in prison. Although this issue does not happen in every circumstance, some family members can feel responsible for the fact that the government is putting this criminal to death.

Proponents would argue that capital punishment provides relief because it guarantees that person can no longer harm another, but there are many families who do not feel a sense of satisfaction with this action. If they are the ones who experience loss, then there should be a way to provide input for them.

11. There are very few prison escapes that occur, and fewer that involve violent criminals. The number of escapes from prison in the United States declined by more than 50% between 1998-2013, falling to a rate of 10.5 escapes per 10,000 prisoners in 2013. At the same time, the number of life sentences handed out by the court system has gone up by 500%. Most of the incidents that contribute to a prisoner escape come from low-security situations, like when 16 prisoners walked away from a work site and another 3 disappeared from a community work center.

Out of all of the reported escapes in 2013, only one inmate from a secured facility was able to get away.

12. Some people just don’t care. There are people who will always decide to operate outside of the rules that society sets for safety and security. These are the criminals that filter into and out of prison consistently until they end up spending their life there. Rehabilitation doesn’t work because there is no investment to be different. The death penalty is not going to stop someone from hurting another person in this situation because the criminal is living for the thrill of the moment instead of thinking about their future consequences.

Verdict on the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Death Penalty

As of May 2019, about 60% of the world’s population lives in a country, state, or province where the death penalty is a possible outcome for criminal conduct. There are 56 nations which retain the option for capital punishment for a variety of crimes, including incidents that do not include aggravated homicide.

Some countries execute people who are under the age of 18 when the crime was committed. It is used against those with intellectual or mental disabilities. There are times when it is applied after an unfair trial in clear violation of international laws and norms. “The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence,” writes Amnesty International, “not a solution to it.”

The advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty rely on several instruments to restrict its use to the most severe situations while providing states, provinces, and nations the freedom to implement it as local populations see fit. Whether it is the right or wrong approach is ultimately up to you to decide.

Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty

Click the buttons below to view arguments and testimony on each topic.

The death penalty deters future murders.

Retribution

A just society requires the taking of a life for a life.

The risk of executing the innocent precludes the use of the death penalty.

Arbitrariness & Discrimination

The death penalty is applied unfairly and should not be used.

Capital Punishment Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on capital punishment.

Every one of us is familiar with the term punishment. But Capital Punishment is something very few people understand. Capital punishment is a legal death penalty ordered by the court against the violation of criminal laws. In addition, the method of punishment varies from country to country. Where some countries hung the culprits until death and some shoot or give them a lethal injection.

Types of Capital Punishments

In this topic, we are going to discuss the various methods of punishment that are used in different countries. But, before that let’s talk about the capital punishments that people used in the past. Earlier, the capital punishments are more like torture rather than a death penalty. They used to strain and punish the body of the culprit to the extreme that he/she dies because of the pain and fear of torture.

Besides, modern methods are quicker and less painful than traditional methods.

Electrocution – In this method, the criminal is tied to a chair and a high voltage current that can kill a man easily is passed through the body. In addition, it causes organ failure (especially heart).
Tranquilization – This method gives the person a slow but painless death as the toxin injections are injected into his body that takes up to several hours for the criminal to die.
Beheading – Generally, the Arab and Gulf countries use this method. Where they decide the death sentence by the crime of the person. Furthermore, in this method, they simply cut the person’s head apart from the body.
Stoning – In this the criminal is beaten till death. Also, it is the most painful method of execution.
Shooting – The criminal is either shoot in the head or in his/her chest in this method.
Hanging – This method simply involves the hanging of culprit till death.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Advantages and Disadvantages of Capital Punishments

Although many people think that it’s a violation of human rights and the Human Rights Commission strongly opposes capital punishment still many countries continue this practice.

The advantages of capital punishment are that they give people an idea of what the law is capable of doing and the criminal can never escape from the punishment no matter who he/she is.

In addition, anyone who is thinking about committing a crime will think twice before committing a crime. Furthermore, a criminal that is in prison for his crime cannot harm anyone of the outside world.

The disadvantages are that we do not give the person a second chance to change. Besides, many times the real criminal escape the trial and the innocent soul of the prosecution claimed to guilty by false claims. Also, many punishments are painful and make a mess of the body of the criminal.

To conclude, we can say that capital punishment is the harsh reality of our world. Also, on one hand, it decreases the crime rate and on the other violates many human rights.

Besides, all these types of punishment are not justifiable and the court and administrative bodies should try to find an alternative for it.

FAQs about Capital Punishment

Q.1 What is the difference between the death penalty and capital punishment?

A.1 For many people the term death penalty and capital punishment is the same thing but there is a minute difference between them. The implementation of the death penalty is not death but capital punishment itself means execution.

Q.2 Does capital punishment decrease the rate of crime?

A.2 There is no solid proof related to this but scientists think that reduces the chances of major crimes to a certain level.

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Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?

In its last six months, the United States government has put 13 prisoners to death. Do you think capital punishment should end?

disadvantages of capital punishment essay

By Nicole Daniels

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

In July, the United States carried out its first federal execution in 17 years. Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had in the previous six decades.

The death penalty has been abolished in 22 states and 106 countries, yet it is still legal at the federal level in the United States. Does your state or country allow the death penalty?

Do you believe governments should be allowed to execute people who have been convicted of crimes? Is it ever justified, such as for the most heinous crimes? Or are you universally opposed to capital punishment?

In “ ‘Expedited Spree of Executions’ Faced Little Supreme Court Scrutiny ,” Adam Liptak writes about the recent federal executions:

In 2015, a few months before he died, Justice Antonin Scalia said he w o uld not be surprised if the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty. These days, after President Trump’s appointment of three justices, liberal members of the court have lost all hope of abolishing capital punishment. In the face of an extraordinary run of federal executions over the past six months, they have been left to wonder whether the court is prepared to play any role in capital cases beyond hastening executions. Until July, there had been no federal executions in 17 years . Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had put to death in the previous six decades.

The article goes on to explain that Justice Stephen G. Breyer issued a dissent on Friday as the Supreme Court cleared the way for the last execution of the Trump era, complaining that it had not sufficiently resolved legal questions that inmates had asked. The article continues:

If Justice Breyer sounded rueful, it was because he had just a few years ago held out hope that the court would reconsider the constitutionality of capital punishment. He had set out his arguments in a major dissent in 2015 , one that must have been on Justice Scalia’s mind when he made his comments a few months later. Justice Breyer wrote in that 46-page dissent that he considered it “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,” which bars cruel and unusual punishments. He said that death row exonerations were frequent, that death sentences were imposed arbitrarily and that the capital justice system was marred by racial discrimination. Justice Breyer added that there was little reason to think that the death penalty deterred crime and that long delays between sentences and executions might themselves violate the Eighth Amendment. Most of the country did not use the death penalty, he said, and the United States was an international outlier in embracing it. Justice Ginsburg, who died in September, had joined the dissent. The two other liberals — Justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — were undoubtedly sympathetic. And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who held the decisive vote in many closely divided cases until his retirement in 2018, had written the majority opinions in several 5-to-4 decisions that imposed limits on the death penalty, including ones barring the execution of juvenile offenders and people convicted of crimes other than murder .

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Task 1 Academic
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Task 2 (essay)

IELTS band 9 essay: death penalty

Here you can find advice how to structure IELTS essay and IELTS model answer for death penalty topic. Question type: advantages and disadvantages .

Here is the question card:

Some people advocate death penalty for those who committed violent crimes. Others say that capital punishment is unacceptable in contemporary society.

Describe advantages and disadvantages of death penalty and give your opinion.

So this is the advantage/disadvantage essay. In this essay you're asked about :

Advantages of capital punishment
Disadvantages of capital punishment
Your opinion about it

Before writing this IELTS essay, you should decide what’s your opinion and then choose your arguments to describe pros and cons of death penalty. You don’t have to make up very complicate ideas. Even simple, but well-written arguments can often give you a band 9 for writing .

Some of the possible arguments :

Disadvantages of capital punishment :
we have no rights to kill other humans
innocent people can be killed because of unfair sentences
even criminals deserve a second chance
Advantages of capital punishment :
it prevents major crimes
it restores equilibrium of justice
it lessens expenses on maintenance of prisoners

How to structure my answer?

Surely, there are a lot of ways to organise this essay. But here is one possible way of structuring the answer to produce a band 9 essay :

Introduction : rephrase the topic and state your opinion.

Body paragraphs :

paragraph 1: disadvantages of death penalty
paragraph 2: advantages of death penalty

Conclusion : sum up the ideas from body paragraphs and briefly give your opinion.

Band 9 essay sample (death penalty)

Many people believe that death penalty is necessary to keep security system efficient in the society. While there are some negative aspects of capital punishment, I agree with the view that without it we will become more vulnerable to violence.

Death penalty can be considered unsuitable punishment for several reasons. The strongest argument is that we have no rights to kill other humans. Right to live is the basic right of any human being, and no one can infringe this right, irrespective of the person’s deeds. Moreover, innocent people can face wrongful execution. Such unfair sentences take away lives of innocent people and make other citizens lose faith in law and justice. And besides, sometimes criminals repent of their acts. In this case they should be given a second chance to improve themselves.

However, I believe that capital punishment is necessary in the society. Firstly, it is an effective deterrent of major crimes. The best method to prevent a person from committing crime is to show the consequences of his or her actions. For example, the government of Pakistan has controlled the rate of terrorism by enforcing death penalties for the members of terrorist organisations. Secondly, the governments spend large sums of national budget on maintenance of prisoners. Instead, this money can be used for the development of the society and welfare of the people.

To sum up, although capital punishment has some disadvantages, I think that it proves to be the best way of controlling criminals, lessening governmental expenses and preventing other people from doing crimes.

(257 words)

Useful vocabulary

capital punishment = death penalty

to commit a crime - to do a crime

deterrent of major crimes - something that prevents big crimes

to face wrongful execution - to be mistaken for a criminal and killed for that

to infringe someone’s right - restrict someone’s right, hurt someone’s interests

innocent people - people who are not guilty or responsible for crimes

to repent of something - to feel sorry for something

right to live is basic right of any human being

unfair sentence - not fair judgement

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Essay on Capital Punishment

Updated on
Jun 11, 2022

The phrase “punishment” is one that we are all familiar with. However, only a small percentage of the population is familiar with capital punishment. Capital punishment is a court-ordered death penalty for violating criminal laws . Furthermore, the method of punishment differs from one country to the next. Some countries hang the criminals until they die, while others shoot or inject them with a fatal injection. Keep reading the blog to find an IELTS Essay on Capital Punishment and much more!

Methods of Capital Punishment

Electrocution – In this method, the perpetrator is bound to a chair and a high-voltage current is passed through his body, quickly killing a guy. It also leads to organ failure (especially heart).
Tranquilization – This method causes the criminal to die slowly and painlessly by injecting toxin injections into his body. It can take up to several hours for the criminal to die.
Beheading – Arab and Gulf countries commonly use this method of capital punishment. In this, they just sever the person’s head from their body using this manner.
Stoning – It is a kind of capital punishment in which the criminal is beaten to death. It’s also the most agonizing technique of execution.
Shooting – In this approach, the culprit is shot either in the head or in the chest. Hanging – In this method, the culprit is hanged till death.

Advantages of Capital Punishment

A life sentence is disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense.
The death sentence has the potential to deter violent crime.
It does not have to be done in a violent manner.
The affected family is not re-victimized by the death penalty.
It eliminates the prospect of an escape and potential victims in the future.
When capital punishment is used in a fair manner, it can help to reduce prison overcrowding.

Disadvantages of Capital Punishment

When applied, it is the ultimate negation of human rights.
The death penalty has the potential to execute someone who is potentially innocent.
The cost of bringing a death penalty case to trial is substantially higher than in other situations.
With the death sentence in existence, there may be no deterrent to crime.
It’s used to keep political messages under control.
Capital punishment is occasionally used to put children to death.
There is no turning back once the execution has occurred.
Sometimes the evidence used to justify the death penalty is contaminated.
It is frequently used in a discriminating manner.
The death sentence has a negative influence on a victim’s family.
Only a few jail escapes occur each year, and even fewer involve violent offenders.
Some people are simply unconcerned.

IELTS Essay On Capital Punishment (Sample)

This is an IELTS essay on Capital Punishment which can help you for your exam-

Our lives are less secure without capital punishment, and violent crimes are on the rise. Capital punishment is necessary to restrain violence in society. Since the beginning of time, there has been debate about capital punishment, particularly for violent offences. Many regard it as one of the most heinous penalties, intended to convey a stern message to anyone who even contemplates trouble. While some believe it is natural justice, others believe it is unnatural and argue that humans should not play the role of demi-god. I am certain that people are incapable of deciding one’s death purely on the basis of a disruptive account.

Capital punishment strongly depicts eye-for-an-eye justice, which is a barbarous act in and of itself. Hanging someone to death will not improve the victim’s position, nor will it bring the dead back to life. It may provide a phoney sense of fairness to the people, proving transitory and fading with media attention. Instead, the victim must be given the opportunity to reflect on his own actions, perhaps by meeting the victim or the victim’s family. History has demonstrated that such an exercise acts as a form of punishment because the guilty is usually consumed by flames of repentance. Certainly, such a person deserves a second opportunity.

Few people, on the other hand, would argue that capital punishment restricts criminals and makes the general public feel safe, which is the establishment’s primary responsibility. It is not, in my opinion, lethal punishment that induces a sense of security. People will feel safer in countries like India if decisions are delivered on time and the process is transparent because justice delayed is justice denied.

It should be emphasized that the main goal of punishment is to reform and rehabilitate a criminal. The state’s job should be to punish the guilty person in a way that re-educates and morally redeems him. Given the inevitability of capital punishment, it should not be used in any circumstance.

A life sentence could instead be used for this purpose where it’s possible that the criminal is given a second opportunity.

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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Capital Punishment
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capital punishment - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
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Table Of Contents

capital punishment , execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law . The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment , though imposition of the penalty is not always followed by execution (even when it is upheld on appeal), because of the possibility of commutation to life imprisonment.

Capital punishment for murder , treason , arson , and rape was widely employed in ancient Greece under the laws of Draco (fl. 7th century bce ), though Plato argued that it should be used only for the incorrigible . The Romans also used it for a wide range of offenses, though citizens were exempted for a short time during the republic. It also has been sanctioned at one time or another by most of the world’s major religions. Followers of Judaism and Christianity, for example, have claimed to find justification for capital punishment in the biblical passage “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” ( Genesis 9:6). Yet capital punishment has been prescribed for many crimes not involving loss of life, including adultery and blasphemy . The ancient legal principle Lex talionis ( talion )—“an eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life”—which appears in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi , was invoked in some societies to ensure that capital punishment was not disproportionately applied.

The prevalence of capital punishment in ancient times is difficult to ascertain precisely, but it seems likely that it was often avoided, sometimes by the alternative of banishment and sometimes by payment of compensation . For example, it was customary during Japan’s peaceful Heian period (794–1185) for the emperor to commute every death sentence and replace it with deportation to a remote area, though executions were reinstated once civil war broke out in the mid-11th century.

In Islamic law , as expressed in the Qurʾān , capital punishment is condoned . Although the Qurʾān prescribes the death penalty for several ḥadd (fixed) crimes—including robbery, adultery, and apostasy of Islam —murder is not among them. Instead, murder is treated as a civil crime and is covered by the law of qiṣās (retaliation), whereby the relatives of the victim decide whether the offender is punished with death by the authorities or made to pay diyah (wergild) as compensation.

Death was formerly the penalty for a large number of offenses in England during the 17th and 18th centuries, but it was never applied as widely as the law provided. As in other countries, many offenders who committed capital crimes escaped the death penalty, either because juries or courts would not convict them or because they were pardoned, usually on condition that they agreed to banishment; some were sentenced to the lesser punishment of transportation to the then American colonies and later to Australia. Beginning in the Middle Ages, it was possible for offenders guilty of capital offenses to receive benefit of clergy , by which those who could prove that they were ordained priests (clerks in Holy Orders) as well as secular clerks who assisted in divine service (or, from 1547, a peer of the realm) were allowed to go free, though it remained within the judge’s power to sentence them to prison for up to a year, or from 1717 onward to transportation for seven years. Because during medieval times the only proof of ordination was literacy, it became customary between the 15th and 18th centuries to allow anyone convicted of a felony to escape the death sentence by proving that he (the privilege was extended to women in 1629) could read. Until 1705, all he had to do was read (or recite) the first verse from Psalm 51 of the Bible—“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions”—which came to be known as the “ neck verse” (for its power to save one’s neck). To ensure that an offender could escape death only once through benefit of clergy, he was branded on the brawn of the thumb ( M for murder or T for theft). Branding was abolished in 1779, and benefit of clergy ceased in 1827.

From ancient times until well into the 19th century, many societies administered exceptionally cruel forms of capital punishment. In Rome the condemned were hurled from the Tarpeian Rock ( see Tarpeia ); for parricide they were drowned in a sealed bag with a dog, cock, ape, and viper; and still others were executed by forced gladiatorial combat or by crucifixion . Executions in ancient China were carried out by many painful methods, such as sawing the condemned in half, flaying him while still alive, and boiling . Cruel forms of execution in Europe included “breaking” on the wheel, boiling in oil, burning at the stake , decapitation by the guillotine or an axe, hanging , drawing and quartering , and drowning. Although by the end of the 20th century many jurisdictions (e.g., nearly every U.S. state that employs the death penalty, Guatemala, the Philippines , Taiwan , and some Chinese provinces) had adopted lethal injection , offenders continued to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia and occasionally stoned to death (for adultery) in Iran and Sudan . Other methods of execution were electrocution , gassing, and the firing squad.

Historically, executions were public events, attended by large crowds, and the mutilated bodies were often displayed until they rotted. Public executions were banned in England in 1868, though they continued to take place in parts of the United States until the 1930s. In the last half of the 20th century, there was considerable debate regarding whether executions should be broadcast on television, as has occurred in Guatemala. Since the mid-1990s public executions have taken place in some 20 countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria , though the practice has been condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee as “incompatible with human dignity.”

In many countries death sentences are not carried out immediately after they are imposed; there is often a long period of uncertainty for the convicted while their cases are appealed. Inmates awaiting execution live on what has been called “ death row ”; in the United States and Japan, some prisoners have been executed more than 15 years after their convictions . The European Union regards this phenomenon as so inhumane that, on the basis of a binding ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (1989), EU countries may extradite an offender accused of a capital crime to a country that practices capital punishment only if a guarantee is given that the death penalty will not be sought.

Some people advocate the death penalty for those who committed violent crimes. Others say that capital punishment is unacceptable in contemporary society.Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty and give your opinion.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Writing9 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Fully explain your ideas

To get an excellent score in the IELTS Task 2 writing section, one of the easiest and most effective tips is structuring your writing in the most solid format. A great argument essay structure may be divided to four paragraphs, in which comprises of four sentences (excluding the conclusion paragraph, which comprises of three sentences).

For we to consider an essay structure a great one, it should be looking like this:

Paragraph 1 - Introduction
Sentence 1 - Background statement
Sentence 2 - Detailed background statement
Sentence 3 - Thesis
Sentence 4 - Outline sentence
Paragraph 2 - First supporting paragraph
Sentence 1 - Topic sentence
Sentence 2 - Example
Sentence 3 - Discussion
Sentence 4 - Conclusion
Paragraph 3 - Second supporting paragraph
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Sentence 1 - Summary
Sentence 2 - Restatement of thesis
Sentence 3 - Prediction or recommendation

Our recommended essay structure above comprises of fifteen (15) sentences, which will make your essay approximately 250 to 275 words.

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Capital punishment
Contemporary society
Violent crimes
Retribution
Cost-effectiveness
Imprisonment
Legal systems
Heinous crimes
Moral concerns
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The importance of biodiversity is being more widely recognised as increasing numbers of species come under that what can be done to maintain biodiversity, nowadays, many people communicate using social media and the internet on a daily basis. however, this had led to an increase in online attacks and cyberbullying. what are some of the reasons why people take part in cyberbullying what are the effects on the children and teenagers who are victims of cyberbullying, some university students want to learn about other subjects in addition to their main subjects. others believe it is more important to give all their time and attention to studying for a qualification., nowadays, some children spend many hours every day using smartphones and other devices. the advantages of allowing children to own these devices outweigh the disadvantages to what extent do you agree or disagree.

The Case Against the Death Penalty

The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings – especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.

Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system. The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice. Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment.

The ACLU’s opposition to capital punishment incorporates the following fundamental concerns:

The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place . People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if thevictim is white

The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.

Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed.

INTRODUCTION TO THE “MODERN ERA” OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE UNITED STATES

In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under then-existing laws "the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty… constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments." ( Furman v. Georgia , 408 U.S. 238). The Court, concentrating its objections on the manner in which death penalty laws had been applied, found the result so "harsh, freakish, and arbitrary" as to be constitutionally unacceptable. Making the nationwide impact of its decision unmistakable, the Court summarily reversed death sentences in the many cases then before it, which involved a wide range of state statutes, crimes and factual situations.

But within four years after the Furman decision, several hundred persons had been sentenced to death under new state capital punishment statutes written to provide guidance to juries in sentencing. These statutes require a two-stage trial procedure, in which the jury first determines guilt or innocence and then chooses imprisonment or death in the light of aggravating or mitigating circumstances.

In 1976, the Supreme Court moved away from abolition, holding that "the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution." The Court ruled that the new death penalty statutes contained "objective standards to guide, regularize, and make rationally reviewable the process for imposing the sentence of death." ( Gregg v. Georgia , 428 U.S. 153). Subsequently 38 state legislatures and the Federal government enacted death penalty statutes patterned after those the Court upheld in Gregg. Congress also enacted and expanded federal death penalty statutes for peacetime espionage by military personnel and for a vast range of categories of murder.

Executions resumed in 1977. In 2002, the Supreme Court held executions of mentally retarded criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Since then, states have developed a range of processes to ensure that mentally retarded individuals are not executed. Many have elected to hold proceedings prior to the merits trial, many with juries, to determine whether an accused is mentally retarded. In 2005, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed, resulting in commutation of death sentences to life for dozens of individuals across the country. As of August 2012, over 3,200 men and women are under a death sentence and more than 1,300 men, women and children (at the time of the crime) have been executed since 1976 .

ACLU OBJECTIONS TO THE DEATH PENALTY

Despite the Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in Gregg v. Georgia , et al, the ACLU continues to oppose capital punishment on moral, practical, and constitutional grounds:

Capital punishment is cruel and unusual . It is cruel because it is a relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society. It is unusual because only the United States of all the western industrialized nations engages in this punishment. It is also unusual because only a random sampling of convicted murderers in the United States receive a sentence of death.

Capital punishment denies due process of law. Its imposition is often arbitrary, and always irrevocable – forever depriving an individual of the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might warrant the reversal of a conviction, or the setting aside of a death sentence.

The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection . It is applied randomly – and discriminatorily. It is imposed disproportionately upon those whose victims are white, offenders who are people of color, and on those who are poor and uneducated and concentrated in certain geographic regions of the country.

The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. When police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they mentioned curbing drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control. They ranked the death penalty as least effective . Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront the true causes of crime.

Capital punishment wastes limited resources . It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and law enforcement personnel. It unduly burdens the criminal justice system, and it is thus counterproductive as an instrument for society's control of violent crime. Limited funds that could be used to prevent and solve crime (and provide education and jobs) are spent on capital punishment.

Opposing the death penalty does not indicate a lack of sympathy for murder victims . On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Because life is precious and death irrevocable, murder is abhorrent, and a policy of state-authorized killings is immoral. It epitomizes the tragic inefficacy and brutality of violence, rather than reason, as the solution to difficult social problems. Many murder victims do not support state-sponsored violence to avenge the death of their loved one. Sadly, these victims have often been marginalized by politicians and prosecutors, who would rather publicize the opinions of pro-death penalty family members.

Changes in death sentencing have proved to be largely cosmetic. The defects in death-penalty laws, conceded by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s, have not been appreciably altered by the shift from unrestrained discretion to "guided discretion." Such so-called “reforms” in death sentencing merely mask the impermissible randomness of a process that results in an execution.

A society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings . An execution is a violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social problems – the worst possible example to set for the citizenry, and especially children. Governments worldwide have often attempted to justify their lethal fury by extolling the purported benefits that such killing would bring to the rest of society. The benefits of capital punishment are illusory, but the bloodshed and the resulting destruction of community decency are real.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS NOT A DETERRENT TO CAPITAL CRIMES

Deterrence is a function not only of a punishment's severity, but also of its certainty and frequency. The argument most often cited in support of capital punishment is that the threat of execution influences criminal behavior more effectively than imprisonment does. As plausible as this claim may sound, in actuality the death penalty fails as a deterrent for several reasons.

A punishment can be an effective deterrent only if it is consistently and promptly employed. Capital punishment cannot be administered to meet these conditions .

The proportion of first-degree murderers who are sentenced to death is small, and of this group, an even smaller proportion of people are executed. Although death sentences in the mid-1990s increased to about 300 per year , this is still only about one percent of all homicides known to the police . Of all those convicted on a charge of criminal homicide, only 3 percent – about 1 in 33 – are eventually sentenced to death. Between 2001-2009, the average number of death sentences per year dropped to 137 , reducing the percentage even more. This tiny fraction of convicted murderers do not represent the “worst of the worst”.

Mandatory death sentencing is unconstitutional. The possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed by enacting mandatory death penalty laws was ruled unconstitutional in 1976 ( Woodson v. North Carolina , 428 U.S. 280).

A considerable time between the imposition of the death sentence and the actual execution is unavoidable, given the procedural safeguards required by the courts in capital cases. Starting with selecting the trial jury, murder trials take far longer when the ultimate penalty is involved. Furthermore, post-conviction appeals in death-penalty cases are far more frequent than in other cases. These factors increase the time and cost of administering criminal justice.

We can reduce delay and costs only by abandoning the procedural safeguards and constitutional rights of suspects, defendants, and convicts – with the attendant high risk of convicting the wrong person and executing the innocent. This is not a realistic prospect: our legal system will never reverse itself to deny defendants the right to counsel, or the right to an appeal.

Persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence often do not premeditate their crimes.

Most capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment. Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended. Many capital crimes are committed by the badly emotionally-damaged or mentally ill. In such cases, violence is inflicted by persons unable to appreciate the consequences to themselves as well as to others.

Even when crime is planned, the criminal ordinarily concentrates on escaping detection, arrest, and conviction. The threat of even the severest punishment will not discourage those who expect to escape detection and arrest. It is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is not premeditated. Furthermore, the death penalty is a futile threat for political terrorists, like Timothy McVeigh, because they usually act in the name of an ideology that honors its martyrs.

Capital punishment doesn't solve our society's crime problem. Threatening capital punishment leaves the underlying causes of crime unaddressed, and ignores the many political and diplomatic sanctions (such as treaties against asylum for international terrorists) that could appreciably lower the incidence of terrorism.

Capital punishment has been a useless weapon in the so-called "war on drugs." The attempt to reduce murders in the drug trade by threat of severe punishment ignores the fact that anyone trafficking in illegal drugs is already risking his life in violent competition with other dealers. It is irrational to think that the death penalty – a remote threat at best – will avert murders committed in drug turf wars or by street-level dealers.

If, however, severe punishment can deter crime, then permanent imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime.

The vast preponderance of the evidence shows that the death penalty is no more effective than imprisonment in deterring murder and that it may even be an incitement to criminal violence. Death-penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death-penalty states. Use of the death penalty in a given state may actually increase the subsequent rate of criminal homicide. Why? Perhaps because "a return to the exercise of the death penalty weakens socially based inhibitions against the use of lethal force to settle disputes…. "

In adjacent states – one with the death penalty and the other without it – the state that practices the death penalty does not always show a consistently lower rate of criminal homicide. For example, between l990 and l994, the homicide rates in Wisconsin and Iowa (non-death-penalty states) were half the rates of their neighbor, Illinois – which restored the death penalty in l973, and by 1994 had sentenced 223 persons to death and carried out two executions . Between 2000-2010, the murder rate in states with capital punishment was 25-46% higher than states without the death penalty.

On-duty police officers do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide in abolitionist states than they do in death-penalty states. Between 1976 and 1989, for example, lethal assaults against police were not significantly more or less frequent in abolitionist states than in death-penalty states. Capital punishment did not appear to provide officers added protection during that time frame. In fact, the three leading states in law enforcement homicide in 1996 were also very active death penalty states : California (highest death row population), Texas (most executions since 1976), and Florida (third highest in executions and death row population). The South, which accounts for more than 80% of the country’s executions, also has the highest murder rate of any region in the country. If anything, the death penalty incited violence rather than curbed it.

Prisoners and prison personnel do not suffer a higher rate of criminal assault and homicide from life-term prisoners in abolition states than they do in death-penalty states. Between 1992 and 1995, 176 inmates were murdered by other prisoners. The vast majority of those inmates (84%) were killed in death penalty jurisdictions. During the same period, about 2% of all inmate assaults on prison staff were committed in abolition jurisdictions . Evidently, the threat of the death penalty "does not even exert an incremental deterrent effect over the threat of a lesser punishment in the abolitionist states." Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that prisoners sentenced to life without parole have equivalent rates of prison violence as compared to other inmates.

Actual experience thus establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty does not deter murder. No comparable body of evidence contradicts that conclusion.

Furthermore, there are documented cases in which the death penalty actually incited the capital crimes it was supposed to deter. These include instances of the so-called suicide-by-execution syndrome – persons who wanted to die but feared taking their own lives, and committed murder so that the state would kill them. For example, in 1996, Daniel Colwell , who suffered from mental illness, claimed that he killed a randomly-selected couple in a Georgia parking lot so that the state would kill him – he was sentenced to death and ultimately took his own life while on death row.

Although inflicting the death penalty guarantees that the condemned person will commit no further crimes, it does not have a demonstrable deterrent effect on other individuals. Further, it is a high price to pay when studies show that few convicted murderers commit further crimes of violence. Researchers examined the prison and post-release records of 533 prisoners on death row in 1972 whose sentences were reduced to incarceration for life by the Supreme Court's ruling in Furman. This research showed that seven had committed another murder. But the same study showed that in four other cases, an innocent man had been sentenced to death. (Marquart and Sorensen, in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1989)

Recidivism among murderers does occasionally happen, but it occurs less frequently than most people believe; the media rarely distinguish between a convicted offender who murders while on parole, and a paroled murderer who murders again. Government data show that about one in 12 death row prisoners had a prior homicide conviction . But as there is no way to predict reliably which convicted murderers will try to kill again, the only way to prevent all such recidivism is to execute every convicted murderer – a policy no one seriously advocates. Equally effective but far less inhumane is a policy of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS UNFAIR

Constitutional due process and elementary justice both require that the judicial functions of trial and sentencing be conducted with fundamental fairness, especially where the irreversible sanction of the death penalty is involved. In murder cases (since 1930, 88 percent of all executions have been for this crime), there has been substantial evidence to show that courts have sentenced some persons to prison while putting others to death in a manner that has been arbitrary, racially biased, and unfair.

Racial Bias in Death Sentencing

Racial discrimination was one of the grounds on which the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman . Half a century ago, in his classic American Dilemma (1944), Gunnar Myrdal reported that "the South makes the widest application of the death penalty, and Negro criminals come in for much more than their share of the executions." A study of the death penalty in Texas shows that the current capital punishment system is an outgrowth of the racist "legacy of slavery." Between 1930 and the end of 1996, 4,220 prisoners were executed in the United States; more than half (53%) were black .

Our nation's death rows have always held a disproportionately large population of African Americans, relative to their percentage of the total population. Comparing black and white offenders over the past century, the former were often executed for what were considered less-than-capital offenses for whites, such as rape and burglary. (Between 1930 and 1976, 455 men were executed for rape, of whom 405 – 90 percent – were black.) A higher percentage of the blacks who were executed were juveniles; and the rate of execution without having one's conviction reviewed by any higher court was higher for blacks. (Bowers, Legal Homicide 1984; Streib, Death Penalty for Juveniles 1987)

In recent years, it has been argued that such flagrant racial discrimination is a thing of the past. However, since the revival of the death penalty in the mid-1970s, about half of those on death row at any given time have been black . More striking is the racial comparison of victims . Although approximately 49% of all homicide victims are white, 77% of capital homicide cases since 1976 have involved a white victim.

Between 1976 and 2005 , 86% of white victims were killed by whites (14% by other races) while 94% of black victims were killed by blacks (6% by other races). Blacks and whites are murder victims in almost equal numbers of crimes – which is a very high percentage given that the general US population is 13% black. African-Americans are six times as likely as white Americans to die at the hands of a murderer, and roughly seven times as likely to murder someone. Young black men are fifteen times as likely to be murdered as young white men.

So given this information, when those under death sentence are examined more closely, it turns out that race is a decisive factor after all.

Further, studies like that commissioned by the Governor of Maryland found that “black offenders who kill white victims are at greater risk of a death sentence than others, primarily because they are substantially more likely to be charged by the state’s attorney with a capital offense.”

The classic statistical study of racial discrimination in capital cases in Georgia presented in the McCleskey case showed that "the average odds of receiving a death sentence among all indicted cases were 4.3 times higher in cases with white victims." (David C. Baldus et al., Equal Justice and the Death Penalty 1990) In 1987 these data were placed before the Supreme Court in McCleskey v. Kemp and while the Court did not dispute the statistical evidence, it held that evidence of an overall pattern of racial bias was not sufficient. Mr. McCleskey would have to prove racial bias in his own case – a virtually impossible task. The Court also held that the evidence failed to show that there was "a constitutionally significant risk of racial bias...." (481 U.S. 279) Although the Supreme Court declared that the remedy sought by the plaintiff was "best presented to the legislative bodies," subsequent efforts to persuade Congress to remedy the problem by enacting the Racial Justice Act were not successful. (Don Edwards & John Conyers, Jr., The Racial Justice Act – A Simple Matter of Justice, in University of Dayton Law Review 1995)

In 1990, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported to the Congress the results of its review of empirical studies on racism and the death penalty. The GAO concluded : "Our synthesis of the 28 studies shows a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty after the Furman decision" and that "race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process..."

Texas was prepared to execute Duane Buck on September 15, 2011. Mr. Buck was condemned to death by a jury that had been told by an expert psychologist that he was more likely to be dangerous because he was African American. The Supreme Court stayed the case, but Mr. Buck has not yet received the new sentencing hearing justice requires.

These results cannot be explained away by relevant non-racial factors, such as prior criminal record or type of crime, as these were factored for in the Baldus and GAO studies referred to above. They lead to a very unsavory conclusion: In the trial courts of this nation, even at the present time, the killing of a white person is treated much more severely than the killing of a black person . Of the 313 persons executed between January 1977 and the end of 1995, 36 had been convicted of killing a black person while 249 (80%) had killed a white person. Of the 178 white defendants executed, only three had been convicted of murdering people of color . Our criminal justice system essentially reserves the death penalty for murderers (regardless of their race) who kill white victims.

Another recent Louisiana study found that defendants with white victims were 97% more likely to receive death sentences than defendants with black victims. [1]

Both gender and socio-economic class also determine who receives a death sentence and who is executed. Women account for only two percent of all people sentenced to death , even though females commit about 11 percent of all criminal homicides. Many of the women under death sentence were guilty of killing men who had victimized them with years of violent abuse . Since 1900, only 51 women have been executed in the United States (15 of them black).

Discrimination against the poor (and in our society, racial minorities are disproportionately poor) is also well established. It is a prominent factor in the availability of counsel.

Fairness in capital cases requires, above all, competent counsel for the defendant. Yet "approximately 90 percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were tried.") Common characteristics of death-row defendants are poverty, the lack of firm social roots in the community, and inadequate legal representation at trial or on appeal. As Justice William O. Douglas noted in Furman , "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in this society"(408 US 238).

Failure of Safeguards

The demonstrated inequities in the actual administration of capital punishment should tip the balance against it in the judgment of fair-minded and impartial observers. "Whatever else might be said for the use of death as a punishment, one lesson is clear from experience: this is a power that we cannot exercise fairly and without discrimination."(Gross and Mauro, Death and Discrimination 1989)

Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing for the Court in Furman , noted "… the history of capital punishment for homicides … reveals continual efforts, uniformly unsuccessful, to identify before the fact those homicides for which the slayer should die…. Those who have come to grips with the hard task of actually attempting to draft means of channeling capital sentencing discretion have confirmed the lesson taught by history…. To identify before the fact those characteristics of criminal homicides and their perpetrators which call for the death penalty, and to express these characteristics in language which can be fairly understood and applied by the sentencing authority, appear to be tasks which are beyond present human ability." (402 U.S. 183 (1971))

Yet in the Gregg decision, the majority of the Supreme Court abandoned the wisdom of Justice Harlan and ruled as though the new guided-discretion statutes could accomplish the impossible. The truth is that death statutes approved by the Court "do not effectively restrict the discretion of juries by any real standards, and they never will. No society is going to kill everybody who meets certain preset verbal requirements, put on the statute books without awareness of coverage of the infinity of special factors the real world can produce."

Evidence obtained by the Capital Jury Project has shown that jurors in capital trials generally do not understand the judge's instructions about the laws that govern the choice between imposing the death penalty and a life sentence. Even when they do comprehend, jurors often refuse to be guided by the law. "Juror comprehension of the law… is mediocre. The effect [of this relative lack of comprehension of the law]… is to reduce the likelihood that capital defendants will benefit from the safeguards against arbitrariness built into the… law."

Even if the jury's sentencing decision were strictly governed by the relevant legal criteria, there remains a vast reservoir of unfettered discretion: the prosecutor's decision to prosecute for a capital or lesser crime, the court's willingness to accept or reject a guilty plea, the jury's decision to convict for second-degree murder or manslaughter rather than capital murder, the determination of the defendant's sanity, and the governor's final clemency decision, among others.

Discretion in the criminal justice system is unavoidable. The history of capital punishment in America clearly demonstrates the social desire to mitigate the harshness of the death penalty by narrowing the scope of its application. Whether or not explicitly authorized by statutes, sentencing discretion has been the main vehicle to this end. But when sentencing discretion is used – as it too often has been – to doom the poor, the friendless, the uneducated, racial minorities, and the despised, it becomes injustice.

Mindful of such facts, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association (including 20 out of 24 former presidents of the ABA) called for a moratorium on all executions by a vote of 280 to 119 in February 1997 . The House judged the current system to be "a haphazard maze of unfair practices."

In its 1996 survey of the death penalty in the United States, the International Commission of Jurists reinforced this point. Despite the efforts made over the past two decades since Gregg to protect the administration of the death penalty from abuses, the actual "constitutional errors committed in state courts have gravely undermined the legitimacy of the death penalty as a punishment for crime." (International Commission of Jurists, Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States 1996)

In 2009, the American Law Institute (ALI), the leading independent organization in the U.S. producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law, removed capital punishment from its Model Penal Code. The ALI, which created the modern legal framework for the death penalty in 1962, indicated that the punishment is so arbitrary, fraught with racial and economic disparities, and unable to assure quality legal representation for indigent capital defendants, that it can never be administered fairly.

Thoughtful citizens, who might possibly support the abstract notion of capital punishment, are obliged to condemn it in actual practice.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS IRREVERSIBLE

Unlike any other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irrevocable. Speaking to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830, years after having witnessed the excesses of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette said, "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me." Although some proponents of capital punishment would argue that its merits are worth the occasional execution of innocent people, most would hasten to insist that there is little likelihood of the innocent being executed.

Since 1900, in this country, there have been on the average more than four cases each year in which an entirely innocent person was convicted of murder. Scores of these individuals were sentenced to death. In many cases, a reprieve or commutation arrived just hours, or even minutes, before the scheduled execution. These erroneous convictions have occurred in virtually every jurisdiction from one end of the nation to the other. Nor have they declined in recent years, despite the new death penalty statutes approved by the Supreme Court.

Disturbingly, and increasingly, a large body of evidence from the modern era shows that innocent people are often convicted of crimes – including capital crimes – and that some have been executed.

In 2012, a new report in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review chronicled the horrifying case of Carlos DeLuna, a man executed in Texas in 1989 for a murder that it was “common knowledge” had been committed by another man. [2] DeLuna’s story demonstrates so many of the factors that can go wrong in a capital case: faulty eyewitness identification, prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct, a botched crime scene, destroyed DNA evidence, a poor person represented by ineffective by an ineffective inexperienced defense attorney overmatched by a professional prosecutor, and insufficient oversight from the bench. [3] In its case against DeLuna, the State presented no blood or DNA evidence, no crime scene fingerprints, and no proof of hair or fibers from the victim having been found on the defendant. He was convicted largely based on eyewitness testimony made from the back of a police car in a dimly lit lot near the crime scene. Meanwhile, a violent criminal named Carlos Hernandez—a man who not only shared DeLuna’s name, but also looked like him—repeatedly boasted about how he had committed the murder and gotten away with it. [4] These disturbing facts about DeLuna’s case, brought to light more than two decades after his execution, refute the claim, made by some proponents of capital punishment, that the United States has never executed an innocent person. [5]

Consider this additional handful of cases of innocent people sentenced to die – some executed and some spared:

In 2011, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis, a Black man who was almost certainly innocent of the murder of a white off-duty police officer. The circumstances of his execution raised an international outcry, for good reason. Davis was convicted based on eyewitness testimony, since there was no murder weapon or physical evidence presented by the prosecution. Seven of the nine eyewitnesses recanted or contradicted their trial testimony, many of them saying they were pressured or threatened by police at the time. Troy Davis came close to execution three previous times, because of the difficulty of getting any court to listen to new evidence casting doubt on his conviction. After passage of a federal law in 1996, petitioners are very limited in their ability to appeal death sentences, and courts routinely refuse to hear new testimony, even evidence of innocence. When Troy Davis finally did get a hearing on his evidence, the judge required “proof of innocence” – an impossibly high standard which he ruled that Mr. Davis did not meet. Despite the overwhelming call for clemency, supposed to be the “fail-safe” of the death penalty system, the Georgia Board of Pardons refused to commute the sentence to life and Mr. Davis was executed. Only one day after Troy Davis was executed, two men were freed by the special Innocence Commission of North Carolina after a decade apiece in prison. The two men had actually pled guilty to a crime they did not commit, because they were threatened with the death penalty.
In Texas in 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson-murder of his three children. Independent investigations by a newspaper, a nonprofit organization using top experts in the field of fire science, and an independent expert hired by the State of Texas all found that accident, not arson was the cause of the fire. There simply was no reliable evidence that the children were murdered. Yet even with these reports in hand, the state of Texas executed Mr. Willingham. Earlier this year, the Texas Forensic Science Commission was poised to issue a report officially confirming these conclusions until Texas Governor Rick Perry replaced the Commission’s chair and some of its members. Cameron Todd Willingham, who claimed innocence all along, was executed for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. As an example of the arbitrariness of the death penalty, another man, Ernest Willis, also convicted of arson-murder on the same sort of flimsy and unscientific testimony, was freed from Texas death row six months after Willingham was executed.
In 1985, in Maryland, Kirk Bloodsworth was sentenced to death for rape and murder, despite the testimony of alibi witnesses. In 1986 his conviction was reversed on grounds of withheld evidence pointing to another suspect; he was retried, re-convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. In 1993, newly available DNA evidence proved he was not the rapist-killer, and he was released after the prosecution dismissed the case. A year later he was awarded $300,000 for wrongful punishment. Years later the DNA was matched to the real killer.
In Mississippi, in 1990, Sabrina Butler was sentenced to death for killing her baby boy. She claimed the child died after attempts at resuscitation failed. On technical grounds her conviction was reversed in 1992. At retrial, she was acquitted when a neighbor corroborated Butler's explanation of the child's cause of death and the physician who performed the autopsy admitted his work had not been thorough.
In 1990, Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida. He had been convicted in 1976 along with his wife, Sonia Jacobs, for murdering a state trooper. In 1981 Jacobs' death sentence was reduced on appeal to life imprisonment, and 11 years later her conviction was vacated by a federal court. The evidence on which Tafero and Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced was identical; it consisted mainly of the perjured testimony of an ex-convict who turned state's witness in order to avoid a death sentence. Had Tafero been alive in 1992, he no doubt would have been released along with Jacobs. Tafero’s execution went horribly wrong, and his head caught on fire during the electrocution.
In Alabama, Walter McMillian was convicted of murdering a white woman in 1988. Despite the jury's recommendation of a life sentence, the judge sentenced him to death. The sole evidence leading the police to arrest McMillian was testimony of an ex-convict seeking favor with the prosecution. A dozen alibi witnesses (all African Americans, like McMillian) testified on McMillian's behalf that they were together at a neighborhood gathering, to no avail. On appeal, after tireless efforts by his attorney Bryan Stevenson, McMillian's conviction was reversed by the Alabama Court of Appeals. Stevenson uncovered prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence and perjury by prosecution witnesses, and the new district attorney joined the defense in seeking dismissal of the charges.
In 1985, in Illinois, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were convicted of abduction, rape, and murder of a young girl and were sentenced to death. Shortly after, another man serving a life term in prison for similar crimes confessed that he alone was guilty; but his confession was inadmissible because he refused to repeat it in court unless the state waived the death penalty against him. Awarded a new trial in 1988, Cruz was again convicted and sentenced to death; Hernandez was also re-convicted, and sentenced to 80 years in prison. In 1992 the assistant attorney general assigned to prosecute the case on appeal resigned after becoming convinced of the defendants' innocence. The convictions were again overturned on appeal after DNA tests exonerated Cruz and implicated the prisoner who had earlier confessed. In 1995 the court ordered a directed verdict of acquittal, and sharply criticized the police for their unprofessional handling of the case. Hernandez was released on bail and the prosecution dropped all charges.
In 1980 in Texas a black high school janitor, Clarence Brandley, and his white co-worker found the body of a missing 16-year-old white schoolgirl. Interrogated by the police, they were told, "One of you two is going to hang for this." Looking at Brandley, the officer said, "Since you're the nigger, you're elected." In a classic case of rush to judgment, Brandley was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The circumstantial evidence against him was thin, other leads were ignored by the police, and the courtroom atmosphere reeked of racism. In 1986, Centurion Ministries – a volunteer group devoted to freeing wrongly convicted prisoners – came to Brandley's aid. Evidence had meanwhile emerged that another man had committed the murder for which Brandley was awaiting execution. Brandley was not released until 1990. (Davies, White Lies 1991)

This sample of freakish and arbitrary innocence determinations also speaks directly to the unceasing concern that there are many more innocent people on death rows across the country – as well as who have been executed. Several factors seen in the above sample of cases help explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never miscarry: overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, race, faulty police work, coerced confessions, the defendant's previous criminal record, inept and under-resourced defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction, among others. And when the system does go wrong, it is often volunteers from outside the criminal justice system – journalists, for example – who rectify the errors, not the police or prosecutors. To retain the death penalty in the face of the demonstrable failures of the system is unacceptable, especially since there are no strong overriding reasons to favor the death penalty.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS BARBARIC

Prisoners are executed in the United States by any one of five methods; in a few jurisdictions the prisoner is allowed to choose which one he or she prefers:

The traditional mode of execution, hanging , is an option still available in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington. Death on the gallows is easily bungled: If the drop is too short, there will be a slow and agonizing death by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the head will be torn off.

Two states, Idaho and Utah, still authorize the firing squad . The prisoner is strapped into a chair and hooded. A target is pinned to the chest. Five marksmen, one with blanks, take aim and fire.

Throughout the twentieth century, electrocution has been the most widely used form of execution in this country, and is still utilized in eleven states, although lethal injection is the primary method of execution. The condemned prisoner is led – or dragged – into the death chamber, strapped into the chair, and electrodes are fastened to head and legs. When the switch is thrown the body strains, jolting as the voltage is raised and lowered. Often smoke rises from the head. There is the awful odor of burning flesh. No one knows how long electrocuted individuals retain consciousness. In 1983, the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama was described by an eyewitness as follows:

"At 8:30 p.m. the first jolt of 1900 volts of electricity passed through Mr. Evans' body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flames erupted … from the electrode tied to Mr. Evans' left leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist clenched permanently. The electrode apparently burst from the strap holding it in place. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans' face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and declared that he was not dead.

"The electrode on the left leg was re-fastened. …Mr. Evans was administered a second thirty second jolt of electricity. The stench of burning flesh was nauseating. More smoke emanated from his leg and head. Again, the doctors examined Mr. Evans. [They] reported that his heart was still beating, and that he was still alive. At that time, I asked the prison commissioner, who was communicating on an open telephone line to Governor George Wallace, to grant clemency on the grounds that Mr. Evans was being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The request …was denied.

"At 8:40 p.m., a third charge of electricity, thirty seconds in duration, was passed through Mr. Evans' body. At 8:44, the doctors pronounced him dead. The execution of John Evans took fourteen minutes." Afterwards, officials were embarrassed by what one observer called the "barbaric ritual." The prison spokesman remarked, "This was supposed to be a very clean manner of administering death."

The introduction of the gas chamber was an attempt to improve on electrocution. In this method of execution the prisoner is strapped into a chair with a container of sulfuric acid underneath. The chamber is sealed, and cyanide is dropped into the acid to form a lethal gas. Execution by suffocation in the lethal gas chamber has not been abolished but lethal injection serves as the primary method in states which still authorize it. In 1996 a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California (where the gas chamber has been used since 1933) ruled that this method is a "cruel and unusual punishment." Here is an account of the 1992 execution in Arizona of Don Harding, as reported in the dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens:

"When the fumes enveloped Don's head he took a quick breath. A few seconds later he again looked in my direction. His face was red and contorted as if he were attempting to fight through tremendous pain. His mouth was pursed shut and his jaw was clenched tight. Don then took several more quick gulps of the fumes.

"At this point Don's body started convulsing violently.... His face and body turned a deep red and the veins in his temple and neck began to bulge until I thought they might explode. After about a minute Don's face leaned partially forward, but he was still conscious. Every few seconds he continued to gulp in. He was shuddering uncontrollably and his body was racked with spasms. His head continued to snap back. His hands were clenched.

"After several more minutes, the most violent of the convulsions subsided. At this time the muscles along Don's left arm and back began twitching in a wavelike motion under his skin. Spittle drooled from his mouth.

"Don did not stop moving for approximately eight minutes, and after that he continued to twitch and jerk for another minute. Approximately two minutes later, we were told by a prison official that the execution was complete.

“Don Harding took ten minutes and thirty one seconds to die." ( Gomez v. U.S. District Court , 112 S.Ct. 1652)

The latest mode of inflicting the death penalty, enacted into law by more than 30 states, is lethal injection , first used in 1982 in Texas. It is easy to overstate the humaneness and efficacy of this method; one cannot know whether lethal injection is really painless and there is evidence that it is not. As the U.S. Court of Appeals observed, there is "substantial and uncontroverted evidence… that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…. Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation." ( Chaney v. Heckler , 718 F.2d 1174, 1983).

Its veneer of decency and subtle analogy with life-saving medical practice no doubt makes killing by lethal injection more acceptable to the public. Journalist Susan Blaustein, reacting to having witnessed an execution in Texas, comments:

"The lethal injection method … has turned dying into a still life, thereby enabling the state to kill without anyone involved feeling anything…. Any remaining glimmers of doubt – about whether the man received due process, about his guilt, about our right to take life – cause us to rationalize these deaths with such catchwords as ‘heinous,’ ‘deserved,’ ‘deterrent,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘painless.’ We have perfected the art of institutional killing to the degree that it has deadened our natural, quintessentially human response to death."

Botched Lethal Injections

Nor does execution by lethal injection always proceed smoothly as planned. In 1985 "the authorities repeatedly jabbed needles into … Stephen Morin, when they had trouble finding a usable vein because he had been a drug abuser." In 1988, during the execution of Raymond Landry, "a tube attached to a needle inside the inmate's right arm began leaking, sending the lethal mixture shooting across the death chamber toward witnesses."

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the current method of lethal injection used is constitutional, several people have suffered because of this form of execution. In Ohio, Rommel Broom was subjected to 18 attempts at finding a vein so that he could be killed by lethal injection. The process to try to execute him took over two hours. Finally, the governor had to stop the execution and grant the inmate a one week reprieve. Mr. Broom has not been executed because he is challenging the state’s right to hold a second execution attempt. Nor was he the only Ohio inmate so maltreated. During his 2006 execution Joseph Clark screamed, “it don’t work” and requested to take something by mouth so the torture would end when his executioners took thirty minutes to find a vein. Christopher Newton’s execution took over two hours – so long that he had to be given a bathroom break.

Lethal Injection Protocol Issues

Most lethal injections in the United States use a “cocktail” consisting of three drugs that sequentially render an inmate unconscious, cause paralysis and cease breathing, and stop an inmate’s heart. [6] But in 2011, the sole American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a vital part of the three-drug cocktail, decided to discontinue production, forcing states to adapt their lethal injection methodology. [7] Some states have replaced the three-drug cocktail with a single substance, [8] while others have replaced thiopental in the three-drug sequence with another anesthetic. [9] Both three-drug and single-drug executions raise vital concerns: the three-drug cocktail’s paralyzing sedative may mask the inmate’s pain and suffering, while the single-drug method takes about 25 minutes to end a life (if there are no complications), compared with the ten-minute three-drug process. [10]

Although the Supreme Court held in 2008 that Kentucky’s three-drug lethal injection procedure did not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, [11] it is unclear whether states’ adapted procedures pass muster. Indeed, in February 2012, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals admonished the Arizona Department of Corrections, stating that its approach to execution “cannot continue” and questioning the “regularity and reliability” of protocols that give complete discretion to the corrections director to determine which and how many drugs will be used for each execution. [12] In Georgia, the state Supreme Court stayed the execution of Warren Hill hours before he was scheduled to die in July 2012 in order to review the Department of Corrections’ new single-drug lethal injection procedure. [13] The Missouri Supreme Court imposed a temporary moratorium on executions in August 2012, declaring that it would be “premature” to set execution dates for death row inmates given a pending lawsuit about whether the state’s lethal injection procedures are humane. The state had amended its injection protocol to use a single drug, propofol, which advocates say causes severe pain upon injection. [14]

Although similar suits are pending in other states, [15] not all protocol-based challenges have succeeded; in Texas and Oklahoma, executions have continued despite questions about the potential cruelty of lethal injection and the type or number of chemicals used. [16]

Regardless of whether states use one or three drugs for an execution, all of the major lethal injection drugs are in short supply due to manufacturers’ efforts to prevent the use of their products for executions [17] and European Union restrictions on the exportation of drugs that may be used to kill. [18] As a result, some state executioners have pursued questionable means of obtaining the deadly chemicals from other states and foreign companies, including a pharmaceutical wholesaler operating out of the back of a London driving school. [19] These backroom deals—which, astoundingly, have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—are now the subject of federal litigation that could impact the legitimacy of the American death penalty system. In March 2012, six death row inmates argued that the FDA had shirked its duty to regulate lethal substances and raised concerns about the “very real risk that unapproved thiopental will not actually render a condemned prisoner unconscious.” [20] A federal district judge agreed and ordered the FDA to confiscate the imported thiopental, but the agency has appealed. [21]

Witnessing the Execution

Most people who have observed an execution are horrified and disgusted. "I was ashamed," writes sociologist Richard Moran, who witnessed an execution in Texas in 1985. "I was an intruder, the only member of the public who had trespassed on [the condemned man's] private moment of anguish. In my face he could see the horror of his own death."

Revulsion at the duty to supervise and witness executions is one reason why so many prison wardens – however unsentimental they are about crime and criminals – are opponents of capital punishment. Don Cabana, who supervised several executions in Missouri and Mississippi reflects on his mood just prior to witnessing an execution in the gas chamber:

"If [the condemned prisoner] was some awful monster deemed worthy of extermination, why did I feel so bad about it, I wondered. It has been said that men on death row are inhuman, cold-blooded killers. But as I stood and watched a grieving mother leave her son for the last time, I questioned how the sordid business of executions was supposed to be the great equalizer…. The 'last mile' seemed an eternity, every step a painful reminder of what waited at the end of the walk. Where was the cold-blooded murderer, I wondered, as we approached the door to the last-night cell. I had looked for that man before… and I still had not found him – I saw, in my grasp, only a frightened child. [Minutes after the execution and before] heading for the conference room and a waiting press corps, I… shook my head. 'No more. I don't want to do this anymore.'" 1996)

Recently, Allen Ault, former executioner for the State of Georgia, wrote , “The men and women who assist in executions are not psychopaths or sadists. They do their best to perform the impossible and inhumane job with which the state has charged them. Those of us who have participated in executions often suffer something very much like posttraumatic stress. Many turn to alcohol and drugs. For me, those nights that weren’t sleepless were plagued by nightmares.”

For some individuals, however, executions seem to appeal to strange, aberrant impulses and provide an outlet for sadistic urges. Warden Lewis Lawes of Sing Sing Prison in New York wrote of the many requests he received to watch electrocutions, and told that when the job of executioner became vacant. "I received more than seven hundred applications for the position, many of them offering cut-rate prices." (Life and Death in Sing Sing 1928)

Public executions were common in this country during the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the last ones occurred in 1936 in Kentucky, when 20,000 people gathered to watch the hanging of a young African American male. (Teeters, in Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society 1960)

Delight in brutality, pain, violence and death may always be with us. But surely we must conclude that it is best for the law not to encourage such impulses. When the government sanctions, commands, and ceremoniously carries out the execution of a prisoner, it lends support to this destructive side of human nature.

More than two centuries ago the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, in his highly influential treatise On Crimes and Punishment (1764), asserted: "The death penalty cannot be useful, because of the example of barbarity it gives men." Beccaria's words still ring true – even if the death penalty were a "useful" deterrent, it would still be an "example of barbarity." No society can safely entrust the enforcement of its laws to torture, brutality, or killing. Such methods are inherently cruel and will always mock the attempt to cloak them in justice. As Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg wrote, "The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality."(Boston Globe, August 16, 1976)

Death Row Syndrome

Capital appeals are not only costly; they are also time-consuming. The average death row inmate waits 12 years between sentencing and execution, and some sit in anticipation of their executions on death row for up to 30 years. [22] For these prisoners, most of whom are housed in solitary confinement, this wait period may cause “Death Row Phenomenon” or “Death Row Syndrome.” Although the terms are often used interchangeably, “Death Row Phenomenon” refers to the destructive consequences of long-term solitary confinement [23] and the inevitable anxiety that results from awaiting one’s own death, while “Death Row Syndrome” refers to the severe psychological illness that often results from Death Row Phenomenon. [24]

In solitary confinement, inmates are often isolated for 23 hours each day without access to training or educational programs, recreational activities, or regular visits. Such conditions have been demonstrated to provoke agitation, psychosis, delusions, paranoia, and self-destructive behavior. [25] To inflict this type of mental harm is inhumane, but it also may prove detrimental to public safety. When death row inmates successfully appeal their sentences, they are transferred into the general inmate population, and when death row inmates are exonerated, they are promptly released into the community. [26] Death Row Syndrome needlessly risks making these individuals dangerous to those around them.

Neither Death Row Syndrome nor Death Row Phenomenon has received formal recognition from the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychological Association. [27] In 1995, however, Justices Stevens and Breyer, in a memorandum regarding the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari to death row inmate Clarence Lackey, highlighted the “importance and novelty” of the question “whether executing a prisoner who has already spent some 17 years on death row violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.” [28] Further, as some scholars and advocates have noted, the mental deterioration symptomatic of Death Row Syndrome may render an inmate incompetent to participate in their own post-conviction proceedings. [29]

Death Row Syndrome gained international recognition during the 1989 extradition proceedings of Jens Soering, a German citizen arrested in England and charged with committing murder on American soil. [30] Soering argued, and the European Court of Human Rights agreed, that extraditing him to the United States would violate Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. [31] The Court explained that, in the United States, “the condemned prisoner has to endure for many years the conditions on death row and the anguish and mounting tension of living in the ever-present shadow of death” such that extraditing Soering would violate protections against “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” [32] Similar conclusions have been reached by the United Kingdom’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and the Canadian Supreme Court. [33]

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS UNJUSTIFIED RETRIBUTION

Justice, it is often insisted, requires the death penalty as the only suitable retribution for heinous crimes. This claim does not bear scrutiny, however. By its nature, all punishment is retributive. Therefore, whatever legitimacy is to be found in punishment as just retribution can, in principle, be satisfied without recourse to executions.

Moreover, the death penalty could be defended on narrowly retributive grounds only for the crime of murder, and not for any of the many other crimes that have frequently been made subject to this mode of punishment (rape, kidnapping, espionage, treason, drug trafficking). Few defenders of the death penalty are willing to confine themselves consistently to the narrow scope afforded by retribution. In any case, execution is more than a punishment exacted in retribution for the taking of a life. As Nobel Laureate Albert Camus wrote, "For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life." (Reflections on the Guillotine, in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death 1960)

It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should be punished according to their just desserts – "making the punishment fit the crime." If this rule means punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable: It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again – punishments that are, of course, impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murder.

If, however, the principle of just deserts means the severity of punishments must be proportional to the gravity of the crime – and since murder is the gravest crime, it deserves the severest punishment – then the principle is no doubt sound. Nevertheless, this premise does not compel support for the death penalty; what it does require is that other crimes be punished with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the punishment of murder.

Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and the severity of the punishment should be appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits – imposed by both justice and our common human dignity. Governments that respect these limits do not use premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy.

Murder Victims Families Oppose the Death Penalty

Some people who have lost a loved one to murder believe that they cannot rest until the murderer is executed. But this sentiment is by no means universal. Coretta Scott King has observed, "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder." (Speech to National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Washington, D.C., September 26, 1981)

Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of the slain Senator Robert Kennedy, has written:

"I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder.…But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, 'Please, God. Please don't take his life too.' I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family – another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief."(Foreword to Gray and Stanley, A Punishment in Search of A Crime 1989)

Across the nation, many who have survived the murder of a loved one have joined Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation or Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, in the effort to replace anger and hate toward the criminal with a restorative approach to both the offender and the bereaved survivors.

Groups of murder victims family members have supported campaigns for abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, Connecticut, Montana and Maryland most recently.

Barbara Anderson Young, the sister of James Anderson, who was allegedly run over by a white teenager in Mississippi in 2011, who reportedly wanted to hurt him because he was Black, wrote a letter to the local prosecutor on behalf of their family indicating the family’s opposition to the death penalty, which is “deeply rooted in our religious faith, a faith that was central in James’ life as well.” The letter also eloquently asks that the defendant be spared execution because the death penalty “historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites.” It continues, “[e]xecuting James' killers will not help balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment."

Lawrence Brewer, convicted of the notorious dragging death of James Byrd in Texas, was executed in 2011. Members of Mr. Byrd’s family opposed the death penalty, despite the racist and vicious nature of the killing. Of Brewer’s remorseless – he said he had no regrets the day he was executed – Byrd’s sister, Betty Boatner, said, “If I could say something to him, I would let him know that I forgive him and then if he still has no remorse, I just feel sorry for him.” Byrd’s daughter shared that she didn’t want Brewer to die because “it’s easy . . .(a)ll he’s going to do it go to sleep” rather than live every day with what he did and perhaps one day recognize the humanity of his victim. James Byrd’s son, Ross, points out "You can't fight murder with murder . . .(l)ife in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT COSTS MORE THAN INCARCERATION

It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment.") A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs – including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs – are mostly borne by the taxpayer. The extra costs of separate death row housing and additional security in court and elsewhere also add to the cost. A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison. (N.Y. State Defenders Assn., "Capital Losses" 1982)

The death penalty was eventually reintroduced in New York and then found unconstitutional and not reintroduced again, in part because of cost.

In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years concluded that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence." In 1988 and 1989 the Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of more than $11 million. 59 Florida, with one of the nation's most populous death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence." (David von Drehle, "Capital Punishment in Paralysis," Miami Herald, July 10, 1988)

A 1993 study of the costs of North Carolina's capital punishment system revealed that litigating a murder case from start to finish adds an extra $163,000 to what it would cost the state to keep the convicted offender in prison for 20 years. The extra cost goes up to $216,000 per case when all first-degree murder trials and their appeals are considered, many of which do not end with a death sentence and an execution.

In 2011 in California, a broad coalition of organizations called Taxpayers for Justice put repeal of the death penalty on the ballot for 2012 in part because of the high cost documented by a recent study that found the state has already spent $4 billion on capital punishment resulting in 13 executions. The group includes over 100 law enforcement leaders, in addition to crime-victim advocates and exonerated individuals. Among them is former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, whose office pursued dozens of capital cases during his 32 years as a prosecutor. He said, "My frustration is more about the fact that the death penalty does not serve any useful purpose and it's very expensive." Don Heller, a Republican and former prosecutor, wrote "I am convinced that at least one innocent person may have been executed under the current death penalty law. It was not my intent nor do I believe that of the voters who overwhelmingly enacted the death penalty law in 1978. We did not consider that horrific possibility." Heller emphasized that he is not "soft on crime," but that "life without parole protects public safety better than a death sentence." Additionally, he said the money spent on the death penalty could be better used elsewhere, as California cuts funding for police officers and prosecutors. "Paradoxically, the cost of capital punishment takes away funds that could be used to enhance public safety." [34]

From one end of the country to the other public officials decry the additional cost of capital cases even when they support the death penalty system. "Wherever the death penalty is in place, it siphons off resources which could be going to the front line in the war against crime…. Politicians could address this crisis, but, for the most part they either endorse executions or remain silent." The only way to make the death penalty more "cost effective" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's (and society's) only protection against the most aberrant miscarriages of justice. Any savings in dollars would, of course, be at the cost of justice : In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned .

In 1996, in response to public clamor for accelerating executions, Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal habeas corpus and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty "resource centers" charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts. (Carol Castenada, "Death Penalty Centers Losing Support Funds," USA Today, Oct. 24, 1995) These restrictions virtually guarantee that the number and variety of wrongful murder convictions and death sentences will increase. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS LESS POPULAR THAN THE ALTERNATIVES

It is commonly reported that the American public overwhelmingly approves of the death penalty. More careful analysis of public attitudes, however, reveals that most Americans prefer an alternative; they would oppose the death penalty if convicted murderers were sentenced to life without parole and were required to make some form of financial restitution. In 2010, when California voters were asked which sentence they preferred for a first-degree murderer, 42% of registered voters said they preferred life without parole and 41% said they preferred the death penalty. In 2000, when voters were asked the same question, 37% chose life without parole while 44% chose the death penalty . A 1993 nationwide survey revealed that although 77% of the public approves of the death penalty, support drops to 56% if the alternative is punishment with no parole eligibility until 25 years in prison. Support drops even further, to 49%, if the alternative is no parole under any conditions. And if the alternative is no parole plus restitution, it drops still further, to 41% . Only a minority of the American public would favor the death penalty if offered such alternatives.

INTERNATIONALLY, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS WIDELY VIEWED AS INHUMANE AND ANACHRONISTIC

An international perspective on the death penalty helps us understand the peculiarity of its use in the United States. As long ago as 1962, it was reported to the Council of Europe that "the facts clearly show that the death penalty is regarded in Europe as something of an anachronism…." 1962)

Today, either by law or in practice, all of Western Europe has abolished the death penalty. In Great Britain, it was abolished (except for cases of treason) in 1971; France abolished it in 1981. Canada abolished it in 1976. The United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment." By mid-1995, eighteen countries had ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, outlawing the death penalty in peacetime.

Underscoring worldwide support for abolition was the action of the South African constitutional court in 1995, barring the death penalty as an "inhumane" punishment. Between 1989 and 1995, two dozen other countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Since 1995, 43 more abolished it. All told, 71% of the world’s nation’s have abolished the death penalty in law or practice; only 58 of 197 retain it .

International Law

A look at international trends and agreements sheds light on the peculiarity of the United States’ continued imposition of capital punishment. Today, over 140 nations have abolished the death penalty either by law or in practice and, of the 58 countries that have retained the death penalty, only 21 carried out known executions in 2011. [35] Furthermore, capital punishment has compelled the United States to abstain from signing or ratifying several major international treaties and perhaps to violate international agreements to which it is a party:

In 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the UN’s primary human rights treaties. [36] Parties to the Protocol must take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty and protect their citizens’ right not to be executed, although signatories may reserve the right to apply the death penalty for serious military criminals during wartime. [37] The United States has yet to join the 35 signatories or 75 parties to the Protocol, trailing behind the world’s leading democracies in the protection of human rights.

Although the Second Protocol to the ICCPR is the only worldwide instrument calling for death penalty abolition, there are three such instruments with regional emphases. Adopted by the Council of Europe in 1982 and ratified by eighteen nations by mid-1995, the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides for the abolition of capital punishment during peacetime. In 2002, the Council adopted the Thirteenth Protocol to the ECHR, which provides for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, including times of war or imminent threat of war. In 1990, the Organization of American States adopted the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which provides for total abolition but allows states to reserve the right to apply the death penalty during wartime. [38]

The United States has ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), an international treaty setting forth a framework for consular relations among independent countries. Under Article 36 of the VCCR, local authorities are obligated to inform all detained foreigners “without delay” of their right to request consular notification of their detention and their right to demand and access opportunities to communicate with their consular representatives. [39] Local authorities have repeatedly disregarded this obligation, resulting in the International Court of Justice holding in 2004 that states had violated the VCCR by failing to inform 51 named Mexican nationals of their rights. All 51 were sentenced to death. When the State of Texas refused to honor this judgment and provide relief for the 15 death-row inmates whose VCCR rights it had violated, President George W. Bush sought to intervene on the prisoners’ behalf, taking the case to the United States Supreme Court. The Court denied the President’s appeal, and Texas has gone on to execute inmates whose VCCR rights it had failed to honor.

In 1994, the United States signed the United Nations (UN) Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). [40] The treaty, which has now been ratified or signed by 176 nations, outlaws the imposition of physical or psychological abuse on people in detention. While it does not explicitly prohibit capital punishment, the treaty does forbid the intentional infliction of pain. Since 1976, however, more than 20 executions in the United States have involved prolonged, painful, or shocking errors, such as an inmate’s head catching fire or a lengthy and torturous search for a vein suitable for lethal injection. Additionally, accidents aside, our methods of execution—lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, gas chamber, and hanging—may be inherently painful. The CAT also forbids the infliction of pain and suffering “based on discrimination of any kind,” [41] yet racial inequality is endemic to our death rows .

Also in 1994, the United States ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), a treaty intended to protect against racial discrimination, whether intentional or resulting from seemingly neutral state policies. To meet its obligations as a party to ICERD, the United States must take steps to review and amend policies and procedures that create or perpetuate racial discrimination, including capital punishment. [42]

Once in use everywhere and for a wide variety of crimes, the death penalty today is generally forbidden by law and widely abandoned in practice, in most countries outside the United States. Indeed, the unmistakable worldwide trend is toward the complete abolition of capital punishment. In the United States, opposition to the death penalty is widespread and diverse. Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious groups are among the more than 50 national organizations that constitute the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The Case Against the Death Penalty was first published by the ACLU as a pamphlet in 1973. The original text was written by Hugo Adam Bedau, Ph.D., who also contributed to several subsequent editions of the pamphlet. This version was most recently revised by the ACLU in 2012.

[1] Glenn L. Pierce & Michael L. Radelet, Death Sentencing in East Baton Rouge Parish, 1990-2008 , 71 La. L. Rev. 647, 671 (2011), available at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/PierceRadeletStudy.pdf .

[2] Liebman et. al, Los Tocayos Carlos , 43 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 711, 1104 (2012).

[3] See Andrew Cohen, Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man , Atlantic, May 14, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/yes-america-we-have-executed-an-innocent-man/257106/ .

[4] See id.

[5] See id. ; Carlos DeLuna Case: The Fight to Prove an Innocent Man Was Executed , PBS Newshour, May 24, 2012, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june12/deathpenalty_05-24.html .

[6] A Three-Drug Cocktail , WashingtonPost.com, Sep. 26, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/09/26/GR2007092600116.html ; see also Victoria Gill, The Search for a Humane Way to Kill , BBC News, Aug. 7, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19060961 .

[7] See Carol J. Williams, Maker of Anesthetic Used in Executions is Discontinuing Drug, L.A. Times, Jan. 22, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/22/local/la-me-execution-drug-20110122 ; John Schwartz, Death Penalty Drug Raises Legal Questions , N.Y. Times, Apr. 13, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/us/14lethal.html?pagewanted=all .

[8] See Brandi Grissom, Texas Will Change its Lethal Injection Protocol , Tex. Tribune, July 10, 2012, www.texastribune.org/texas-dept-criminal-justice/death-penalty/texas-changing-its-lethal-injection-protocol/ ; Rob Stein, Ohio Executes Inmate Using New, Single-Drug Method for Death Penalty , Wash. Post, Mar. 11, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031006250.html ; David Beasley, Georgia Delays Execution Amid Drug Protocol Change , Reuters, July, 17, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/us-usa-execution-georgia-idUSBRE86G14L20120717 ; Rhonda Cook & Bill Rankin, State Changes Lethal Injection Protocol, Reschedules Execution , Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 17, 2012, http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/state-changes-lethal-injection-1479424.html ; Steve Eder, A Texas First: Single-Drug Used to Execute Inmate , WSJ Law Blog, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/07/19/a-texas-first-single-drug-used-to-execute-inmate/ ; Idaho Switches Execution Protocol to Single-Drug Lethal Injection , Spokesman.com, May 18, 2012, http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2012/may/18/idaho-switches-execution-protocol-single-drug-lethal-injection/ .

[9] See Carol J. Williams, California’s New Lethal Injection Protocol Tossed By Judge, L.A. Times, Dec. 17, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/17/local/la-me-executions-20111217 ; Kathy Lohr, New Lethal Injection Drug Raises Concerns , NPR, Jan. 29, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/01/29/133302950/new-lethal-injection-drug-raises-concerns ; Steve Eder, Virginia Adds New Drug for Lethal Injections , WSJ Law Blog, July 27, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/07/27/virginia-adds-new-drug-for-lethal-injections/ .

[10] Laura Vozzella, Virginia opts for One-Drug Lethal Injection Protocol , Wash. Post, July 27, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/virginia-opts-for-one-drug-lethal-injection-protocol/2012/07/27/gJQA8jxiEX_story.html .

[11] See Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court Allows Lethal Injection for Execution , N.Y. Times, Apr. 17, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/16cnd-scotus.html?pagewanted=all .

[12] See Michael Kiefer, State is Sued Again Over Its Lethal-Injection Procedure , USA Today, Feb. 7, 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/USCP/PNI/Valley%20&%20State/2012-02-07-PNI0207met--executionsART_ST_U.htm ; Court Gives Arizona Warning About Execution Protocol , Associated Press, Feb. 28, 2012, available at http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2012/02/28/20120228arizona-moorman-execution-death-row-inmate-lawyers-seek-stays.html . Notably, however, the panel did not halt Arizona’s scheduled executions. Id.

[13] David Beasley, Georgia Inmate Gets Stay Hours Before Scheduled Execution , Reuters, July 23, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/us-usa-execution-georgia-idUSBRE86M1F720120723 .

[14] Steve Eder, Missouri Executions on Hold Amid Concerns About New Drug , Aug. 15, 2012, WSJ Law Blog, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/08/15/missouri-executions-on-hold-amid-concerns-about-new-drug/ .

[15] Melissa Anderson, ACLU Challenges Montana’s Lethal Injection Protocol , KXLH.com, Aug. 1, 2012, http://www.kxlh.com/news/aclu-challenges-montana-s-lethal-injection-protocol/ .

[16] See Eder, supra note 3; Steve Olfason, Oklahoma to Execute Man Who Killed Ex-Girlfriend and Her Two Kids , Chicago Tribune, Aug. 14, 2012, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-14/news/sns-rt-us-usa-execution-oklahomabre87d0s8-20120814_1_jerry-massie-method-of-lethal-injection-three-drug-protocol ; Steve Eder, Oklahoma Execution Set After Lethal Injection Challenge Fails , Aug. 13, 2012, WSJ Law Blog, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/08/13/oklahoman-set-for-executution-after-lethal-injection-challenge-fails/ .

[17] See Grissom, supra note 3; Ed Pilkington, Texas Executions Threatened As Stocks of Death Penalty Drug Run Low , Guardian, Feb. 14, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/14/texas-executions-threatened-stocks-run-low ; John Schwartz, Seeking Execution Drug, States Cut Legal Corners , N.Y. Times, Apr. 13, 2011,

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/us/14lethal.html?pagewanted=all ; Kiefer, supra note 7.

[18] EU Imposes Strict Controls on ‘Execution Drug’ Exports, BBC News, Dec. 20, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16281016 ; Matt McGrath, FDA Goes to Court to Secure Drugs for Lethal Injections , BBC World, June 1, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18253578 .

[19] See Jeremy Pelofsky, U.S. Wants Lawsuit Over Execution Drug Dismissed , Reuters, Apr. 20, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/20/us-usa-execution-lawsuit-idUSTRE73J7MH20110420 ; Michael Kiefer, Execution Drugs: Arizona Inmate Lawsuit Seeks FDA Policing , Ariz. Republic, Feb. 3, 2011, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/02/02/20110202arizona-execution-drug-fda-lawsuit-brk02-ON.htm l; Kevin Johnson, Lawsuit Seeks to Block Imports of Key Execution Drug , USA Today, Feb. 2, 2011, http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/02/lawsuit-seeks-to-block-imports-of-key-execution-drug/1#.UA2pmKBCzGc ; Ryan Gabrielson, Lethal Injection Drug Tied to London Wholesaler , California Watch, Jan. 7, 2011, http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/lethal-injection-drug-tied-london-wholesaler-7888 ; Ryan Gabrielson, California Lethal Injection: Prison Officials Refuse to Hand Over Lethal Injection Drug , California Watch, May 30, 2012, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/california-lethal-injection_n_1556155.html .

[20] Pelofsky, supra note 14.

[21] See Raymond Bonner, FDA’s Immoral Stance on Lethal Injection Drugs , Bloomberg, July 29, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-29/fda-s-immoral-stance-on-lethal-injection-drugs.html .

[22] See Elizabeth Rapaport , A Modest Proposal: The Aged of Death Row Should be Deemed Too Old to Execute, 77 Brook. L. Rev. 1089 (Spring 2012); Michael J. Carter, Wanting to Die: The Cruel Phenomenon of “Death Row Syndrome”, Alternet, Nov. 7, 2008, http://www.alternet.org/rights/106300/waiting_to_die%3A_the_cruel_phenomenon_of_%22death_row_syndrome%22/ ; Dr. Karen Harrison and Anouska Tamony, Death Row Phenomenon, Death Row Syndrome, and Their Affect [sic.] on Capital Cases in the U.S. , Internet Journal of Criminology 2010, available at http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Harrison_Tamony_%20Death_Row_Syndrome%20_IJC_Nov_2010.pdf .

[23] See Stop Solitary – The Dangerous Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the United States, ACLU.org, https://www.aclu.org/stop-solitary-dangerous-overuse-solitary-confinement-united-states-0 .

[24] See Harrison and Tamony, supra note 25.

[25] See Carter, supra note 25; Death Penalty Information Center, Time on Death Row (2006), at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/time-death-row .

[26] See id.

[27] Amy Smith, Not “Waiving” But Drowning: The Anatomy of Death Row Syndrome and Volunteering for Execution , 17 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 237, 243, available at http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/pilj/vol17no2/documents/17-2SmithArticle.pdf .

[28] Lackey v. Texas, 115 S. Ct. 1421, 1421 (1995) (Stevens, J., concurring in the denial of certiorari).

[29] Stephen Blank, Killing Time: The Process of Waiving Appeal – The Michael Ross Death Penalty Cases , 14 J.L. & Pol’y 735, 738-39 (2006).

[30] Soering v. UK , App. No. 14038/88, 11 Eur. H.R. Rep. 439 (1989), available at http://eji.org/eji/files/Soering%20v.%20United%20Kingdom.pdf .

[31] See David Wallace-Wells, What is Death Row Syndrome? , Slate, Feb. 1, 2005, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/02/what_is_death_row_syndrome.html ; Smith supra note 30.

[32] Smith supra note 30. (quoting Soering , 11 Eur. H. R. Rep. at 475-76).

[33] Id. at 239.

[34] Carol J. Williams, Death Penalty: Exhaustive Study Finds Death Penalty Costs California $184 Million a Year , L.A. Times, June 20, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/20/local/la-me-adv-death-penalty-costs-20110620 .

[35] Figures on the Death Penalty , Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/numbers .

[36] UN General Assembly, Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty , Dec. 15, 1989, A/RES/44/128, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3a70.html [accessed 15 August 2012] [ hereinafter Second Optional Protocol].

[37] See Pierre Desert, Second Optional Protocol: Frequently Asked Questions , World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, June 27, 2008, http://www.worldcoalition.org/Second-Optional-Protocol-Frequently-Asked-Questions.html ; Pierre Desert, Second Optional Protocol: The Only Global Treaty Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty , World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, June 24, 2008, www.worldcoalition.org/UN-Protocol-the-only-global-treaty-aiming-at-the-abolition-of-the-death-penalty.html ; Second Optional Protocol, supra note 21.

[38] Desert, Second Optional Protocol: Frequently Asked Questions , supra note 22.

[39] Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Mar. 19, 1967, 596 U.N.T.S. 261, available at http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_2_1963.pdf .

[40] United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Dec. 10, 1984, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85, available at http://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/UNTS/Volume%201465/v1465.pdf .

[41] Richard C. Dieter, Introduction: Ford Foundation Symposium, Nov. 12, 1998, available at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/us-death-penalty-and-international-law-us-compliance-torture-and-race-conventions .

[42] International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Mar. 7, 1966, 660 U.N.T.S. 195, available at http://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/UNTS/Volume%20660/v660.pdf .

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Capital Punishment

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Should the Death Penalty Be Legal?

History of the Death Penalty

Practiced for much, if not all, of human history, the death penalty (also called capital punishment) is the “execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense,” according to Roger Hood, professor at the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Oxford.

Amnesty International lists the United States as just one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty for ordinary crimes as of May 2023. Another nine countries reserve the death penalty for “exceptional crimes such as crimes under military law or crimes committed in exceptional circumstances,” according to Amnesty International. Meanwhile, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty legally and 23 have abolished the punishment in practice. Read more history…

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1 The death penalty provides the justice and closure families and victims deserve. Many relatives of murder victims believe the death penalty is just and necessary for their lives to move forward. Jason Johnson, whose father was sentenced to death for killing his mother, states: “[I will go to see him executed] not to see him die [but] just to see my family actually have some closure… He’s an evil human being. He can talk Christianity and all that. That is all my father is. That’s all he’s ever been, is a con man… If he found redemption, that doesn’t matter, that’s between him and God. His forgiveness is to come from the Lord and his redemption is to come from the Lord, not the government. The Bible also says, ‘An eye for an eye.’” [ 17 ] Phyllis Loya, mother of police officer Larry Lasater who was killed in the line of duty, states, “I will live to see the execution of my son’s murderer. People [need] closure, and I think it means different things to different people. What it would mean for me is that my fight for justice for my son would be complete when his sentence, which was [handed down] by a Contra Costa County jury and by a Contra Costa County judge, would be carried out as it should be.” [ 18 ] While some argue that there is no “closure” to be had in such tragedies and via the death penalty, victim families think differently. Often the families of victims have to endure for years detailed accounts in the press and social media of their loved one’s gory murder while the murderer sits out a life sentence or endlessly appeals their conviction. A just execution puts an end to that cycle. As Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor explains, “The family of each murder victim suffers unspeakable pain when their loved one is murdered. Those wounds are torn open many times during the following decades, as the investigations, trials, appeals, and pardon and parole board hearings occur. Each stage brings torment and yet a desire for justice for the heinous treatment of their family member. The family feels that the suffering and loss of life of the victim and their own pain are forgotten when the murderer is portrayed in the media as a sympathetic character. The family knows that the execution of the murderer cannot bring their loved one back. They suspect it will not bring them ‘closure’ or ‘finality’ or ‘peace,’ but there is justice and perhaps an end to the ongoing wounding by ‘the murderer and then the system.’” [ 19 ] Read More

Pro 2 The death penalty prevents additional crime. If not a deterrent to would-be murderers, at the very least, when carried out, the death penalty prevents convicted murderers from repeating their crimes. “Perhaps the most straightforward argument for the death penalty is that it saves innocent lives by preventing convicted murderers from killing again. If the abolitionists had not succeeded in obtaining a temporary moratorium on death penalties from 1972 to 1976, [Kenneth Allen] McDuff would have been executed, and Colleen Reed and at least eight other young women would be alive today,” explains Paul Cassell, former U.S. District Judge. [ 15 ] Kenneth Allen McDuff was convicted and sentenced to death in 1966 for the murders of three teenagers and the rape of one. However, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty nationwide in 1972 ( Furman v. Georgia ), leading to a reduced sentence and McDuff being released on parole in 1989. An estimated three days later, he began a crime spree: torturing, raping, and murdering at least six women in Texas before being arrested again on May 4, 1992, and sentenced to death a second time. Had McDuff been executed as justice demanded for the first three murders, at least six murders would have been prevented. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Considering recidivism rates, how many more murders and associated crimes of kidnaping, rape, and torture, among others could have been deterred had the death penalty been imposed on any number of murderers? Read More

Pro 3 The death penalty is the only moral and just punishment for the worst crimes. Talion law ( lex talionis in Latin), or retributive law, is perhaps best known as the Biblical imperative: “Anyone who inflicts a permanent injury on his or her neighbor shall receive the same in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that one gives another shall be inflicted in return.” [ 8 ] [ 9 ] The word “retribution” comes from the Latin re + tribuo , or “I pay back.” In order for those who commit the worst crimes to pay their debts to society, the death penalty must be employed as punishment, or the debt has not been paid. [ 10 ] “ Retribution is an expression of society’s right to make a moral judgment by imposing a punishment on a wrongdoer befitting the crime he has committed,” says Charles Stimson of the Heritage Foundation. Therefore, “the death penalty should be available for the worst of the worst,” regardless of the race or gender of the victim or perpetrator. [ 11 ] Thus, “retributionists who support the death penalty typically do not wish to expand the list of offenses for which it may be imposed. Their support for the death penalty is only for crimes defined as particularly heinous, because only such criminals deserve to be put to death. Under lex talionis it is impermissible to execute those whose crimes do not warrant the ultimate sanction,” explains Jon’a F. Meyer, professor at Rutgers University. “The uniform application of retributive punishment is central to the philosophy.” [ 12 ] As Robert Blecker, professor emeritus at New York Law School, further clarifies, “retribution is not simply revenge . Revenge may be limitless and misdirected at the undeserving, as with collective punishment. Retribution, on the other hand, can help restore a moral balance. It demands that punishment must be limited and proportional. Retributivists like myself just as strongly oppose excessive punishment as we urge adequate punishment: as much, but no more than what’s deserved. Thus I endorse capital punishment only for the worst of the worst criminals.” [ 13 ] “Sometimes, justice is dismissing a charge, granting a plea bargain, expunging a past conviction, seeking a prison sentence, or — in a very few cases, for the worst of the worst murderers — sometimes, justice is death…A drug cartel member who murders a rival cartel member faces life in prison without parole. What if he murders two, three, or 12 people? Or the victim is a child or multiple children? What if the murder was preceded by torture or rape? How about a serial killer? Or a terrorist who kills dozens, hundreds or thousands?” asks George Brauchler, District Attorney of the 18th Judicial District in Colorado. The nature of the crime, and the depth of its depravity, should matter. [ 14 ] Read More

Con 1 Not only is the death penalty not a deterrent to crime, it is very expensive. Advocates for capital punishment long argued that it deters crime, other criminal acts, but according to the ACLU, “There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates.” [24] “People commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill, giving little or no thought to the possible consequences of their acts,” the ACLU continues. “The few murderers who plan their crimes beforehand… intend and expect to avoid punishment altogether by not getting caught. Some self-destructive individuals may even hope they will be caught and executed.” [ 24 ] Further, the death penalty is significantly more expensive than life-without-parole, the oft-shunned alternative penalty. The death penalty system costs California $137 million per year while a system with lifelong imprisonment as the maximum penalty would cost $11.5 million, an almost 92% decrease in expense. The statistics are lower but comparable across other states including Kansas, Tennessee, and Maryland. [ 25 ] And this money has to come from somewhere, most often at the expense of taxpayers. In Texas, executions are funded “by raising property tax rates and by reducing public safety expenditure. Property crime rises as a consequence of the latter,” explains Jeffrey Miron of the Cato Institute. [ 26 ] Read More

Con 2 The death penalty is steeped in poor legal assistance and racial bias. The Equal Justice Initiative explains that the “death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent,” resulting in the punishment being ”mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire an effective lawyer” while “people of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed, especially if the victim in the case is white.” [ 20 ] The American Bar Association sets minimum qualifications for capital case lawyers, yet most death penalty states do not require lawyers to meet even those requirements, leaving defendants without the means to hire a private lawyer to face the court with inadequate counsel. [ 20 ] Further, erroneous eyewitness identifications, false and coerced confessions, false or misleading forensic evidence, misconduct by police, prosecutors, or other officials, and incentivized witnesses taint death row cases. [ 21 ] For every eight people on death row, one of them has later been found innocent. [ 20 ] The death penalty is inconsistently applied and most often applied to Black men who have killed a white person. While Black people made up only 13% of the American population in 2018, 41% of people on death row and 34% of those executed were Black. [ 20 ] This inequality should not be surprising considering the roots of the death penalty. Bryan Stevenson, capital defense attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, refers to the death penalty as the “stepchild of lynching .” [ 22 ] As journalist Josh Marcus explains, “Following the end of the Reconstruction period, which saw federal troops occupy the former Confederate states and enforce new legal and constitutional protections for Black people, lynching surged in the late 1800s, until it became all but a daily occurrence across America. Lynchings sometimes involved government officials like local law enforcement, and government officials began arguing for capital punishment as an alternative. It would still satiate the public’s appetite for violence against Black people, but under the auspices of the law, which at the time allowed for explicit racial segregation in all areas of life.” [ 22 ] A survey of executions found that 80% of executions occur in former Confederate states and mirror historic lynching sites. [ 22 ] [ 23 ] “We should be beyond the point of killing people for killing people. It’s so archaic,” concludes Rachel Sutphin, whose father Eric, a Deputy Sheriff in Virginia, was killed by an escaped prisoner who was, in turn, executed by lethal injection. [ 23 ] Read More

Con 3 The death penalty is immoral and amounts to torture. Many religions , from Catholicism to Judaism, not only oppose the death penalty but also call for its worldwide abolition. “Murder is calculated, unjustified and intentional taking of life. When we, under the supposed color of law, deliberate, decide, and plan the purposeful extinguishing of human life, we commit murder. The death penalty is murder,” explains Rabbi and former Assistant Ohio Public Defender Benjamin Zober. “We are commanded, ‘justice, justice, shall you pursue.’ (Deut. 16:20) We cannot do this by taking lives, acting in anger, or vengeance, or by creating more bloodshed, trauma, and pain…. There is a world in every person, every life…. ‘Anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.’ (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5).” [ 27 ] Robert Schentrup, brother of 16-year-old Carmen who died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 says, “This is the part where pundits on TV will invoke the name of my sister to support the murder of another human being. This is the part where people try to convince me that vengeance should make me feel better and that it will bring me ‘closure’ so that ‘I can continue to heal. But I do not … care, because my sister is dead, and killing someone else will not bring her back.” [ 28 ] Further, while the death penalty ultimately takes a life, the condemned person is subjected to what is otherwise considered physical and psychological torture before death. As law professor John Bessler explains “The death penalty, in fact, always and inevitably inflicts severe pain and suffering rising to the level of torture. That’s because capital charges and death sentences systematically threaten individuals with death (and, when death warrants against individuals are carried out, kill), with torture—prohibited by various domestic laws in addition to the bar in international law—considered to be the aggravated form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” [ 29 ] Certain methods of execution are especially tortuous: consider the 2024 nitrogen hypoxia execution of Kenneth Smith, which inflicted an intense struggle for air before he died 22 minutes after the execution began. In the United States, cruel punishment is explicitly banned by the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment . [ 29 ] [ 30 ] Read More

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15 Biggest Capital Punishment Pros and Cons

Capital punishment is defined as the authorized, legal killing of an individual as punishment for a crime that was committed. It is a government-sanctioned action which is often referred to as the “death penalty” in the United States.

Common crimes that are eligible for a sentence of capital punishment upon conviction include murder, espionage, and reason. Certain crimes against humanity, such as genocide, also qualify at an international level for capital punishment.

As of 2018, there are currently 56 countries, including the United States, which have retained capital punishment as an option for their system of criminal justice. On the other hand, 103 countries have completely abolished for all crimes, 6 have abolished it for ordinary crimes, while another 30 are abolitionist in its practice.

Despite this fact, about 60% of the world still lives in a country where the death penalty has been retained. Here are the capital punishment pros and cons to consider.

List of the Pros of Capital Punishment

1. It provides a deterrent against violent crime within a society. The goal of a law is to provide someone with a deterrent against a crime they wish to commit. As a society, violent crime is something to be avoided at all costs. To make that happen, the strongest deterrent is required. That is why capital punishment often applies to cases of first-degree murder or issues where the safety of an entire country was jeopardized. By telling people they’ll die, if convicted, for these serious crimes, the goal is to prevent the crime from happening in the first place.

2. It still provides a respectful outcome to a convicted individual. The modern death penalty in the United States as evolved into a process that is intended to be painless and effective. Lethal injections of medication cause a person to stop breathing and their heart to stop beating. Although shortages of drugs from manufacturers have created issues with executions in recent years, including people surviving the execution attempt, the process is much more compassionate than electrocution, firing squads, or hanging, which were common execution methods in the past.

3. It allows for a deserved punishment for horrific crimes. There is a point in time when someone who commits a horrific crime is beyond the point where rehabilitation is possible. Not only does capital punishment create a deserved punishment that I equal to the crime committed, it provides a safety net for the rest of the society. A sentence of death prevents that person from committing another horrific crime. It also reduces the influence that person would have on prison populations, which may influence behaviors and choices of non-violent offenders upon their release.

4. It prevents prisons from becoming over-populated. In the United States, there are more than 2.3 million people being held in state and federal prisons, local jails, Indian Country jails, juvenile correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, military prisons, and civil commitment centers. About 443,000 people have not been convicted of anything and are awaiting trial. Another 41,000 are in detention in immigration centers without conviction. On the other hand, 704,000 prisoners are labeled as violent offenders in state prisons. Capital punishment laws create space for potential rehabilitation without dealing with issues of prison over-population.

5. It eliminates sympathy for the criminal. Criminal justice should involve addressing the facts of the situation. Far too often, there is an emotional response to people charged with a capital crime, with sympathy being directed toward the individual or the family of the accused person. When someone is facing a trial, or the consequences of their actions, then the law should be able to address the actions in a way that discourages others from doing the same thing.

6. It offers zero chance of escape. When the death penalty is being implemented, there is no chance for the individual to escape the consequences of their actions. It eliminates the possibility of an illegal escape. Even if an individual manages to survive their execution attempt, the law allows for another attempt to be made. As John McAdams, a suspended associate professor of political science at Marquette University at the time of writing, describes the situation, “If we execute murders and there is no deterrent effect, then we have killed murders. If we fail to execute murderers, which would have deterred others from committing such a crime, then we would have allowed the killing of innocent victims.”

List of the Cons of Capital Punishment

1. It costs more to implement the death penalty than offer life in prison. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the average cost of a case without capital punishment involved is $740,000. For cases where the death penalty is sought be prosecutors, the average cost off the case is $1.26 million. In addition to the prosecution expenses, the cost of housing a prisoner on death row is $90,000 more per year, on average, then a prisoner in the general population. With the average length of time on death row at 15 years in the United States, housing a prisoner for execution may cost more than $1 million more than housing a prisoner for a life sentence.

2. It does not deter crime like it should. Data collected in the United States, as some states have capital punishment and others do not, shows that there is a clear discrepancy in the rates of violent crime. It should be in the states with the death penalty, but the opposite is the case. The states which have the most executions also have the highest murder rates. In recent years, Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico, and New York all abolished the death penalty and experienced a decrease in their murder rate in the following years.

3. It does not provide a sense of justice for the families of a victim. Although capital punishment may be the “ultimate” form of justice, it does not provide the sense of satisfaction for the families of a victim that many people think it does. Research by Marilyn P. Armour and Mark S. Umbreit, published in 2012 by the Marquette Law Review, found that family members of a victim experience higher levels of behavioral, physical, and psychological health when a perpetrator is given a life sentence that is enforced instead of the death penalty.

4. It is not the only way to ensure someone is never released from prison. The number of people serving life sentences in the United States is surging. About 162,000 people are currently serving a life sentence, which is 1 out of every 9 people. Another 45,000 people in the U.S. are serving an effective life sentence of 50 years or more before being eligible for parole. Incarceration rates for life sentences in the U.S. have risen by nearly 5 times the levels they were in 1984, even though crime is at historic lows. It is clear that there are options other than the death penalty to keep people in prison.

5. It puts the lives of innocent people at-risk within the criminal justice system. Since the 1970s, over 160 people have been exonerated after being initially convicted of a capital crime. Although we may never know how many people have been wrongly executed, there are recent examples of potential innocence. Cameron Willingham was executed for killing his three children in a fire at his home, despite the fact that 8 different experts say the conviction was based on faulty science. The case of Carlos DeLuna even brought a rebuke by Justice John Paul Stevens against the use of the death penalty because of the risks involved of killing an innocent person.

6. It does not provide a deterrent against non-violent crime either. In 2008, Indonesia executed two convicted Nigerians of drug-related offenses. The goal of the “emergency executions” was to deter drug use within the country, along with drug-related crime. The actual outcome, however, was much different than anticipated. In 2007, Indonesia experienced 22,630 drug-related arrests. In the year of the executions, there were 29,364 drug-related arrests. In 2009, there were 30,878 drug-related arrests. The number of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related crimes increased after each execution series for offenses as well. There are even 1.7 million more people using drugs in Indonesia after the executions.

7. It does not address the issue of crime in society. There will always be criminals who commit heinous crimes for personal pleasure. Yet 20% of the U.S. prison population involves people who have been locked up because of a drug offense. People who are in prison are reported statistically under the most violent offense from their conviction. It groups people with felony murder convictions with those who do not even commit the crime, like participating in a robbery where someone dies, but they did not pull the trigger.

8. It creates the possibility of sentencing children to death row. George Stinney was wrongly convicted of murder in 1944 in his hometown of Alcolu. At the time of his execution, he was only 14 years old. He was convicted in less than 10 minutes, in a 1-day trial, by a jury that was all-white. Stinney had been accused of killing two white girls, ages 11 and 7, and supposedly confessed to the crime, though no record of the confession was every found. Stinney was denied appeal and electrocuted. Although the Supreme Court ruled in March 2005 that the death penalty for anyone under the age of 18 is cruel and unusual punishment, other countries are not bound by such a ruling.

9. It eliminates the possibility of rehabilitation. There are criminals who prefer to live outside of the rules that society sets. These individuals may never be rehabilitated. The death penalty completely eliminates that possibility from the equation. Instead of allowing individuals an opportunity to make amends in some way, it automatically assumes that nothing can be done about that person. It suggests that society discards people based on their willingness to follow the rules, especially in nations where non-violent offenses qualify for capital punishment.

The pros and cons of capital punishment are often based on information that is faulty, misleading, or an outright lie. Although some societies may see temporary benefits from its implementation, the use of death as a deterrent against crime says more about the people who want it than the people who commit crime in the first place. At the very least, its presence risks the execution of an innocent person. At worst, it may encourage more violent crime in a society because the government sanctions violence as part of its systemic structures.

Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty

Plus Lists of Where It's Practiced and Banned

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B.A., Journalism and Nonfiction Writing, University of California, Los Angeles

Capital punishment, also dubbed the "death penalty," is the planned taking of a human life by a government in response to a crime committed by that legally convicted person.

Passions in the United States are sharply divided and run equally strong among both supporters and protesters of the death penalty.

Quotations from Both Sides

Arguing against capital punishment, Amnesty International believes:

"The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life...It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. There can never be any justification for torture or for cruel treatment."

Arguing for capital punishment, the Clark County, Indiana, prosecuting attorney writes:

"There are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, society has not only the right, but the duty to act in self-defense to protect the innocent."

And Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, wrote:

"The death penalty diminishes all of us, increases disrespect for human life, and offers the tragic illusion that we can teach that killing is wrong by killing."

Death Penalty in the United States

The death penalty has not always been practiced in the United States, although Time magazine, using research from M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla and data from the Death Penalty Information Center, estimated that in this country, more than 15,700 people have been legally executed since 1700.

The Depression-era 1930s, which saw a historic peak in executions, was followed by a dramatic decrease in the 1950s and 1960s. No executions occurred in the United States between 1967 and 1976.
In 1972, the Supreme Court effectively nullified the death penalty and converted the death sentences of hundreds of death row inmates to life in prison.
In 1976, another Supreme Court ruling found capital punishment to be constitutional. Since 1976, almost 1,500 people have been executed in the United States.

Latest Developments

The vast majority of democratic countries in Europe and Latin America have abolished capital punishment over the last 50 years, but the United States, most democracies in Asia, and almost all totalitarian governments retain it.

Crimes that carry the death penalty vary greatly worldwide , from treason and murder to theft. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have sentenced capital punishments also for cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.

Per Amnesty International's 2017 death penalty annual report, "Amnesty International recorded at least 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017, down by 4% from 2016 (1,032 executions) and 39% from 2015 (when the organization reported 1,634 executions, the highest number since 1989)." However, those statistics do not include China, known as the world's top executioner, because the use of the death penalty is a state secret. Countries in the table below with a plus sign (+) indicate that there were executions, but numbers were not received by Amnesty International.

Executions in 2017, by Country

China: +
Iran: 507+
Saudi Arabia: 146
Iraq: 125+
Pakistan: 60+
Egypt: 35+
Somalia: 24
United States: 23
Vietnam: +
North Korea: +
All other: 58 Source: Amnesty International

As of 2020, capital punishment in the United States is officially sanctioned by 29 states, as well as by the federal government. Each state with legalized capital punishment has different laws regarding its methods, age limits, and crimes that qualify.

From 1976 through October 2018, 1,483 felons were executed in the United States, distributed among the states as follows:

Executions from 1976–October 2018, by State

Texas: 555
Virginia: 113
Oklahoma: 112
Florida: 96
Missouri: 87
Georgia: 72
Alabama: 63
North Carolina: 43
South Carolina: 43
Louisiana: 28
Arkansas: 31
All others: 184

Source: Death Penalty Information Center

States and U.S. territories with no current death penalty statute are Alaska (abolished in 1957), Connecticut (2012), Delaware (2016), Hawaii (1957), Illinois (2011), Iowa (1965), Maine (1887), Maryland (2013), Massachusetts (1984), Michigan (1846), Minnesota (1911), New Hampshire (2019), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), New York (2007), North Dakota (1973), Rhode Island (1984), Vermont (1964), Washington (2018), West Virginia (1965), Wisconsin (1853), District of Columbia (1981), American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Moral Conflict: Tookie Williams

The case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams illustrates the moral complexities of the death penalty .

Williams, an author and Nobel Peace and Literature Prizes nominee who was put to death on December 13, 2005, by lethal injection by the state of California, brought capital punishment back into prominent public debate.

Williams was convicted of four murders committed in 1979 and sentenced to death. Williams professed innocence of these crimes. He was also co-founder of the Crips, a deadly and powerful Los Angeles–based street gang responsible for hundreds of murders.

About five years after incarceration, Williams underwent a religious conversion and, as a result, wrote many books and created programs to promote peace and to fight gangs and gang violence. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Literature Prize.

Williams admitted his life of crime and violence, which was followed by genuine redemption and a life of unusually good works.

The circumstantial evidence against Williams left little doubt that he committed the four murders, despite last-minute claims by supporters. There also existed no doubt that Williams posed no further threat to society and would contribute considerable good. His case forced public reflection on the purpose of the death penalty:

Is the purpose of the death penalty to remove from society someone who would cause more harm?
Is the purpose to remove from society someone who is incapable of rehabilitation?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to deter others from committing murder?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to punish the criminal?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to take retribution on behalf of the victim?

Should Stanley "Tookie" Williams have been executed by the state of California?

Exorbitant Costs

The New York Times penned in its op-ed "High Cost of Death Row ":

"To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty—it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately—we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets. "It is far from a national trend, but some legislators have begun to have second thoughts about the high cost of death row." (September 28, 2009)

In a 2016 California had the unique situation of having two ballot measures up for a vote that purported would save taxpayers millions of dollars per year: one to speed up existing executions (Proposition 66) and one to convert all death penalty convictions to life without parole (Proposition 62). Proposition 62 failed in that election, and Proposition 66 narrowly passed.

Arguments For and Against

Arguments commonly made for supporting the death penalty are:

To serve as an example to other would-be criminals, to deter them from committing murder or terrorist acts.
To punish the criminal for his/her act.
To obtain retribution on behalf of the victims.

Arguments commonly made to abolish the death penalty are:

Death constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . Also, the various means used by the state to kill a criminal are cruel.
The death penalty is used disproportionately against the poor, who cannot afford expensive legal counsel, as well as against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
The death penalty is applied arbitrarily and inconsistently.
Wrongly convicted, innocent people have received death penalty sentences, and tragically, were killed by the state.
A rehabilitated criminal can make a morally valuable contribution to society.
Killing human life is morally wrong under all circumstances. Some faith groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church, oppose the death penalty as not being "pro-life."

Countries that Retain the Death Penalty

As of 2017 per Amnesty International, 53 countries, representing about one-third of all countries worldwide, retain the death penalty for ordinary capital crimes, including the United States, plus:

Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

The United States is the only westernized democracy, and one of the few democracies worldwide, to not have abolished the death penalty.

Countries That Abolished the Death Penalty

As of 2017 per Amnesty International, 142 countries, representing two-thirds of all countries worldwide, have abolished the death penalty on moral grounds, including:

Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Holy See (Vatican City), Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niue, Norway, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia (including Kosovo), Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Timor-Leste, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela.

Some others have a moratorium on executions or are taking strides to abolish death penalty laws on the books.

“ Executions in the U.S. 1608-2002: The Espy File .” Death Penalty Information Center .

“ Executions Overview .” Death Penalty Information Center , 23 Oct. 2017.

“ The Death Penalty in 2017: Facts and Figures .” Amnesty International .

“ State by State .” Death Penalty Information Center .

“ The 2018 Death Penalty Facts and Figures You Need to Know .” Amnesty International .

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Capital punishment
Capital punishment - Arguments, Pros/Cons: Capital punishment has long engendered considerable debate about both its morality and its effect on criminal behaviour. Contemporary arguments for and against capital punishment fall under three general headings: moral, utilitarian, and practical. Supporters of the death penalty believe that those who commit murder, because they have taken the life ...
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Today, capital punishment is reserved for brutal and heinous crimes, such as first-degree murder. Some countries use the death penalty for repetitive violent crime, such as rape and sexual assault, or for specific drug offenses. Here are the pros and cons of the death penalty to review as we head into 2021 and beyond.
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Advantages of Capital Punishment. First, according to Zimring, death penalty eradicates criminal activities in a community (5). Indeed, capital punishment is an important mission for every person simply because it instills moral while discouraging criminal activities in society. Actually, dead victims would not commit more illegal actions ...
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The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information about capital punishment.… Close Search Search for: Search
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500+ Words Essay on Capital Punishment. Every one of us is familiar with the term punishment. But Capital Punishment is something very few people understand. Capital punishment is a legal death penalty ordered by the court against the violation of criminal laws. In addition, the method of punishment varies from country to country.
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Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments. 1. Legality. The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment's use).
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Most of the states have abolished capital punishment due to its advantages. 1. It is a sin to kill. Based on the Christian perception and thinking is that killing is a sin and in most states and countries whereby capital punishment has been abolished are Christian based, and do not agree with taking one's life no matter what he or she has done.
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Surely, there are a lot of ways to organise this essay. But here is one possible way of structuring the answer to produce a band 9 essay: Introduction: rephrase the topic and state your opinion. Body paragraphs: paragraph 1: disadvantages of death penalty. paragraph 2: advantages of death penalty. Conclusion: sum up the ideas from body ...
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Stoning - It is a kind of capital punishment in which the criminal is beaten to death. It's also the most agonizing technique of execution. Shooting - In this approach, the culprit is shot either in the head or in the chest. Hanging - In this method, the culprit is hanged till death. Source: Google. Also Read: Essay on Human Rights.
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capital punishment, execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law. The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment, though imposition of the ...
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Against Capital Punishment: Moral Argument: Many believe that the state does not have the moral right to take a life, regardless of the crime committed. Risk of Wrongful Execution: There's always the risk of executing an innocent person. Unlike other penalties, the death sentence is irreversible. Ineffectiveness as a Deterrent: Multiple studies ...
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Disadvantages Of Capital Punishment. I. Capital punishment is also called death penalty. It involves government certified execution of a person as a punishment for a crime. A crime that results in punishment of death is called a criminal crime. Such a crime, also known as a capital offense, includes murder, crimes against humankind, and war ...
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Since the convicted persons for capital punishment are violent individuals, the safety of prison guards, other prisoners and general public in case the convict escapes have been considered paramount. Therefore safety of all the stakeholders dictates and justifies continuity of capital punishment. The severe crimes should as well be accompanied ...
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List of the Cons of Capital Punishment. 1. It costs more to implement the death penalty than offer life in prison. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the average cost of a case without capital punishment involved is $740,000. For cases where the death penalty is sought be prosecutors, the average cost off the case is $1.26 million.
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Quotations from Both Sides. Arguing against capital punishment, Amnesty International believes: "The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life...It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

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