23nd Annual Bill of Rights
Art and Essay Contest, 2006-2007

TOPIC: Should we stop the death penalty?

1st Prize, High School
Awarded to a 12th-grade Pacific Grove High School student

The Cost of State Sponsored Death

America, the beacon of freedom and liberty, is the one of the last western civilizatons on the planet to continue the practice of capital punishment. The landmark Supreme Court case Gregg V. Georgia allowed for the resuscitation of the death penalty, after years of disuse. The following decades have seen a dramatic rise in states authorizing the death sentence on inmates, and today over 3,500 inmates (an alarming number of them are minorities or are mentally retarded) await their demise on death row. Should the United States, a civilized nation, accept and practice such a cruel practice, that is most commonly based on the income rate and the color of the accused' skin? The answer is no; the taking of one life in exchange for another is immoral and does not act as a deterrent for murderers. Furthermore, the death penalty is expensive, claims innocent lives, and is racially biased.

Mahatma Gandhi once said "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." On moral grounds, killing is wrong, no matter the circumstance. State sponsored executations are now uncommon; almost one-hundred-fifty countries have abolished the death penalty, and America is the last industrialized western nation to continue the practice. The "eye for an eye" argument has no place in civilized society. The nonprofit organization Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation is a coalition of families seeking to abolish the death penalty and having their voices heard. They are determined to show that family members of murder victims do not wish other families to cope with the pain of losing a loved one. It is proven that institutionalized executation does not deter potential murderers; states without the death penalty have lower crime rates, while Oklahoma and Texas, states with the most executions per year, also have the highest murder rates. The threat of being executed is unlikely to deter anyone under the influence of narcotics, or those that have anger management issues, or those who suffer from mental instabilities. A recent FBI study concluded that ten our of the twelve states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the nationwide average (Amnesty International). The facts are clear: the death penalty does not deter potential criminals. Money spent to keep such an ineffective punishment in practice would be better spent elsewhere.

On Sept. 9, 1999, The Joint Legislative Budget Committee of the California Legislature determined that "The elimination of the death penalty would result in a new savings to the state of at least several tens of millions of dollars annually, and a net savings to local governments in the millions to tens of milllions of dollars on a statewide bases...the estimated costs for the death penalty totaled near 160 million dollars, approximately twenty-three million for each person sentenced to death" (Amnesty International). The processes of death sentence trials are long and fraught with special motions and extra investigation time. Prosecuters must spend many more hours investigating the case, which itself is divided into two conviction and sentencing portions. Most legal costs are spent before and during the two phases of the trial. The money the state must spend on the proceedings, lawyers, and investigations, is taken from law enforcement agencies and crime prevention measures. Taxpayers must also share in the burden, paying for portions of trial proceedings and the cost of retrials and incarceration. Does such an ineffective and morally corrupt punishment warrent such a costly process? Unfortunately, a vast majority of defendents facing death cannot even afford an attorney. After the exhaustive legal proceedings, with millions of dollars spent, the possibility of executing an innocent person remains.

More than one hundred people have been released from death row due to evidence of wrongful convictions since 1973. In the last two years, ten more have been exonerated. Defendants who suffer wrongful convictions usually have inaquate legal representation. State appointed lawyers are most commonly inexperienced or indifferent to their client's case. If one cannot afford the legal expenses, and the lawyer is inexperienced or indifferent, then due process of law has not occurred. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution protects states depriving life without due process of law and death penalty cases often break this sacred law. Corrupted police practices lead to the death conviction for Madison Hobley; officers extracted confessions of Mr. Hobley's guilt through torture and harassment. Mr. Hobley was later pardoned by Governor George Ryan, who stated "I cannot support a sytem which, in its own administration, has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life" (Amnesty International). The advances in DNA testing have lead to the clearing of many convictions, freeing innocents from crimes they did not commit. Yet, thousands still await their deaths, and an alarming fifty-seven percent of death row inmates are African American.

Race plays a big role in whether prosecutors will persue the death penalty for a defendant. The 1990 U.S. General Accounting Office report found that a defendent was far mmore likely to be sentenced to death if the murder victim was white. The race of the victim is a reliable predictor of whether the accused will face death (ACLU Death Penalty Task Force). Though African Americans only make up twelve percent of the United States population, more than half of the thirty-five hundred people executed by the govenment have been black. The majority of those thirty-five hundred people have a low income, and eighty percent of the incarcerated live in the historically racist Southern United States. Patterns show that a Caucasian who murders an African American is far less likely to even be charged with the death penalty, much less be convicted. America's past history of racial intolerance continues in the courtrooms of the south, north, east, and west. These racial disparities do not offer equal justice, a provision protected by the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

Capital punishment: racially discriminating, costly, unconstitutional, and ineffective at stopping potential criminals. The death penalty paints a negative picture of America, a country that should, and could, be a beacon of justice and equality. Clearly that goal cannot be reached when the death penalty is still practiced and accepted for an appropriate punishment. Until abolishment, capital punishment will continue to hurt more than it heals, cost more that it cures, and further subjugate the poor and downtrodden to the ultimate punishment: death.

Sources

American Civil Liberties Union (2006). The death penalty project.

Retrieved November 15, 2006, from www.aclu.org/capital/facts/

Amnesty International (2006). Program to abolish the death penalty.

Amnesty International Publications...
 

Retrieved November 15, 2006, from www.amnestyusa.org/abolish