Death Penalty Essay

There ar several reasons to argue for making the destruction penalization il peglegal in the United States of America. The United States piece of music does not allow for unkind penalties as a sentence for shame. The finale penalty poses many jeopardys to the guiltless. valet de chambre whimsy supports the cessation of the close penalty. Poor and minorities suffer disproportionately from the decease penalty. jacket cr experience penalisation is not a discouragerent to crime. Putting peck to terminal by capital punishment is not follow effective. Putting people to devastation by capital punishment is inhumane and should be illegal.The U. S.Constitution states that, wild and unusual punishments (Amendment 8, 1791), should not be inflicted on its citizens. It is especially cruel in cases of botched executions. On April 22, 1983 in Alabama, it as well ask several jolts of 1,900 volts of electrical energy to hunt John Evans. On the third attempt another charge of elect ricity was sent through Johns body. Once again, his head and leg boiled (80, Canan, Burning at The Wire). In a 1994 case, Fierro v. Gomez, the United States govern Court for the Northern District of California reviewed evidence on the effectuate of the gas bedroom and supported Justice Brennans Eighth Amendment claim.The dally concluded that the time it takes for the lethal gas to kill an inmate feature with the degree of pain inflicted on the inmate warrants the use of another manner of execution (US Court for 9th Circuit). Brennan cited evidence that criminals penalise in the gas chamberby asphyxiationsuffered great pain over a return of minutes. Although most modern execution methods appear to be physically painless, appearances jakes be misleading. Renowned neurobiologists ar now providing evidence which show that it is scientifically and medically certain that termination by electrocution is not instantaneous.In the words of Harold Hillman, a prominent neurobiologist , remnant by electrocution whitethorn inflict un needful pain, physical violence, and mutilation (Hillman 174). The death penalty poses serious risk to the innocent. Due to inherent flaws in the US criminal justice corpse innocent people scram been wrongly convicted. The danger is that once an innocent person is executed it cannot be remedied. Excerpts from a 1993 report by a US Congress Subcommittee, states that no matter how c beful we are the chances are high that innocent persons have been or will be executed (deathpenaltyinfo. rg). In 1989 although no physical evidence linked Joseph Burrows to the strike of William Dulin, he was convicted and sent to shoemakers last Row.Witnesses later said they had been coerced by prosecutors and police. In summing up the appeal, Justice Harry Blackmun, stated that, an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent (deathpenaltyinfo. org). In 1994, a Texas court sentenced Michael Blair to death for the 1993 murder of 7-year old Ashley Estell.Mr. Blair could have stipendiary with his life. However a re-investigation of the case in May 2008 raise that no reasonable juror would have convicted applicant in light of newly ascertained evidence (cca. courts. state. tx. us). More innocent people continue to be released from death row. There have been 220 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history (innocenceproject. org). World opinion is in favor of abolishing the death penalty. The European Union campaigns for the customary abolition of the death penalty.Abolition of the death penalty is a unavoidableness for countries try outing EU membership. The EU Charter states that no one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed (Article II-2). Turkey has joined the growing recite of countries that advocate the abolishment of the death penalty. The Turkish Constitution states that, neither death penalty nor gene ral confiscation shall be imposed as punishment (Article 38, 9). Even in Central Asia where executions are part of a eagle-eyed tradition, several countries have limited or suspended the use of the death penalty.On June 26, 2006 the President of the Philippines Macapagal Arroyo passed into law a post horse abolishing the death penalty. The bill ratified their 1987 Constitution which states that, the death penalty shall not be imposed. every death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua (Article III, partitioning 19(1). In Africa, only six countries continue to impose the death penalty. On September 16, 2005, Liberia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.Article 1. 2 of the protocol states that, each State Party shall take all required measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction (http//www2. ohchr. org). Because poor and minorities a re disproportionately subjected to the death penalty, it should be prohibited. A United States Judiciary Subcommittee in 1994 found that, minorities are being prosecuted under federal death penalty law far beyond their proportion in the general universe of discourse (usdoj. gov). Most court appointed attorneys often lack the experience necessary for capital trials.Since ninety-five percent of death row inmates cannot afford their own attorney, (deathpenaltyinfo. org) a court attorney is usually appointed for them. During closing remarks in a murder trial in a 1985 case in Georgia (State v. Dungee), the defense attorney stated that, the defendant is poor and he is broke. Hes got an appointed lawyer (11th Cir. 1985). The defendant was found inculpatory and sent to Death Row. A 2003 Amnesty International report found that the juvenile offenders executed in Texas since 1998 were all African-Americans who committed their offenses at the long time of 17 (texasdeathpenalty. rg).No white juveniles have been sentenced to death row in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982. Since capital punishment does not deter criminal offenses, it should not be a legal form of punishment. A study by The New York Times in 2000 found that homicide rank had risen and fallen along roughly symmetrical paths in the states with and without the death penalty. The neighboring states of dough, with no death penalty, and Indiana, which regularly imposes death sentences and carries out executions, have had virtually indistinguishable homicide pastures. In 2007 the murder rate in Michigan was 676 (1. 76%) with a 10 gazillion population (disastercenter. com). While the murder rate in Indiana for the aforementioned(prenominal) period was 356 (1. 4%) with a population of 6. 3 million people (disastercenter. com).An analysis of the murder rate in Virginia second behind Texas in number of executions from 1976-2004 (94/944) and neighboring atomic number 101 show no significant d ifference. In 2007 the murder rate in Virginia was 406 with a 7. 7 million population (fbi. gov) and in Maryland for the same period it was 553 with a population of 5. million people (fbi. gov). It is also given(p) to compare states with high and low rates of execution as a result of the death penalty. A good comparison for this scenario is Oklahoma, which executed 75 candidates between 1976 and 2004, and Pennsylvania, which executed three. In 2004, Pennsylvania had a descend wickedness Index of 2,995. 3 reported incidents per 100,000 people (disastercenter. com). Whereas, Oklahoma had a total Crime Index of 4,558. 6 reported incidents per 100,000 people (disastercenter. com) in 2004.Although the crime index is not restricted to murders, Oklahomas numbers are significantly higher than Pennsylvanias. The death penalty is greet-prohibitive and should be illegal. A system with a death penalty is vastly more big-ticket(prenominal) than one where the maximum penalty is keeping murde rers in prison for life. In the State of California the additional cost of confining an inmate to Death Row, is $90,000 per year, per inmate (ccfaj. org). California could save about $90,000,000 per year by abolishing the death penalty and re-sentencing all of its Death Row inmates to life imprisonment.In Maryland an average capital-eligible case in which prosecutors do not seek the death penalty cost $1. 1 million. A capital-eligible case in which prosecutors unsuccessfully seek the death penalty cost $1. 8 million and a case resulting in a death sentence costs approximately $3 million. From 1978-1999 seeking the death penalty in 162 cases has cost tax payers of Maryland $186 million more than what those cases would have cost had the death penalty not been sought (Urban Institute Report, 2008).In Indiana the cost of a death penalty trial and direct appeal altogether is more than five times the cost of a life without unloose trial and direct appeal (in. gov). This was the conclusi on from a 2002 Indiana unlawful Law Study conducted for the then Governor of Indiana Frank OBannon. From 1973 to 1988, the state of Florida spent an average of $3. 2 million per execution (in. gov). seam line, life in prison is one-sixth as expensive Miami Herald, July 10, 1988. The death penalty is in itself useless and has created counterproductive results in deterring the crime of murder.It wastes tremendous resources on a handful of cases, to the detriment of measures that may provide essential rehabilitation. The United States is currently the only industrialized nation actively carrying out convicted felons by capital punishment. Considering that all human lives have an innate lever it is inherently wrong to take one as a wreak to compensate for one thats been lost. The death penalty remains pregnant with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake Justice Harry A. Blackmun, February 22, 1994. Our future generations will look rear and shudder at the barbaric a cts we practice today.