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Abolish the Death Penalty!
28 November 2005
by Michelle Calderon, staff writer for AnaiRhoads.org
Every western democracy except the USA has abolished the death penalty. While equal justice activists promote an "eye for an eye" policy, many argue the actual reasoning for its place in our justice system. Controversies on the issue involve the rulings of Criminal Appeals in death penalty cases that provide contradictory and sometimes bizarre decisions. One example shows the consistent refusal to uphold the appeals of death row inmates, even when clear violations of the law or Constitution have taken place. There are issues that involve the possibility of an innocent man mistakenly put to death. Lack of adequate counsel and legal representation for any capital defendants violates International fair trial standards. Some question the deterrence affect it actually has on criminals. Race, ethnic origin and economic status appear to be key determinants on who will and will not receive a sentence of death. The Jury selection process may be tainted by racial factors and unfairness. The politics behind the death penalty raises doubt as to the objectivity of its imposition.
The death penalty will not help solve social problems or build a more harmonious society. Other solutions need to be sought. In a 1990 report, the U.S. General Accounting Office found "a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty" (a, 1998). The study concluded that a defendant was several times more likely to be sentenced to death if the murder victim was white. From initial charging to plea bargaining to jury sentencing, African-Americans are treated more harshly when they are defendants. In fact, all-white or virtually all-white juries are still commonplace in many localities. "Of the 168 persons executed between January 1977 and April 1992, only 29 had been convicted of the killing of a nonwhite, and only one of these 29 was white. Between 1930 and 1990, African-Americans were about 12 percent of the nation's population. During this period 4,016 persons were executed in the USA. Of these, 2,129 (or 53 percent) were African-Americans" (a, 1998).
Furthermore, in a 1987 study covering 1900 to 1985 found that "350 people were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death; 23 were executed" (a, 1998). The death penalty also costs more than life imprisonment. A 1992 Dallas Morning News study found that the cost of a capital trial and all subsequent appeals is an average of $2.3 million per case. This does not include the cost of the federal appeals process where 50 percent to 70 percent of the death sentences are overturned. (By comparison, the cost of housing an inmate in a single cell maximum security unit for life is approximately $750,000" (a, 1998).
Others state the death penalty is anti-poor. Approximately ninety-percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were tried. While the International standards prohibit the execution of people who were under 18 at the time of the crime, juvenile offenders are executed in the USA. Since 1990, only 5 countries have executed people for crimes committed as children: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and USA. The USA has executed more than the other 4 combined. Also, the retarded and seriously mentally ill are executed. Texas allows for the execution of people with mental retardation, "a condition indicated by an IQ of 70 or below" (a, 1998). Since 1995, at least 1/3 of executed Texas prisoners had serious claims of competency and/or mentally illness.
Finally, claims that execution deters numbers of murders have been discredited by social science research. The death penalty has no deterrent effect on most murders because "people commit murders largely in the heat of passion, and/or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, giving little thought to the possible consequences of their acts. The few murderers who plan their crimes beforehand for example, professional executioners intend and expect to avoid punishment altogether by not getting caught. Some self-destructive individuals hope they will be caught and executed" (Goldberg, 1989, p. 128).
There seems to be no purpose to the death penalty beside a cruel "revenge" that our own justice system abhors and punishes when vigilantes decide to take justice into their own hands. Unless there is a system to determine and implement absolute fairness to those who are sentenced and to those who are executed, unless there is a zero possibility that innocence could be questioned, unless everyone believe it is morally right, the death sentence should be abolished in every criminal justice system. Just the possibility of saving "one" innocent man from wrongful persecution, is worth condemning such punishment.
References:
a. (2005). Abolish the Death Penalty. The Houston Chronicles. Retrieved October 7, 2005, from: http://www.tcadp.org/factsAndFigures.htm
Goldberg, S. (2001). Should the Death Penalty be abolished? (128).
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