Argumentative Essay: The Death Penalty In The United States

796 Words4 Pages

In the United States today, 1,446 people have been put to death. The death penalty is a cruel punishment of execution, that ends someone's life for a crime. The majority of death penalty cases include the execution of murderers but can be applied for treason, espionage, and various other crimes. Lethal injection is wrongly used to put an end to human life. Within the years, people have passed a painful, cruel death. How would you feel if someone you loved was sentenced to death? Not only is the death penalty brutal, but it also isn't fair in regards to gender, race, and economics. The death penalty should not be allowed. Firstly, according to studies, gender has a role in the total say. Women are not sentenced to death nearly as …show more content…

It's been shown that jurors in Washington are three times more likely to sentence a black defendant to the death penalty than a white defendant in a comparable case. As of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black. Compared that with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims. Studies show that in Louisiana, the odds of the death penalty are 97% higher for those whose victim was white than for those whose victim was black. As if that is not enough, a study in North Carolina has proven that the likeliness of receiving the death penalty rose by three and a half times for those defendants whose victims were white. People argue that the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments have ended racism throughout the United States, however racism is something dealt with everyday, in schools, on the streets, and even in this serious …show more content…

Death penalty is more expensive, because it involves more lawyers, experts, and time. The defense cost of the death penalty is four times the cost of a normal punishment. Back in 2011, U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Arthur L. Alarcón and Attorney Paula Mitchell published a massive study arguing that the death penalty had cost Californians 4 billion dollars since 1978. They found that jury selection could take as much as a month longer in death penalty trials and cost roughly $200,000 more than in other murder trials. As support for the death penalty declines, Mitchell said, it takes longer — more paid hours on the part of attorneys, the judge, and court staff — to find twelve jurors who are willing to impose the punishment. In Maryland, the cost of the death penalty is three million dollars- the eventual cost for tax payers for cases throughout 1978 and 1979 rose to $186 million. In Texas, the average cost of the death penalty is around 2.3 million dollars, which is three times the cost for a single cell in the presence of the highest security for forty years. Even though the death penalty could prevent future tragedy, its cost hurts our nation far