Capital Punishment, better known as the death penalty. This topic may be one of the most debated in the United States. Many of those who support the death penalty also believe in the famous saying “an eye for an eye”. This is just another way for them to justify their support for this law and to ignore the fact that they have blood, of innocent people executed under this law, on their hands. Throughout the years some states have chosen to step away from using this system, as I believe it has no actual benefits. I am not in favor of the death penalty for the following three reasons: the government spends millions of tax payer dollars, each year, processing these cases, the death penalty is irreversible, and it is an ineffective deterrence to crime.
First, I am not in favor of the death penalty because the government spends millions of dollars a year implementing this law. Depending on the state, a death penalty case tends to cost about two to four times as much as a non-death penalty case. These costs are only for the trial and they continue to accumulate after the sentence. Not only are the trials more expensive, but also each capital case has to go through a long and complex judicial process and appeals.
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Contrary to the beliefs of capital punishment supporters, not everyone sentenced to death is guilty. In fact since 1973, more than 150 people on death row have been exonerated. While it is difficult to determine the exact amount of people who were wrongfully executed, it is estimated to be about twenty. If over 150 people have been taken off of death row because they were found innocent, there is no telling how many of those that were executed were also innocent. Execution is final; there is no going back, there is no redo once that person is gone. Whether due to misrepresentation by lawyers, coercion of a false confession, or even faulty evidence, innocent people have and continue to be sentenced to the death