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Pro Death Penalty Essay

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A tactic dating back thousands of years, the death penalty has taken the lives of those society deems unfit, immoral, or evil. Currently in the United States 31 states practice the death penalty sentence (source). However, our country has struggled with the morality of the death penalty through its history and continues to debate the implications of this practice to this day. Proponents of the death penalty claim it deters violent crimes, serves as retribution, and costs less than the life in prison sentence. On the contrary, those who oppose the death penalty argue governments should not take lives, the system is racially biased, and it is immoral.
When it comes to the most heinous and gruesome crimes, those who support the death penalty …show more content…

Statically, “56% of death row inmates are black or Hispanic. However, although racial minorities comprise half of all murder victims nationwide, a far greater proportion (77%) of the victims in capital convictions were white” (the guardian). Likewise, many of the jury’s of which sentence minorities have been statistically white. This leads to the claim that a racially biased system exists in which the courts perpetrate minorities as more deserving of death then their white counterparts (ncadp.org). In addition to racial bias, opponents claim classist bias exists in that those in lower financial brackets are unable afford better attorneys or the finical support to go through the grueling appeals …show more content…

Likewise, they claim retribution is served to the victims and the victims family’s as “capital punishment celebrates the dignity of the humans whose lives were ended by the defendants predation” (PROCON TOP). Likewise, by executing those who have committed horrendous crimes, they are preventing the criminals from committing similar crimes in the future. The death penalty also deters similar crimes since death is the ultimate punishment and people typically fear death (balanced

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African Americans face harsher circumstances in death row sentencing’s than any other race. In a study published in 2009 by Scott Phillips, a University of Denver sociology and criminology professor, conducted research between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County, Texas when an astonishing “504 defendants were indicted for capital murder” (O’Hare, 2010). At the end of his research, Phillips found that “convicted capital murderers were six times more likely to get a death sentence when they killed married whites or Hispanics with college degrees and no criminal record — as opposed to unmarried black or Asian victims with records and no college degrees” (2010). Phillip’s study proves that death row sentencing is bias as African Americans were more likely to be put on death row if their victim was of a higher social class than them. Florida’s death penalty sentencing in recent years has been extreme.

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Eyewitnesses that falsely identify a person, perhaps because they looked a lot like the criminal. Furthermore, there are inmates that get a possible reduced sentence for testifying that the inmate or person charged confessed the crime to him/her. We have racial bias, which is, that in the states that do allow the death penalty, the majority of prosecutors and judges are white and the majority of criminals are non-white. Is that fair? Would the outcome be different if there was a more mixed ethnic diversity?

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criminal justice system, African Americans tend to be the victim of this punishment due to their race and class. defendant convicted of killing white victim is more likely to face death penalty than those convicted of killing non-white victims. The reason behind the racial disparity is that there is a problem in policy, implicit biases and structural disadvantages. The impact of race on capital sentencing is astonishing, since 1976 the U.S. has executed thirteen times more black defendants with white victim than white defendants with black victim. While criminal justice department claim they are color blind Such statistical states they are not color blind instead they are biased and not caring about the African Americans and minorities.

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In recent years, anti-death penalty propagandists have succeeded in stoking the fear that capital punishment is being carelessly meted out. Ironically, Of the 875 prisoners executed in the United States in modern times, not one has been retroactively proved innocent. The benefits of a legal system in which judges and juries have the option of sentencing the cruelest or coldest murderers to death far outweigh the potential risk of executing an innocent person. First and foremost, the death penalty makes it possible for justice to be done to those who commit the worst of all crimes. The execution of a murderer sends a powerful moral message: that the innocent life he took was so precious, and the crime he committed so horrific, that he forfeits

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Biased juries are usually influenced because of racial discrimination. Adding on to diverse juries, “It has been nearly impossible to be clear, according to advocates of increasing the jury's diversity” (Emmanual). There is racial prejudice causing unfair issues that African Americans experience with the police (Bryant). Juries with no diversity are prominently seen in court, which causes doubted trials. Characterized by Lee, the society shows that, “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee 117).

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Prioritizing death over life for what some criminals might call a mistake,

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George Woodworth once examined the death penalty rates among all death eligible defendants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between the years of 1983 and 1993. The results of their study proved that the odds of receiving the death penalty in Philadelphia increased by 38% when the accused was black. (“Race and the Death Penalty | American Civil Liberties Union”) This shows that the justice system is biased and proves that a black person is more likely to receive a death punishment for committing the same crime as a white person. Another example of discrimination is when death penalties are given to those that are poor and grow up in underprivileged backgrounds.

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The court system is constantly referred to as“unfair” due to racism occurring in different cases. Some members of different ethnicities have come forward saying that they receive more severe punishments than white people, this is an injustice to these other ethnicity members. This is incorrect because of the way the United States’ policies. America runs the justice system not on discrimination, but on how severe the the . Systematic racism is not present in current criminal justice systems.

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Another reason why the cards are stacked against African Americans and other minority groups is that their cases are decided by all-white or mostly white juries which is a commonplace in many areas. After presenting statistics and facts that highlight the faults of capital cases, government officials and politicians often state after it does not matter anymore from a legal standpoint that racial discrimination has affected sentencing for executions in the past. However, they say that “the current data are too scanty to support conclusions of continuing racial discrimination” (Zeisel, 1981, p. 4). An example of this would be how Solicitor General, Robert Bork, said in his amicus curiae regarding a study’s conclusion that there was racial discrimination involved in rape cases, but he proceeded to state that there was no proof that racial discrimination

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Introduction: Capital punishment has been a criminal sentence imposed in America since colonial times. During this particular time period, the penalty was used for different crimes that went against the social norms, such as horse stealing, rape, burglary, and slave rebellion. Today the death sentence is strictly used in murder cases and in thirty-two out of the fifty states and by the federal system in the United States. In these states, it is completely legal to use the ultimate punishment of death to incapacitate a criminal from committing any further harm to society (Marcus, 2007). Throughout American history, many individuals have supported the death penalty because they believe it is an effective way to deter crime.

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This leads to isolation of a section of a society. It has been found that those who kill whites are more probable of getting a death sentence than those killing African Americans or Hispanics (oadp.ord, n.d.). Both these points again prove that death punishment should be abolished because it causes excessive leakage of public funds and discrimination, both of which are not good for any country and

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