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The Controversial Issue Of The Death Penalty

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Death Penalty Research Paper
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a practice where a person is put to death as a punishment of a crime. In the past it has been popular to hang people for their crimes or actions, especially in the distant past. Now in recent years, countless people have questioned the use of capital punishment and several countries around the world since the 1800’s have abolished the death penalty (Issit and Newton 1), but the United States of America is not one of them. The death penalty is a controversial issue because it gives people the ability to kill others for their actions, but really it is an issue of whether or not it is a form of cruel and unusual punishment? Death Penalty should not be legal because …show more content…

Georgia, and they ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional because capital punishment violates the eighth amendment which is no cruel and unusual punishment (Bowman and DiLascio 3). However, in the year 1976 in the supreme court case of Gregg v. Georgia. The supreme court decided to reinstate the death penalty. Several organizations form after this particular supreme court decision. They wanted a change to the current state of capital punishment. During that time states decided whether or not someone gets executed for their crime. Later on, in a 2007 supreme case of Uttech v. Brown, the Supreme Court ruled “states can remove jurors from serving on death penalty cases if they have a moral objection to capital punishment” (Bowman and DiLascio 3). After the Supreme Court weighed in on the issue, death sentences have declined by 75% percent (“Death Penalty: Guide” 4). States still can execute death sentences, but it is less than before the Furman v. Georgia case. Even if the states want to give death sentences to criminals, it comes at the cost of money to taxpayers. There was an study by the Death Penalty Information Center says that in recent years, the evidence has shown that “the death penalty process consumes tremendous amounts of money and resources and fails to deter criminals” (Ballaro and Cushman 2). Also, this study looked at the state of Maryland and the state of California, and found that taxpayers had to pay $186 million dollars for the past 30 years of executions in that state of Maryland which was the result of five executions during that time period. For the state of California, this study found that it had the “largest death row in the country because they spent over $4 billion dollars on the death penalty since 1978 while carrying only just 13 executions” (Ballaro and Cushman 2). With the argument that life imprisonment without parole is more expensive,

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Robert Evnen, Co-founder of Nebraskans for the death penalty agrees with the expense of the death penalty but blames the cost on “decades of appeals.” He even comes up with a suggestion to fix the cost by “limiting the number of appeals.” Evnen understands that numbers don’t lie, but relizes that most of the cost comes from multiple trials and appeals. He believes that the death penalty is appropriate in certain times and comes up with a plan to limit the amount of money coming from taxpayers

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The U.S Supreme Court ruled that the way Florida handed down death penalties was unconstitutional, after 2 months of being strike down they updated their law. The major reason why the structure was not working was the fact that the judged were handing down the death penalty while the jurors were used to advise. The new law made it so that receiving the death penalty became a difficult thing to do, soon after Florida changed their laws on the death penalty an Alabama judge throughout the death penalty for the same reason Florida was strike down for. The state of Alabama used the same method when it came down to giving the death penalty, judged would give it out while the jury would just advise. The state of Utah surprisingly removed the death penalty and no longer allows

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Although Texas is the state with the greatest number of death row sentences and executions, it has one of the highest crime rates in the entire nation. Therefore, the death penalty is ineffective because it does not diminish the incidence of crimes, take the life of innocent people, is racially unequal, costly, and alternative measure can be implemented

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Ever since the outset of the American Constitution, capital punishment has existed as a crime sentence in the United States. However, in recent decades, this topic has become highly controversial, as many states have dictated against the death penalty. Although states with this position on capital punishment are increasing, some states, such as Texas, have continued to edict this practice in their provinces. In the State of Texas, the sentence to death upon a person should not be permitted due to the fact it can wrongly convict a person, its court trial is highly expensive, and it brings forth an unjust treatment.

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The mandatory legal processes designed to prevent innocent individuals from being executed is a long, cumbersome, and expensive process. Death row spending in California from 1978-2011 was $4 Billion, and the execution tally is 13 inmates, that is over 300 million each (Pilkington, 2011). But even with

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During the first half of the twentieth century “six states completely outlawed the death penalty and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official” (“Introduction to the Death penalty”). This was done because they wanted to use it only when a heinous crime was committed. Many U.S citizens were afraid and panicked when the threat of the Russian Revolution happened. So this lead “five of the six abolitionist states reinstated their death penalty in 1920s” (“introduction to the Death penalty”).

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It leads to wastage of the taxpayer’s money. Capital punishment litigations cost taxpayers much more than the ones seeking life without parole. Criminal cases for death punishment lead to excessive usage of the legal system including the very valuable days in the court. A state spends an average of $150,000 on a case for life sentence without parole while this cost could go up to almost $3.5 million for death penalty cases (Holloway, 2015). Another reason that capital punishment should be done away with as soon as possible is because death penalty is unevenly applied and race has been found to be discriminatory factor while awarding death penalty.

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The death penalty should be used nationally in America. It has the potenetial to help America in its current economic condition, and help with the fear culture in todays present society, & has little to no cons. In today society there is a economic system in place that has many out of work or people struggling to make ends meat to supply for their family. Many of wich could greatly benefit from the help of the government with situations such as food, medical aid, housing, and schoolarships to schools to be provided education so they can be more of an adiqeit and beneficial useful member of our society, but with this same system people who have commited some of the most hanous crimes imaginable to our society receive free food, housing, clothing,

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