Death penalty argument

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Phu Si Vo Comp. I 05/10/06

Death Penalty: An Argumentative Essay

One questions “Should capital punishment be a law?” and a debate is heated on. Last week, I asked the daring question and my brother Hieu answered “No! Everybody has a right to live and it is not right to take away another person’s life. They should be sent to life imprisonment instead.” Just then, Hieu’s girlfriend Lisa interrupted and said, “No. They should be sentenced to death because they killed another person’s life.” I smiled and replied, “Lisa, I don’t think you’re right mainly because death sentence wastes resources, executes the innocence, demonstrates cruelty, and unfair in the way in which the courts have sentenced some person to prison but others to death” Researchers have shown that it is cheaper to imprison a prisoner than to execute him. For example, a 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison (Bedau). Another study in Maryland compared the capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years 1979 to 1984 and concluded that a death penalty case costs 42% more than a case resulting in non-death sentence (Bedau). In addition, a case study in Florida has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence (Bedau).

Capital punishment is cruel, as the U.S. court of Appeals observed, there is “substantial and uncontroverted evidence…that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…Even a slight error dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying (Bedau).” In one out of four cases, executioners have difficulty finding a suitable vein for the injection (Stewart). For example, in 1985 “the authorities repeatedly jabbed needles into…Stephen Morin, when they had trouble finding a usable vein because he had been a drug abuser (Bedau).” Or take the case of prisoner Raymond Landry in 1988. "Two minutes into the execution," reports one expert, "the syringe came out of Landry's vein, spraying deadly chemicals across the room toward witnesses. The observation curtain was pulled for fourteen minutes while the execution team reinserted the catheter into the vein (Stewart)." The other alternative – electric chair – is widely used in 11 states. The criminal is seated in a chair. Electrodes are attached to the head and legs. An initial 1900 volts of electricity is flicked and the body temperature rises to 140°F, erupting sparks and flames. Often smoke rises from the head, spreading the awful odor of burning flesh (“Electric”). As noted in the case of Mr. John Evans, the first jolt of electricity passed through his body and the doctors declared that he was not dead. Mr. Evans was administered a second jolt of electricity and the doctors reported that his heart was still beating. It took the third charge of 1900 volts of electricity and fourteen minutes to execute Mr. Evans (Bedau). Capital punishment has unjustifiably executed innocent people, as Judge Jed Rakoff conceded, “The Court found that the best available evidence indicates that, on the one hand, innocent people are sentenced to death with materially greater frequency than was previously supposed and that, on the other hand, convincing proof of their innocence often does not emerge until long after their convictions. It is therefore fully foreseeable that in enforcing the death penalty, a meaningful number of innocent people will be executed who otherwise would eventually be able to prove their innocence (Dieter).” The flaw of the judicial system is further evident as James Liebman and his colleagues found that the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was 68% (Rutherford). Since 1973, 123 people in 25 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence (“Innocence”). Capital punishment has been unfairly carried out, mainly because racial discrimination is playing at large. Between 1930 and 1990, 54.6% of those executed for murder in the United States were black, whereas only 10% of the nation’s population is African-Americans. The overrepresentation of African-American is also common in execution for rape and burglary. From 1930 to 1976, 89.5% of men executed for rape were black (Wolfgang and Riedel, 123). Another statistical study indicates that “the average odds of receiving a death sentence among all indicted cases were 4.3 times higher in cases with white victims (Bedau). Worst, Wolfgang and Riedel have shown that “black defendants whose victims were white were sentenced to death approximately eighteen times more frequently than defendants in any other racial combination of defendant and victim (130).” Further more, researchers indicated that none of the nonracial factors could account for the statistically significant and disproportionate number of blacks sentenced to death for rape – id est- it cannot be said that blacks are more frequently sentenced to death because they have a longer prior criminal record than whites, because they committed a robbery or burglary, because they used a weapon or threatened the victim with a weapon, because they impregnated the victim, because they more frequently attacked person under age sixteen, etc. (Wolfgang and Riedel, 132). Thus, all the above evident led to the conclusion that “the significant racial differentials found in the imposition of the death penalty are indeed produced by racial discrimination (Wolfgang and Riedel, 133). Going back to Lisa’s opinion “they should be sentenced to death because they killed another person’s life.” Is that not that same as to said, I should poke your eyes out because you poked mine? But that is contradictory to Gandhi’s all knowing wisdom, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind (“Learning”).” To exacerbate the situation, Martin Luther King Jr. knew killing a life for a life only turn a drop of blood into a river…for “the ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increased hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…the chain reaction of evil- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars- must be broken, or we shall plunge into the dark abyss of annihilation (“Martin”).” Therefore, sentencing a murderer to death does not justify another person’s death, but only worsen the situation. Even Kerry Kennedy (daughter of Robert Kennedy) knew, “I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder…But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn’t want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, ‘Please, God. Please don’t take his life too! I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family –another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief (Bedau).” Proponents claim that capital punishment deters capital crimes more effectively than imprisonment. However, statistical findings and case studies converge to disprove claim that the death penalty has any special deterrent value. An analysis on the deterrence theory shows that the homicide rate does not consistently fall as the risk of execution increases (Schuessler, 60). Further more, the risk of execution and the homicide rate fail to reach the 0.05 significant levels, indicating that the death penalty has little if anything to do with the relative occurrence of murder (Schuessler, 61). Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended (Macdonald, 93). Thus, capital punishment fails to make any difference to the murderer’s decision, as noted in the following conversation between Lawes and a prisoner, Before Morris Wasser’s execution, when I told him that the governor had refused him a last-minute respite, he said bitterly: “All right, Warden. It doesn’t make much difference what I say now about this here system of burning a guy, but I wan to set you straight on something” “What’s that?” I asked. “Well, this electrocution business is the bunk. It don’t do no good, I tell you, and I know, because I never thought of the chair when I plugged that old guy. And I’d probably do it again if he had me on the wrong end of a rod.” “You mean,” I said, “that you don’t feel you’ve done wrong in taking another man’s life?” “No, Warden, it ain’t that,” he said impatiently. “I mean that you just don’t think of the hot seat when you plug a guy. Somethin’ inside you just makes you kill, ‘cause you know if you don’t shut him up it’s curtains for you.” “I see. Then you never even thought of what would happen to you at the time.” “Hell, no! And lots of other guys in here, Harry and Brick and Luke, all says the same thing. I tell you the hot seat will never stop a guy from pullin’ a trigger (Schuessler, 62).” In conclusion, death sentence wastes resources, executes the innocence, demonstrates cruelty, and has been shown to carries out unfairly. In addition, death sentence does not deter crime nor does retribution justifies the act of killing the murderer. Therefore, death penalty is an unacceptable and ineffective method of punishment and has been largely replaced with imprisonment, in which the emphasis is being put on more and more scientific program of rehabilitation (Caldwell, 52).

Works Cited

Bedau, Hugo Adam. “The Case Against The Death Penalty.” Washington, DC. The Case Against the Death Penalty. American Civil Liberties Union. 3 May 2006 < http://users.rcn.com/mwood/deathpen.html>.

Caldwell, Robert G. “Why Is the Death Penalty Retained?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 284 (Nov. 1952): 45-53. Dieter, Richard C. “Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty.” Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty. Sept. 2004. Death Penalty Information Center. 10 May 2006 < http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=1149>. “Electric Chair.” 10 May 2006. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. 10 May 2006 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair>. “Innocence and the Death Penalty.” Innocence and the Death Penalty. Death Penalty Information Center. 10 May 2006 <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=412&scid=6>. “Learning English - Moving Words.” Moving Words. BBC World Service. 10 May 2006 < http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/movingwords/>.

MacDonald, Arthur. “Death Penalty and Homicide.” The American Journal of Sociology 16.1 (July 1910): 88-116. “Martin Luther King, Jr.” 8 May 2006. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. 10 May 2006 <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.>. Rutherford, Andrew. “The Death Penalty on Trial.” Britannica Book of the Year, 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 10 May 2006 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9389617>.

Schuessler, Karl F. “The Deterrent Influence of the Death Penalty.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 284 (Nov. 1952): 54-62.

Stewart, Gail B. “The Death Penalty Is Legally Unjust.” The Death Penalty. Ed. Opposing Viewpoints Digests Series. Greenhaven Press, 1998.

Wolfgang, Marvin E. and Marc Riedel. “Race, Judicial Discretion, and the Death Penalty.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 407 (May, 1973): 119-33.