The death penalty is possibly the most indefensible barbarism still practiced in the U.S. Forgetting the fact that estimates identify at least one-fifth of all death row inmates as innocent. Forgetting that a person committing the same action as the government paid worker would be charged with murder in the first degree. Forgetting all the people who care for the death row inmate and are hurt when he or she is executed. The death penalty is still wrong.
When arguing in favor of an action, in this case executing a convicted murderer, the burden of proof is upon the proponent to establish that action is necessary. So therefore, what does executing a murderer accomplish?
The first argument pro-deathers offer is that the death penalty reduces crime. Accepting this as true (ignoring the fact that it has not been proven that the death penalty reduces crime any more than simply removing those criminals from society permanently does), the concept of killing one group of innocent people (usually poor and/or black) to help reduce the deaths of another group (usually rich and/or white) is simply repugnant to me and I would hope to anyone else.
The second argument offered is usually a small quote from the Bible that is offered as "An eye for an eye." All debates over translation and context aside, and also ignoring that this reference would imply that all rapists should be raped, all thieves stolen from, and all jaywalkers run over by a taxi, the United States has a simple concept called "separation of church and state." What this means is that a Bible verse cannot be cited as a foundation for a law that will affect Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, Atheists and any other number of religious affiliations who might not believe in that God handing down our laws.
If any reasonable argument could be offered for the legitimacy of the death penalty, I would hear it with open ears, but until that time, the argument of "Why not?" is a somewhat hollow reason to put a person to death.
Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, District of Columbia
US States with death penalty, their method of execution, and number executed:
Alabama, electrocution, 30 Arizona, choice of lethal injection or gas, 22 Arkansas, choice of lethal injection or electrocution, 26 California, choice of lethal injection or gas, 11 Colorado, lethal injection, 1 Connecticut, lethal injection, 0 Delaware, choice of lethal injection or hanging, 13 Florida, choice of lethal injection or gas, 59 Georgia, electrocution, 37 Idaho, lethal injection or firing squad, 1 Illinois, lethal injection, 12 Indiana, lethal injection, 11 Kansas, lethal injection, 0 Kentucky, lethal injection, 2 Louisiana, lethal injection, 27 Maryland, choice of lethal injection or gas, 4 Mississippi, lethal injection, 6 Missouri, choice of lethal injection or gas, 61 Montana, lethal injection, 2 Nebraska, electrocution, 3 Nevada, lethal injection, 11 New Hampshire, lethal injection or hanging, 0 New Jersey, lethal injection, 0 New Mexico, lethal injection, 1 New York, lethal injection, 0 North Carolina, lethal injection, 34 Ohio, choice of lethal injection or electrocution, 15 Oklahoma, lethal injection or firing squad, 75 Oregon, lethal injection, 2 Pennsylvania, lethal injection, 3 South Carolina, choice of lethal injection or electrocution, 32 South Dakota, lethal injection, 0 Tennessee, choice between lethal injection or electrocution, 1 Texas, lethal injection, 339 Utah, choice between lethal injection or firing squad, 6 Virginia, choice between lethal injection or electrocution, 94 Washington, choice between lethal injection or hanging, 4 Wyoming, lethal injection, 1
Both the US Federal Government (default method is lethal injection but can be determined by the state the crime was committed in, 3 executed) as well as the military also have the death penalty.
All states with multiple execution methods either default to lethal injection or allow the convicted to choose between the options. In some states, the method(s) other than lethal injection are there just to be able to proceed with executions if lethal injection is suddenly deemed unconstitutional or for some reason impractical.
I am trying to keep this as up-to-date as possible though some of the numbers are probably a little off.Last Updated: 2005-03-01
As you sit in that chair, ready for that lethal injection, does it matter how few innocent people are put to death? Does anything else matter other than that you are being murdered by the state to make the public happy?
If you are willing to let a few innocent people be executed just so some people can have revenge - not justice, revenge - you'd better be willing for yourself to be one of those innocent people. Is it fair to say "a few innocent people is a small price to pay, as long as I'm not one of them"?
I am not totally against the death penalty. I think it should be used when a person has: a) overwhelming evidence to their guilt; not circumstantial, not questionable, but foolproof evidence, and b) strong evidence that the person will kill again. Correction: since the original authoring of this writeup, my perspective has changed. I have reached the point I am unable to support putting someone to death for any reason whatsoever.
One innocent person is one person too many. Especially because that person could be you.
We should set an example, not continue with the bloodshed. Have you ever watched a video of someone being put to death? My second major is Criminal Justice - I have watched quite a lot of them. There is nothing sadder when hearing the speeches given by the families who lost a loved one. But it is equally sad to what someone's eyes as they receive that fatal shock of electricity. It is scary to watch someone die. How can we grow to be a more humane society is we punish murder with murder?
[Disclaimer: I am not a constitutional scholar]
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted."
Think of it this way for a moment: where does the buck stop?
Morally speaking, the death penalty is unjustifiable at best, and a monstrous imposition on the part of the state - it makes its employees take human lives in its name - at worst.
You see, morality does not concern itself with context. Stealing is wrong, no matter how hungry you are. Lying is wrong, even to save your life (Christian martyrs exemplify this ideal in western society, I think). And killing is wrong even when it's for self defense - let alone for some vague concept of public revenge.
Anyone who takes a life is guilty of the same crime - taking what they have no power to give back. You can call it murder or you can call it the law, or even just deserts - but the upshot of taking a human life remains the same.
Retaliation is never the productive way of resolving a conflict. Violence begets violence. These ideas are so familiar to us that they seem like meaningless platitudes, but we ignore the guiding truths behind them at our peril, both on the personal and the macro-social scale.
In the 24 years since the Supreme Court authorized the resumption of capital punishment, over 620 convicted murderers have been executed. Not one has subsequently been proven innocent, despite the intense scrutiny these cases draw from foes of the death penalty. It would be a great boon for groups intent on eliminating the death penalty to find that an innocent person has been put to death, yet, even though they look diligently, they do not find this to happen. When you see someone saying how "these people have repeatedly been found innocent" or somesuch, they're talking about the fact that many people are found innocent during the multiple levels of review that each death penalty case goes through after the jury decides in the case. This is entirely different from people being executed and then found innocent.
The fact that DNA fingerprinting provides greater accuracy in determining the perpetrator of a crime decreases the possibility that an innocent person would be executed. Because of this type of evidence, it is less possible that a person duly convicted might be innocent. If no one was being found innocent on death row, etc. would we all automatically assume that no innocent person has been executed?
When a person is given a death sentence, the case goes through multiple levels of review. It is not merely that the jury in the case decides the fate of the person, many others review the case and determine if there is any doubt in the guilt of that person. Consequently, a death sentence is the least likely to be the result of error or caprice.
