The Death Penalty Is An Amazing Waste Of Taxpaying Money Essay

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

According to capital punishment supporters, many of these reasons of the anti-death penalty movement are false and are now wrongly accepted as fact. The argument that the death penalty does not deter crime is debatable. By executing murderers you prevent them from murdering again. If these people no longer exist then they obviously cannot commit more crimes. In addition, criminals have admitted, in thousands of fully documented cases, that the death penalty was the specific threat which deterred them from committing murder (Pro-Death Penalty, 2014). The opponents of capital punishment claim that the death penalty has caused and can cause the execution of innocent people. However, according to the supporters, no evidence indicates that innocent people have been executed. Upon reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, a Wall Street Journal study indicated that they were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed (Eddlem, 2002). Furthermore, advocates note that the

     The taking of a person's life is unreliable and once a mistake is made, nothing can be done to make up for it, because you have taken the person's life. Current statistics show that for every 7 people executed one has been released from death row. One in seven does not sound like never good consistency to me, and how many of the 6 still executed could still be innocent? I feel that the death of innocents cannot be justified by the death penalty. A recent study at Columbia University found that two thirds of capital cases had serious errors in them, two thirds does not sound like a very consistent number that I would

     The death penalty is absolutely outrageous. There is no real reason that the government should feel that it has the right to execute people. Capital punishment is murder just as much as the people being executed murdered. The is no need for the death penalty and it needs to be abolished. It goes against the Constitution which states that there will be no cruel and unusual punishment. There is nothing crueler than killing a person.

In the United States, the use of the death penalty continues to be a controversial issue. Every election year, politicians, wishing to appeal to the moral sentiments of voters, routinely compete with each other as to who will be toughest in extending the death penalty to those persons who have been convicted of first-degree murder. Both proponents and opponents of capital punishment present compelling arguments to support their claims. Often their arguments are made on different interpretations of what is moral in a just society. In this essay, I intend to present major arguments of those who support the death penalty and those who are opposed to state sanctioned executions application . However, I do intend to fairly and accurately

-Innocence, there are innocent people on death row, and there have been people put to death. Since 1977, 144 prisoners on death row have been found to be innocent of the crimes there were convicted of.

The first thing that used to run through my mind when I heard that someone had been sentenced to death was the word: guilty. David Wayne Spence and David Junior Brown are only a few of the many that were executed by the judicial system, and later found innocent. There is no way to truly know how many innocent people were executed; because once an execution is carried out most cases are shut. Could a fabricated eye witness testimony play a role in a defendant receiving capital punishment? I know race does. I want to become a forensic psychologist, and a part of my job will be assisting judges with sentences in the court room. There is this question that has been bothering me for awhile now, and I would like to know, how has the United States judicial system addressed the problem of innocent death-row inmates being executed?

The death penalty can lead to the death of innocent people. For example, “…According to a new study, serious errors occur in almost 70% of all trials leading to the death penalty…”(Leibman). This shows that if 100 people were put on death row, 70 would have serious mistakes in their

Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man or woman who might accidentally get an execution sentence. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year by the hands of heartless murderers. There are more murderers out there than people who are wrongly convicted, and that is what we must remember.

     "It is impossible to say with certainty whether capital punishment significantly reduces the incidence of heinous crimes" (President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice 143). The United States has one of the highest crime rates and we are the only western nation that still allows the death penalty (Pragmatic Arguments 1). "A 1995 Hart Research Poll of police chiefs in the United States found that the majority of the chiefs do not believe that the death penalty is an effective law enforcement tool" (Fight the Death Penalty 3). These police chiefs rated reducing drug abuse the highest at 31%, better economy at 17%, simplifying court rules at 16%, longer prison sentences at 15%, more police officers at 10%, reducing guns at 3%, and

Finally, the death penalty is not effective. If it really and truly worked, there would be no more crime deservant of the death penalty. All of it would have stopped when the death penalty was first legalized. If criminals feared death, they wouldn’t commit the crime in the first

The 14th Amendment states that excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. If this is stated in our Constitution, why is it that 31 out of the 50 states in the USA enable the death penalty? The answer to that is beyond me because, in my opinion, no state should allow capital punishment for the simple reason that it is a form of cruel punishment. Because of this and many other reasons that I will bring up, I believe that the death penalty should be abolished throughout the United States.

The Death penalty, known as capital punishment is when a criminal is executed by a governing authority. We (the United States) continue to allow the death penalty. Many countries make the death penalty illegal. Many discussions over this being legal, moral ethical, and economic ramifications of the death penalty are continuous across the world. Most of the nations have at one time made the death penalty legal for serious crimes. “Since 1800, the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has grown.” (Death Penalty: An Overview) Now most countries that have made the death penalty legal, only use it on the most serious criminals such as murder, treason, or espionage.

In 1939 Joe Arridy was convicted and executed for the 1936 rape and murder of a Pueblo Colorado schoolgirl despite serious doubts over his competence and guilt. Fast forward seventy two years and capital punishment is at its lowest rate in years, murder rates are at some of the lowest levels on record (Johnson). and Colorado governor Bill Ritter grants Arridy an unconditional pardon based on an “overwhelming body of evidence” and “an admission of guilt by someone else.” This is one of many cases where citizens have been executed for crimes they did not commit (“Executed”). Consequently, concerns of the constitutionality and morality of the death penalty are at the forefront of public focus. Additionally, even the effectiveness of this punishment is being called into question. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, “The criminal justice system is the set of agencies and processes established by governments to control crime and impose penalties on those who violate laws” (“The Criminal”). A quick judgment says that both of these purposes are effectively achieved through the use of the capital punishment system. However, upon further review it is seen that the death penalty does not function effectively within the bounds of the criminal justice system in terms of crime deterrence and penalization, thus reviving the age old question of government condemning its people to death.

Although one might think that capital punishment leads to innocent deaths, this is completely false. People against capital punishment constantly claim that there have been numerous cases in which we have executed an innocent man. But the truth is that we do not have any records of ever executing an innocent man. The idea that innocent people can get executed on accident is highly false and inaccurate. Also, it is perceived that capital punishment takes away freedom