The Death Penalty: Guilty or Innocent?

Capital punishment, also know as the death penalty, is the pre-meditated and planned taking of a human life by a government in response to the legally convicted person’s crime.  Government leaders view the death penalty as rightful punishment and as an example to other would-be criminals.  Through wrongful convictions, the state has sentenced innocent men to death row and eventually, they have been put to death.  The death penalty claims to be cost-effective, but more money is actually spent considering the appeals process and the amount of years spent on death row.  How can it be right to inflict death upon human beings by a system that doesn’t supply any hope from its use?

The Government states that the use of the death penalty deters human beings from committing crimes and has lowered the murder rate.  It actually has been shown that states without the death penalty have lower murder rates than those states that enforce it.  The average of murder rates per 100,000 population in 2007 among death penalty states was 5.83, whereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states was only 4.10.  During the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48% – 101% higher than in states without the death penalty.

Even though death row is occupied with many convicted murderers, many of them are actually innocent.  Through flaws in the system, DNA material has shown to be inaccurate and potential witnesses have been proven corrupt.  At least 23 convicted felons have been executed in the U.S. and their innocence was discovered after their deaths.  Since 1973, 130 innocent people have been released from death rows around the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions.  How would anyone be able to live with himself or herself if they convicted an innocent man to die?

Considering the cost of the death penalty compared to incarceration costs, it’s amazing that certain states still reinforce the expensive form of capital punishment.  Death penalty cases cost more than 70% more than non-death penalty cases; the average case costs around $1.26 million compared to $740,000 for cases that end with life imprisonment.  Even without the expensive appeals process, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

Considering the amount of disadvantages to the death penalty, the country must stop its use of capital punishment to deter crime.  Obviously their plan isn’t working because murder rates have escalated in death-penalty states over the last 20 years.  23 innocent people have been executed that were thought to have been guilty; that’s 23 people that were killed by a system that’s supposed to keep people safe.  Don’t forget the high costs associated with the death of inmates and the appeals and lawyers fees.  Over a million dollars per death row case is a lot of money that could be put to good use.  Incarceration should be the only method for convicted felons because murder doesn’t solve the problem, it just creates more.  Who’s to say how many innocent people the United States has actually executed.  I’m sure the numbers are a lot higher than we think.