In 2006, fifty three death row inmates had their sentences carried out in fifteen states. All but one received a lethal injection. One prisoner in
It sounds barbaric enough that so many people were executed in this country last year, but making it worse twenty four of the executions took place in the State of
As of June 21, 2007 there have been twenty five executions in seven states. Again,
Prosecutors may lead the charge and bang the drum that the death penalty is a deterrent, but this is simply untrue. Science has shown that most people who are able to commit the heinous crime of murder are actually missing something in their brain that does not relate an incident with a consequence. Nor are they able to feel empathy. If the death penalty were able to deter offenders there would be no one on death row.
On average over the last 15 years states without the death penalty had 29.38% fewer murders than states with the death penalty. It almost seems like the death penalty invites and encourages people to kill.
Another reason often cited by supporters of the death penalty is that the death penalty is less costly than life imprisonment. However, this is far from the truth. According to Spangenberg and Walsh in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment." In fact, a study conducted by the New York State Defenders Association showed that the cost of a capital trial alone was double the cost of life imprisonment. The January 5, 1997, Miami Herald estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or roughly six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence.
Is justice or revenge the force behind this barbaric practice? It seems that a cycle is created when government promotes death, be it in the form execution of inmates or be it the people we send our soldiers off to kill in war. We accept taking life as a national norm. But what happens to the people we teach to kill? How do we un-train them once the conflict is over? Our tax dollars pay for every war and every lethal injection. We are fueling the fire. Movies and games treat death so lightly that audiences have become immune to the disgusting reality removing empathy from yet another generation.
How safe are we in a society where cold blooded behavior is not only a way of life, but endorsed on many levels by the government. How safe are we in a society when every citizen can be wrongly convicted with faulty evidence by over aggressive prosecutors and have their life taken away from them by the government? It happens all the time.
In the past 30 years, 123 inmates were found to be innocent and released from death row. DNA evidence is shouldering the burden of proof to the dismay of aggressive prosecutors that use economics as a reason for sloppy evidence analysis. The burden of proof is falling on the defense rather than the prosecution.
After a ten year national moratorium on executions between 1967 and 1977; there have only been two executions in
Here is a list of states that do not have the death penalty:
Much of the information in this article may be found at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
10 comments:
Prosecuter's need to sharpen their skills!
Prosecuters should not be so vocal about the death penalty, they are fighting a loosing game.
Yes, I am speaking about our prosecuter!
The innocence project is positive.
Promoting the death penalty is negative.
Excellent article, Syd/Sid, as usual!
Here are some more statistics you might enjoy:
Of 3254 persons under sentence of death in 2005:
- 1,805 were white making up 55%
- 1,372 were black making up 42%
- 31 were American Indian making up .09%
- 34 were Asian making up 1%
- 12 were of unknown race making up .04% of the death row pop.
Of 43 persons executed in 2006:
-- 32 were white
-- 21 were black
Sounds pretty evenly split, does it?
The US population is 288,378,137
215,333,394 are White making up 75%
34,962,569 are Black making up 11%
2,357,544 are American Indian making up .08%
12,471,815 are Asian making up 4% of the total population
There are just about 7 times more White people than Black people living in the United States, is it, justly, reflected in statistics of those people on death row? Are there approx 7 times more white people on death row than black? Are there even two times as many? Are there even one and a half times as many?
And this is justice?
When our justice system is truly just FOR ALL, then and only then will the death penalty be an option for the government to consider.
And who speaks for the victims? Just how horrific do child murderers and serial killers have to be before measures are taken to see that they are stopped? Take just the three Oregon inmates featured in the notorious $20 million Benetton ad campaign of 2000: Cesar Barone, misogynist and serial killer; Conan Hale, who slowly killed three young teenagers; and Jesse Compton, who tortured his girlfriend's tiny daughter in ways too horrible to describe. These killers represent exactly what Oregonians intended when they voted overwhelmingly in 1984 to reinstate the penalty voters had abolished 20 years earlier.
Having both defended and prosecuted capital murders, I see the need for skilled counsel on both sides of a capital murder case. In Oregon an indigent charged with a crime carrying the possibility of a death sentence will be appointed high quality counsel who will have every tool money can buy.
Far from signaling ambivalence, these lengthy delays and retrials bear witness to the extreme care given to the most extreme penalty. The death penalty is seldom sought by Oregon prosecutors and even more rarely imposed by juries. It is properly reserved for the worst of the worst. Oregonians understand that there exist some crimes so unspeakable, some men so evil, that a just punishment is the forfeiture of the killer's own life.
You obviously didn't read the article. This is not a punishment. They have no empathy or understanding of consequence. It is simply vengence. It is not what a civilized society does.
The victims are dead, do you think they care? Normally when one is dead they can't care. The killers are stopped when they enter the system for life without parole.
The prosecuters will also have every tool money can buy and more!
How can prosecuters explain why so many innocent have been set free, what type of evidence convicted them? Do most prosecuters go to school to learn putting people to death?
How many prosecuters are out there who don't believe in the death penalty?
One innocent person sent to prison/jail is one to many!
80% of Oregonians feel the death penalty should be used in extreme cases. It is called "penalty" for a just reason.
It would be a penalty for those who don't do that sort of crime or those who are innocent. Read the article, people who do that sort of crime have no concept of "penalty" or "consequence." It's not part of their wiring. They don't get it, so putting someone to death only serves to harden the nipples of prosecuters.
Capital Punishment is the most premeditated of murder.
Albert Camus
French Philosopher
201 innocent people have been exonerated.
Read the innocence project, it doesn't come easy to be exonerated.
To top it all off Josh Marquis is one of the "makes it harder" to free someone who is innocent.
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