Death Penalty The use of the death penalty has been around for centuries. The first recorded death penalty execution was in 1608 on a man accused of being a spy (Death Penalty Information Center). Ever since then, it has divided the citizens of the United States in half on whether or not it should be put into use. However, most views of how capital punishment should be handled are rather extreme. The death penalty should be abolished because it would be much more cost effective, it is immoral, and has the potential to put innocent lives at risk.
The death penalty is much more costly than being sentenced to life without parole. Millions of dollars are wasted on winning verdicts, which require expensive second trials, new witnesses and long …show more content…
However, one thousand four hundred eighteen inmates have fallen victim to the death penalty. There is no telling how many of those thousands of inmates were innocent, because once the prisoner has passed away the court will rarely take cases to prove their innocence. Rather, the court system takes the cases of current death row inmates in an attempt to save his or her life (Death Penalty Information Center). In some cases there are very strong evidence that the court system was wrong and the executed prisoner was more than likely innocent. For example, Gary Graham, seventeen at the time, was convicted with robbing and shooting a man outside a supermarket in 1981. He was convicted primarily off of one witness 's testimony who said she saw the man’s face for a few seconds through a car window about thirty to forty feet away. It is also noted that two of the supermarket workers got a good look at the assailant and said Graham was not the killer, but these two were never interviewed by the court. In 2000, Gary Graham was executed by the state of Texas (Death Penalty Information Center). The death penalty should not take place if there is any doubt in the defendant 's case. Although this is a very practical way of thinking it is often overlooked in the court of law, because the prosecutors want to get the criminal locked up as quickly as possible to make themselves look
The death penalty is much more costly than being sentenced to life without parole. Millions of dollars are wasted on winning verdicts, which require expensive second trials, new witnesses and long …show more content…
However, one thousand four hundred eighteen inmates have fallen victim to the death penalty. There is no telling how many of those thousands of inmates were innocent, because once the prisoner has passed away the court will rarely take cases to prove their innocence. Rather, the court system takes the cases of current death row inmates in an attempt to save his or her life (Death Penalty Information Center). In some cases there are very strong evidence that the court system was wrong and the executed prisoner was more than likely innocent. For example, Gary Graham, seventeen at the time, was convicted with robbing and shooting a man outside a supermarket in 1981. He was convicted primarily off of one witness 's testimony who said she saw the man’s face for a few seconds through a car window about thirty to forty feet away. It is also noted that two of the supermarket workers got a good look at the assailant and said Graham was not the killer, but these two were never interviewed by the court. In 2000, Gary Graham was executed by the state of Texas (Death Penalty Information Center). The death penalty should not take place if there is any doubt in the defendant 's case. Although this is a very practical way of thinking it is often overlooked in the court of law, because the prosecutors want to get the criminal locked up as quickly as possible to make themselves look