Synthesis Essay Death Penalty

Over the past 20 years, death sentences and executions have decreased by more than 60 percent nationwide. The death penalty is being used more sparingly where it is still legal, and has been outlawed in 18 states. The death penalty is ceasing to exist, and therefore, should be ended altogether. It is time to remove the death penalty once and for all because it is rarely even used nowadays, it is a lengthy and costly process, and the system is majorly flawed. First of all, the death penalty has been heading toward extinction for many years now. While it does still exist, there are only a few select states that still use it. Besides the ones that have banned it, many states have put a moratorium on it, meaning it is still legal and that defendants …show more content…
This means that since the use of the death penalty has reached an all-time low, that the Supreme Court could outlaw this form of punishment nationwide if opposition continues to increase. The increasing issue of innocence has also played a part in the decreasing popularity of the death penalty. And when the death penalty is applied, other factors such as “race, geography and the quality of legal representation play a larger role than the severity of the crimes” (Dieter, Source G). This shows that even when the death penalty is applied, there are usually other circumstances that either elongate the execution further, or remove the defendant from death row altogether. In the South, the Racial Justice Act was passed, which allowed people sentenced to death to introduce statistical evidence that their punishment was influenced by race. Paul Butler, professor at Georgetown University Law Center claimed, “Essentially the law was too successful: executions in North Carolina ground …show more content…
According to Ian Lovett of the New York Times, Washington state governor Jay Inslee “mentioned the costs that taxpayers incurred in death penalty cases, which can wind through the court system for decades” (Lovett, Source A). Not only do death penalty cases encounter long and extensive trials, these trials are also very expensive and the costs are covered by the state taxpayers. The DPIC stated, “A new study in California revealed that the cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4 billion since 1978. Study considered pretrial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on death row” (DPIC, Source I). The average cost of one death penalty case varies nationwide, but ranges from $400,000 to $3 million per case. And the only way that the government can attain this money is through the taxpayers. The overall cost of sentencing someone to death is not worth the toll that it brings upon the residents of the