It’s Time to Kill the Death Penalty
America is the home of the free, the brave and apparently the vindictive if our embrace of capital punishment is any indication of our national character. We tout our love of human rights for all the world to see yet we imprison more people than China or Russia. We still execute people when according to Amnesty International nearly two-thirds of countries around the world have abolished the practice. America cannot be that city on the hill that history tells us we should be when our government is killing people under the guise of justice. America, it is time to kill the death penalty once and for all as it is does not deter crime, it is expensive in terms of the monetary cost to tax payers, and more importantly, …show more content…
James Gray, a presiding judge of the Superior Court of Orange County, California, wrote in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review in 2011 that, (Gray)” Estimates are that it costs taxpayers seven times more money to pursue death penalty cases than it would to try, convict, pursue all appeals, and keep the perpetrator in prison for the rest of his life. More specifically, in 2008, the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice estimated that it costs taxpayers about $114 million more per year to process death penalty trials.” Estimate from other states are noted to similar and the reason is because of the death case procedures dictated under the US Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court. Judge Grey states, (Gray) as Justice Sims wrote in a concurring opinion in Bennett v. Superior Court, as a practical matter there really are four distinct trials in death penalty cases. Most people think of a death penalty case as one trial and then some appeals but that is just not the case. Most Americans don’t even begin to comprehend the cost of these first four phase of a death penalty case but wait that’s not all. Then there are the appeals and cost of not only the appeals lawyers but the experts and all the other cost of justice, not to mention the actual cost of the drugs required to put someone to sleep for eternity. Most Americans like to think we are not only being righteous in our use of the death penalty; we also like to think we are being cost effect but the facts just don’t add up. But more importantly than the cost and lack of deterrent effect the death penalty has on our justice system, there is also the human
America is the home of the free, the brave and apparently the vindictive if our embrace of capital punishment is any indication of our national character. We tout our love of human rights for all the world to see yet we imprison more people than China or Russia. We still execute people when according to Amnesty International nearly two-thirds of countries around the world have abolished the practice. America cannot be that city on the hill that history tells us we should be when our government is killing people under the guise of justice. America, it is time to kill the death penalty once and for all as it is does not deter crime, it is expensive in terms of the monetary cost to tax payers, and more importantly, …show more content…
James Gray, a presiding judge of the Superior Court of Orange County, California, wrote in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review in 2011 that, (Gray)” Estimates are that it costs taxpayers seven times more money to pursue death penalty cases than it would to try, convict, pursue all appeals, and keep the perpetrator in prison for the rest of his life. More specifically, in 2008, the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice estimated that it costs taxpayers about $114 million more per year to process death penalty trials.” Estimate from other states are noted to similar and the reason is because of the death case procedures dictated under the US Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court. Judge Grey states, (Gray) as Justice Sims wrote in a concurring opinion in Bennett v. Superior Court, as a practical matter there really are four distinct trials in death penalty cases. Most people think of a death penalty case as one trial and then some appeals but that is just not the case. Most Americans don’t even begin to comprehend the cost of these first four phase of a death penalty case but wait that’s not all. Then there are the appeals and cost of not only the appeals lawyers but the experts and all the other cost of justice, not to mention the actual cost of the drugs required to put someone to sleep for eternity. Most Americans like to think we are not only being righteous in our use of the death penalty; we also like to think we are being cost effect but the facts just don’t add up. But more importantly than the cost and lack of deterrent effect the death penalty has on our justice system, there is also the human