Death Penalty Paper - Body #1

@5752
ENGL P050 CRN 32356
Professor Jacinto Gardea
11 April 2011
Killing is Murder
"Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life," writes Coretta Scott King. Yet to this day we continue to carry out death sentences. I believe that the death penalty needs to be abolished from the United States because it is costly, ineffective, and outdated. According to the online newspaper The Guardian, the United States has executed approximately 1,156 people in the time period of 1976 to April 2009 (Rogers). Do not forget to include the 107 people executed from 2009 up until January 2011. In addition, the United States executes a death row convict approximately every 3.5 days (Barry par.4). We, as humans, are prone to make mistakes and this punishment system is capable of leaving irreversible results, so the two should not intertwine. Many innocent people have been executed either because they were in the minority or they lacked funds to pay for adequate representation. The Death Penalty Information Center explains that since 1976 there have been eight cases which reveal that the prosecuted persons were innocent after they were executed. Even if we choose to go through processes to make sure that the person was one hundred percent guilty it would bombard our taxpayers with a ridiculous amount of money to pay for the court costs. Why does the United States continue to waste millions of dollars on this obsolete system? All of this money should be put into more beneficial services, such as abuse prevention programs, education, and public safety programs. Former Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti declares in Los Angeles Times article:
The money would be far better spent keeping kids in school, keeping teachers and counselors in their schools and giving the juvenile justice system the resources it needs. Spending our tax dollars on actually preventing crimes, instead of pursuing death sentences after [they have] already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims (California's Death Penalty).
Ironically, states that do not use the death penalty usually have lower crime rates than states that do.
Not only is capital punishment an ineffective deterrent to crime but its methods are also subject to cruel and unusual punishment. Pro death penalty advocates will argue that capital punishment is not cruel and unusual punishment but a humane way to murder someone. The Eighth Amendment to the 1787 U.S. Constitution declares that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" (Wikipedia). Someone who has not committed a murder can not be sentenced to death because they did not kill another human; the punishment has to fit the deed. The punishment also cannot be neither cruel nor unusual. WordNet defines cruel and unusual punishment as punishment prohibited by the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution; this includes torture, degradation, or punishment too severe for the crime committed. In an article published by The Seattle Times newspaper it says, "An examination of 49 autopsies found that in 43 cases, the concentration of anesthetic in the bloodstream was less than what is required to numb a surgical patient before making an incision. In 21 cases, the concentration [was not] sufficient to prevent a patient from responding to a verbal command" (Study Indicates Lethal par.2). Therefore, the prisoners were still in a state of awareness because the drug levels administered were lower than required. Angel Nieves Diaz was executed on December 13, 2006 via lethal injection. However, the workers incorrectly injected the poisons, which were carried by the needles, into Diaz. The chemicals surged not into his veins as intended, but into his soft tissue. When a second set of needles were inserted Diaz began to struggle in agony for over 30 minutes. After the execution, examiners found chemical burns which measured twelve inches deep inside both of Diaz's arms (5 Reasons par.22). The result of this misconstrued execution was an executive order led by death penalty supporter and ex-governor of Florida Jeb Bush to halt all executions in the state (5 Reasons par.21). Before his execution, Diaz left a final statement which said, "The death penalty is not only a form of vengeance, but also a cowardly act by humans."

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