The death penalty deters crime.
Studies have repeatedly shown that the death penalty does not deter violent crime any more than other punishments such as life imprisonment. Eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide (Radelet and Lacock, 2009).
Race has nothing to do with capital punishment.
The death penalty is used primarily to punish those who kill Euro-Americans. White people make up roughly half of murder victims nationally, but over 80% of death row inmates are there for the murder of a white victim. A defendant accused of murdering a white victim is more than 3 times as likely to face the death penalty as a defendant accused of the murder of a person of color (David Baldus).
The death penalty system doesn’t make mistakes.
During the modern era of the death penalty (1973-present), over 135 people have been released from death rows nationwide after evidence of their wrongful convictions emerged. Two of these men, Michael McCormick and Paul Gregory House, were released from Tennessee’s death row after fighting their wrongful convictions for over 20 years each.
Additionally, strong evidence has been unearthed demonstrating that innocent men may have been executed in several states, including Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas (“Innocent and Executed,” NCADP).
Public opinion supports the death penalty.
A 2010 poll by Lake Research Partners found that a clear majority of voters (61%) would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder. A poll conducted by the American Bar Association in Tennessee in 2001 shows 66% of Tennesseans support a moratorium on the death penalty in order for the system’s problems to be addressed.
Executions are cheaper than life imprisonment.
It costs far more to operate a system that utilizes the death penalty rather than one with life without parole as its maximum punishment. A study in New Jersey found that $253 million had been spent on the capital punishment system above and beyond the costs of life without parole from 1983 through 2005. The majority of the costs of the death penalty system occur at the initial trial, which must be separated into two stages and requires far more hours of work from lawyers, expert witnesses, and special investigators.
The penalty ensures justice for surviving family members of murder victims.
To be meaningful, justice should be swift and sure. The death penalty is neither. The current system drags families through an agonizing and lengthy process that holds out the promise of an execution in the beginning, but often results in a different sentence. Life without parole begins as soon as the victims’ families leave the courtroom and is served outside the spotlight of the news’ cameras.
The death penalty is fair.
Only one out of every 100 convicted murderers is sentenced to death. Those perpetrators sentenced to death are not those whose crimes were the “worst of the worse.” Instead, they are disproportionately the poor, people of color, those with mental illness, and those whose victims are white. More than 90% of those on death row were financially unable to hire attorneys to represent them at trial.
