death penalty and its effect on crime. The death penalty does not eliminate murder and it ties up our legal system because of appeals and postponements. One state is now even trying to apply the capital punishment rule to other crimes. The legal system has used the capital punishment laws as a way to control minority groups. I am against the death penalty and capital punishment.
The legal system has been very incompetent when it comes to capital punishment. “There are serious and disturbing questions about the convictions of a number of inmates facing execution, particularly in those cases that were tried years ago by unqualified lawyers lacking adequate resources,” Dan Goyette said. “We should not proceed with executions until this independent evaluation is completed and we are assured that due process has been fully and properly provided in each and every case. To do otherwise would cast significant doubt on the fairness and propriety of imposing the ultimate punishment. We all have a fundamental responsibility to avoid at all costs the possibility of making an unjust and irreversible mistake.” (DeathPenalty.org) There are so many people and groups that are strongly against the death penalty in the United States that our legal system has created a subculture of anti-capital punishment litigation systems. These groups have been very effective at postponing executions for years and in many cases, even decades.
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Many states that have no death penalty actually have lower rates of homicide than do states with the death penalty. Consider Alaska which does not have a death penalty: in 2008 they only had 4.1 murders for every 100,000 citizens. In Alabama that does have death penalty; they had 7.6 murders per 100,000 citizens in the same year. One might think that this is a onetime occurrence, but since 1996 Alabama has consistently had more murders than Alaska. The threat of a capital punishment conviction is obviously not the deterrent that the legal system expects us to believe. In Louisiana, efforts to apply capital punishment rules to other than murder crimes could change the rules for our entire legal system in the future. “In a recent editorial, the Los Angeles Times voiced concerns about a Louisiana Supreme Court decision upholding the death sentence of Patrick Kennedy for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter. The paper said the Louisiana court’s decision to allow the death penalty in such cases could lead states to seek the death penalty for other non-murder crimes, a development that would worsen an already dysfunctional death penalty system.” (DeathPenatly.org)
YEAR
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
Alabama
7.6
8.9
8.3
8.2
5.6
6.6
6.8
8.5
7.4
7.9
8.1
9.9
10.4
Alaska
4.1
6.4
5.4
4.8
5.6
6
5.1
6.1
4.3
8.6
6.7
8.9
7.4
(DeathPenalty.org)
Racism plays a major part of who actually is convicted of murder. “Often such discussion begins with the obvious: the race of the defendant. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports that black murderers represent 35% of those executed, white murderers 56%. As the argument goes, this must be evidence of systemic racism, as blacks represent 12% of the population, whites 74%.” (Sharp) When looking at the chart of the number of people put to death around the country, it looks like there is an even amount between blacks and whites. But the discrepancy is more obvious when realizing that blacks are a minority in this nation, per person executions make black’s numbers much higher.
State
Total
Black
White
Latino
Asian
Native Amer.
New Hampshire
0
0
0
0
0
0
New Jersey
0
0
0
0
0
0
New Mexico
1
0
1
0
0
0
New York
0
0
0
0
0
0
North Carolina
43
13
29
0
0
1
Ohio
32
11
21
0
0
0
Oklahoma
91
26
56
0
2
6
Oregon
2
0
2
0
0
0
Pennsylvania
3
0
3
0
0
0
South Carolina
42
16
26
0
0
0
South Dakota
1
0
1
0
0
0
Tennessee
5
0
5
0
0
0
Texas
73
2
2
Utah
6
2
4
0
0
0
Virginia
48
54
2
1
0
Washington
4
0
4
0
0
0
Wyoming
1
0
1
0
0
0
US Gov’t
3
1
1
1
0
0
(deathpenltyinfo.org)
The death penalty does not deter murder, it is not prosecuted fairly in far too many cases it has a strong racial basis per prosecution. For these reasons alone, I am against capital punishment. Our legal system is just not prepared to provide a fair trial for a poor black kid who may have committed a crime compared to a wealthy black man like O.J. Simpson who was probably just as guilty. The poor kid ends up on death row and O.J., had he been a little smarter, would still be playing golf. The threat of a capital punishment conviction also has not stopped or even slowed down the murder rate in the United States.
In conclusion, this argumentative essay discussed the death penalty and its effect on crime. The death penalty has not eliminated murder or slowed the homicide rate in America and our legal system is a mess because of appeals and postponements. The legal system has also been shown to use capital punishment laws as a way to control minority groups. I am against the death penalty and capital punishment. It is hard to believe, but the United States of America is almost the only advanced democracy in the world that allows for capital punishment.
Works Cited
DeathPenalty.org. Kentucky Public Defenders Call for Moratorium on Executions. Retrieved on November 27, 2009 from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/.
Sharp, Dudly. Pro & Con: The Death Penalty in Black and White. (Thursday, June 24, 1999). Retrieved on November 27, 2009 from http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/racism.htm.
