I’ve really been dying to talk about this. (That’s it for the puns!)
The death penalty is wrong– I’m dead serious. (Oops, sorry.)
Capital punishment, according to Mario Cuomo, former Governor of New York, “lowers us all; it is a surrender to the worst that is in us; it uses a power – the official power to kill by execution – that has never elevated a society, never brought back a life, never inspired anything but hate.” You can find the rest of his article here.
What happened to, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” anyway? I always thought that was a pretty good adage to go by. When people, especially prosecutors claim that the death penalty is necessary for justice to be served, is it really justice? Is it really served? Studies have shown that an execution takes an average of 13 years to finally be… well, executed. The former Governor and I can agree: a resounding “No.”
The death penalty, besides being an abomination, is just like most other things that government thinks it can do well… but it can’t. Is our justice system perfect? No. Does it make sense to uphold an absolute punishment like execution– absolute in its irreversibility– if the system is flawed and broken? No.
During the 2004 Presidential campaign, President Obama said:
I believe that the death penalty is appropriate in certain circumstances. There are extraordinarily heinous crimes, terrorism, the harm of children, in which it may be appropriate. Obviously we’ve had some problems in this state, in the application of the death penalty…
That sounds reasonable– that capital punishment be reserved for the worst of crimes, but can we trust the system to know right from wrong? Guilty from not-guilty? All the time? Doubtful.
You know what it is? It’s that kid who cheats on his 3rd grade homework. It’s that fat Momma’s boy who eats candy all day and watches Smallville (what a dreadful show, by the way). Sorry for the vague analogies, but yes, the death penalty is lazy. It pretends and ignores that the government can’t even do postal service right.
But take the case of James Holmes, the Aurora movie theater shooter. He’s clearly guilty, but does he deserve to die? Many would say yes. Holmes’ lawyers actually said that he would plead “guilty” for a life sentence without parole, but the prosecutor declined. Steve Chapman of Reason Magazine writes:
Holmes’ lawyers want to put it off till the summer or fall of 2014. The trial is supposed to take four months, though the defense says it could go on for nine. So a verdict may be more than two years away.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the wait for a capital trial is both costly and unnecessary. Adding up the extra costs of special proceedings and protections, not to mention the wasted time, a capital trial can cost up to $1 million more than a non-capital trial. That’s $1 million taxpayer dollars wasted on a potentially deadly verdict– after all, only one of three capital trials results in a death sentence, and only one in ten death sentences are actually carried out.
If these people want justice, is it worth shelling out an extra $1 million? Maybe it would be if the death penalty did anything other than satisfy vengeful urges. Studies have repeatedly shown that capital punishment doesn’t deter crime— like a punishment is supposed to do.
Why don’t we just save everyone a lot of time and money and just put him behind bars? It just makes sense. (To my crazy mind, anyways.)
Liu's News 
I liked the statistics toward the bottom of this article. Once again, I agree with your stance. I always thought that life behind bars would be worse than being put to death anyway. Regardless of the crime, I don’t think the death penalty helps solve anything. I wonder what the cost is for holding these prisoners in maximum security prison for life though? Especially if the death sentence is another million on top of the normal cost.
Check out this site: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000
Here, there opposing sides are laid out with statistics on both sides addressing the only logical question: Does the death penalty cost less than maintaining a prisoner for life in prison?
I did not realize how much money the death penalty is actually costing us. I am completely against capital punishment in the first place, not only does it serve no purpose but in my opinion, it’s an easy way out. Add to that the cost of the whole process as you talked about above, absolutely not. “Lock em up”.
Totally. It’s kind of like the war on drugs– way too many cons for the supposed benefits. Some inmates have even said that solitary confinement is worse than than death (http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/15/solitary-confinement-a-fate-worse-than-d). If it was really about justice and not just quick, easy, peace of mind (although capital punishment is actually none of those things), punishments like that would be more common, I believe.