The Death Penalty in the United States

Abstract

The following essay is a critical analysis of the death penalty in the United States. The death penalty should be abolished to ensure that innocent persons are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die. To support this opinion are facts, graphs and statistics from the Department of Justice as well as a Judge and prosecuting attorney, among others.

Pros and cons for the support, as well as abolishing, the death penalty are given in an attempt to validate the topic of this essay.

Arguments for the victims of violent crime and the innocent persons who may wrongfully be convicted and sentenced to death are provided in the hope that both are given true justice.

The purpose of this essay is not to allow guilty persons of murder free, but to give them life in prison instead. The death penalty is a flawed process and the human who enforce it are flawed. To ensure that innocent persons are not murdered, the death penalty must be abolished, instead send them to a place from society, and if they are indeed found to be innocent, then they are still alive and able to be set free from any possible injustices. If they are guilty, then they are where they belong, behind bars for the rest of their lives.

The Death Penalty in the United States

The death penalty has been utilized in various methods for centuries, as early as the eighteenth century until present day 2009. Over the years numerous individuals have been put to death from the simplest of reasons, stealing a rabbit to the most heinous of crime such as killing another human being. Political, legal, racial, and moral issues of the death penalty have been the center of debate since the first person was executed in the 1860’s. The number of supporters of execution outweighs the number of those opposed. Statistics support the theory that the death penalty does in fact deter violent crimes. While that argument may convince some, it does not eliminate the fact that innocent persons are sometimes executed. Death penalty laws are as flawed as the humans that enforce them. Even just one innocent person being executed is unacceptable and those laws should be abolished forever.

In 1982 Anthony Porter was convicted of a double murder during a hold up gone bad in Chicago Park, Illinois. Mr. Porter had an alibi, family support, and a devoted lawyer. He was also African American. He was convicted and sentenced to death. He lived on death row for seventeen years. In 1999, fifty hours before his execution, his lawyer finally convinced a judge that Anthony Porter’s mental competence was questionable, (his IQ was very low). He received a stay of execution. The media coverage gained the attention of some journalism students in Illinois. Several months later, with the help of a private detective, their investigation located the real killer, who eventually did confess to his crime. Anthony Porter lived on death row for seventeen years an innocent man. He narrowly escaped death, fifty hours to be exact. (Templeton, 2007)

In 2000, a group of law students and faculty at DePaul University, discovered information that raised doubts about the due process and laws regarding the guilt of some of the inmates that were on Illinois’s death row. Thirteen men were eventually exonerated as a result of the students’ findings. Such facts included (Richard L. Wiener, 2004):

· Problems concerning due processes during the guilt and penalty phase of the prosecution as well as the role of race in determining punishment.

· Half of the 300 capital cases in Illinois had been reversed for a new trial.

· Thirty-three of the death row inmates had been represented by lawyers that had been either disbarred or had their license suspended.

· Two thirds of the 160 inmates on death row were African American; thirty five had been convicted by all white juries.

· Forty-six had been convicted on the basis of jailhouse informants. (Richard L. Wiener, 2004)

The compelling evidence, gathered by students, gained the attention of the governor, Governor George H Ryan. The report influenced Governor Ryan (a supporter of the death penalty) to call a moratorium on all executions in Illinois, as well as developing a panel of experts (defense lawyers, prosecutors, former elected officials, and businessmen) to determine how such miscarriages of justice could occur. . The Governor’s panel raised concerns about procedural errors and forced confessions, by way of torture and beatings, with the results of innocent people being convicted. After two years the panel came up with 85 recommended ways to improve the process in Illinois. Using the panel’s recommendations, the Governor wrote legislation to change the laws. After three unsuccessful attempts to change laws, Governor Ryan commuted all the death penalty cases to life in prison three days before he left office. (Richard L. Wiener, 2004) With such compelling evidence presented to lawmakers, it remains astonishing to opponents of the death penalty, why the laws were not passed.

Department gof Justice, Capital Punishment Statistics:

• Of persons under sentence of death in 2007:
  -- 1,804 were white
  -- 1,345 were black
  -- 26 were American Indian
  -- 35 were Asian
  -- 10 were of unknown race.
• Thirty-seven states and the federal government had capital statutes at yearend 2007.
• Fifty-six women were under a sentence of death at yearend 2007.
• The 362 Hispanic inmates under sentence of death at yearend 2007 accounted for 13% of inmates with a known ethnicity.
• Among inmates under sentence of death and with available criminal histories at yearend 2007:
  -- nearly 2 in 3 had a prior felony conviction
  -- 1 in 12 had a prior homicide conviction.
• Among persons for whom arrest information was available, the average age at time of arrest was 29; nearly 1 in 9 inmates were age 19 or younger at the time of arrest.
• At yearend 2007, the youngest inmate under sentence of death was 19; the oldest was 92.

In 2008, 37 persons in nine states were executed -- 18 in Texas; 4 in Virginia; 3 each in Georgia and South Carolina; 2 each in Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma, and 1 in Kentucky.

• Of persons executed in 2008:
  -- 20 were white
  -- 17 were black
• All 37 inmates executed in 2008 were men.
• Lethal injection was used in 36 executions in 2008; 1 execution was by electrocution. (Justice, 2009)

Isaac Ehrlich was one of the first economists to study the death penalty as a deterrent. He performed twoseparate studies. Both were time studied analysis, 1933 to 1959, thirty six years of data. The second was one year of data from all fifty states. Ehrlich’s studies both determined that the death penalty does deter violent crime. According to Ehrlich’s study, one execution will deter eight to eighteen murders. (Richard A Posner, 2007)

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Richard Posner disputes claims that capital punishment is unfair or biased and that being executed for murder is less than one percent. He insists that very few actual, innocent people are convicted. According to Judge Posner, most executions are in the southern states. In 2004, fifty of the fifty nine executions were in the south where there were over seven thousand murders. The average amount of time a defendant spends on death row is ten years before being executed. Judge Posner contends that executions should be sped up. Ten years costs a lot of money, lessens the deterrence of the death penalty and creates an enormous amount of psychological dread for the inmate.

Judge Posner was quoted as stating that, “Although it may seem heartless to say so, the concern with mistaken execution seems exaggerated.” To support his claim he points out the enormous amount of litigation involved in a capital case. Judge Posner points out the criteria involved before a case can be tried as a capital punishment case. There must be aggravating factors involved; one out of ten must apply. The appeals process is very lengthy, should one be convicted and sentenced to die, to find any procedural errors that may have been made. (Richard A Posner, 2007)

Also supporting capital punishment is Joshua Marquis, a district attorney in Astoria, Oregon. He claims support for the death penalty began declining in the 1960’s when civil rights abuses became a national concern. Then support began to rise in the 1980’s when violent crime began to rise. Statistics showed that virtually all groups of Americans supported capital punishment in some form for some case. (Marquis, 2007)

Marquis contends that the media portrays the convicted as penniless, having inferior council pitted against powerful government prosecuting attorneys. He points out that while that may have been true in the 1960’s, today is a totally different situation. The quality of defenders has balanced out over decades of scrutiny. Marquis credits the media focus on using words like “exonerated”, “innocent” and “acquitted” to question peoples morality. Such tactics drove down public sentiment from almost 80% in the late 1980’s to a low of approximately 65% in the year 2000. (Marquis, 2007)

Marquis also argues that the death penalty is not racists and contends that “A white murderer sentenced to death is twice more likely to actually be executed than a black person sentenced to death.” Marquis points to a study by Cornell University that used statistics gathered by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics that determined that while African-Americans were convicted of 51.5% of all murders, they comprised only 41.3% of death rows population. (Marquis, 2007)

Many European countries have forsaken the death penalty, while Americans refuse to let go of the “eye for an eye” thought process. Great Britain abolished death penalty laws in 1965 and France in 1981. Homicidal violence has doubled since the laws were abandoned. One hundred thirty nine were after persons were released after paroled from murder convictions and ninety eight by people still on parole.

Marquis and Posner both point to the many victims of violent crimes because the system let them down. Convicted killer Kenneth McDuff, was freed because of death penalty laws being overturned, he went on to kill nine more people after being paroled. Richard Marquette in Oregon and Carl Cletus Bowles both freed in separate cases, also went on to kill innocent people. Pointing out that these people were dead, neither media nor appeal process to tug on anyone’s heart strings could save them from the system. What about the families of victim’s closure? What about the thousands more who were raped or lost their livelihoods due to embezzlement because the justice system failed them?(Marquis, 2007) Nothing can excuse making the victims nameless and faceless, while making martyrs out of murderers as well as turning them into the victim.

In times of economic hardships, states are leaning towards changing death penalty laws because of cost not moral issues. It is cheaper to imprison killers to life instead of executing them. The appeals process bogs down the appellate courts, spending millions on lawyers, DNA testing, courtrooms, transportation to and from court, policemen to do this as well as life on death row, which may last for a decade or more. Death row inmates live in segregated section, individual cells, with guards delivering everything to them. The costs add up over the years compared to life in the general population where inmates live in open cellblocks, exercise yards, dining rooms and bathing areas. All are increased areas for added danger and discomfort for the inmate, but much more cost effective for the taxpayer. (Press, 2009)

Marquis quoted, “Death penalty opponents risk losing their credibility when they are reckless with the truth.” He believes that even the most organized, well funded abolitionist cannot point to a single case of an innocent person actually being executed. His statements should be challenged in light of the cases adding up after modern DNA has freed those innocent and having spent decades or more in prison while being innocent. The media continue to report case after case of people walking free after DNA testing cleared them after years of being incarcerated.

Abolishing the death penalty does not mean give them a “get out of jail free card”. Injustices will continue, innocent people will be convicted, as well as many that are truly guilty. Taxpayers will continue to pay the bills. Debates will go back and forth on the issues given. Death penalty laws are proven to be flawed. If innocent people are sent to prison for years, the odds are, innocent people have been executed as well. Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, is reported as to have said, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” While it is doubtful that a million innocent people have been executed under the death penalty in the United States, even one death of an innocent is a travesty. Abolish the death penalty and instead, sentence them to life in prison.

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