Capital Punishment Controversy: The Death Penalty Debate

There are few policies that produce as much debate, controversy and emotion in this country as the death penalty. Capital punishment has been around in this country since colonial times when people were killed for practicing witchcraft and today the death penalty is legal in 31 states. Since 1976, 1414 people have been executed in the U.S. (deathpenaltyinfo.org). People who favor capital punishment believe that if someone brutally take's another person's life then they should lose their own right to life. However, in taking a closer look at the death penalty, there are many problems associated with it such as that is is morally wrong, the botching of executions, the execution of innocent people, and the fact that it is a flawed system
where many convicts will never be executed but rather put an enormous financial strain on our government. It is a policy that I do not agree with. The most recognized death sentence case this year was that of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man who was convicted of the horrific Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 in which three people were killed and many other were seriously injured. Nobody should ever have to go through the pain and horror of losing a loved one by a deliberate act of violence, but killing someone who has killed is like thinking that two wrongs can somehow make a right. In Pope Francis's address to Congress this week, he spoke about the moral problem of the death penalty and said "...since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes" (CNN.com). Another problem with the death penalty is the messing up of executions.
There is simply no humane way to kill someone. Lethal injection had appeared to be better alternative to the gas chamber or hanging, but in recent times, this means of execution has gone terribly wrong. "In April 2014, Oklahoma authorities spent some 40 minutes trying to kill Clayton Lockett before he finally died of a heart attack." (Death of the Death Penalty Time Magazine June 8, 2015). Clayton writhed and clenched his teeth creating a horrible scene to witness after officials had belived he was unconcious from the injection. Death by lethal injection is becoming so controversial that "drugmakers that oppose capital punishment -- many based in Europe -- have stopped selling to U.S. prisons and corrections departments." (Huffington Post
4/29/2014) The advance of science and the desire to prove cases with DNA analysis rather than relying on witnesses testimony has freed many criminals and overturned convictions. A recent example of this happened in 2014 when two North Carolina men, Henry Lee Mccollum and Leon Brown who had been sentenced to die, were freed after decades in prison when the DNA analysis proved they were innocent. This case " provided one of the most dramatic examples yet of the potential harm from false, coerced confessions and of the power of DNA tests to exonerate the innocent." (The New York Times Sept. 2, 2014). This case raises the ethical questions of how many innocent lives have been put to death because of the death penalty. FInally, the death penalty system in our country is very costly and not efficient.
Only a small percentage of convicts will actually be put to death. There are many delays carrying out the death penalty which leads to huge financial court costs including judges, lawyers and investigators.(this las sentence was paraphrased from Time Magazine June 8th 2015).Take California for example,there are 750 prisoners on death row but in the past decade only 3 people have been put to death (this sentence was paraphrased from Time Magazine June 8th 2015). This example shows why it is important to rethink the death penalty. In conclusion, violent crimes and murder are inexusable and people who commit these crimes should be adequately punished and removed from society, but the death penalty has too many flaws such as being morally wrong, being carried out inhumanely, the execution of innocent people and the huge financial cost to our society. With all of these reasons, I do not agree with the death
penalty.