Is Capital Punishment Justified.....Yes

“Is Capital Punishment Justified”

When looking at the issue of whether Capital Punishment is ever Justified, Robert W. Lee believes that it is because it is necessary to punish people to for heinous crimes against society fairly. I plan to expand on his argument by looking at four different categories; risk of executing an innocent, the incapacitation and the deterrent effects, race sentencing and the death penalty, the cost of life without parole versus the death penalty. Capital punishment is not unfair and unjust because there are guidelines that have been put into place to regulate them. Robert W. Lee brings up the case Furman v. Georgia (1972) as an example. He argues that many people mistakenly thought the decision made buy the Supreme Court abolished capital punishment but what it did was protect minorities for racial discrimination. Two of the Supreme Court justices thought that capital punishment did violate the Eight Amendment’s injunction against “cruel and unusual punishment,” but in a later case Gregg v. Georgia (1976) this argument was final decided upon. It was decided that a new set of guidelines were to be put into place to establish a case as a capital case. Justice Potter Stewart argued that, “together with other safeguards against arbitrariness included in the new statute, preserved it against Either Amendment challenges.”(McKenna pg 142) So when we look at the first topic, the risk of executing an innocent. When we think of this we can always question if all the facts in the case have come out, did the courts do their job, was anything illegal done, and the biggest question here is what if were wrong. Great effort has been made in pretrial, trial, appeals, writ and clemency procedures to reduce the chance of an innocent being convicted, sentenced to death or executed. Since 1973, legal protections have established themselves to protect the convicted/accused so that 37% of all death row cases have been overturned for due process reasons or commuted. Indeed, inmates are six times more likely to get off death row by appeals than by execution. (Death penalty information center) And, in fact, many of those cases were overturned based on post conviction new laws, established by legislative or judicial decisions in other cases. One case that is used to argue against this innocent topic is Herrera v. Collins (1993).What was found in that case was that the Herrera "decision would allow the states to execute a defendant for a crime that he did not commit. Justice O’Connor’s concurring opinion makes clear that Herrera does not stand for that proposition. Justice O’Connor stated, ‘I cannot disagree with the fundamental legal principal that executing the innocent is inconsistent with the Constitution’ and ‘the execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.’ As Justice O’Connor stated, the Court assumed for the sake of argument ‘that a truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence would render any such execution unconstitutional and that federal habeas relief would be warranted if no state avenue were open to process the claim.’ (DPIC) That is the holding in Herrera, and any claim to the contrary is simply not correct." When looking at the case, Herrera’s claim of innocence was weak and insupportable. Herrera was attempting to blame his dead brother for the crimes he was found guilty of committing. When the evidence against Herrera is considered against the unproven evidence of innocence, it is not surprising that all of the federal judges to hear this claim, including all of the dissenters in the Supreme Court, agree that Herrera was in fact guilty of the charges. Another argument that is overlooked by opponents to the capital punishment is, in fact, no proof that an innocent has been executed since 1900. And the probability of such a tragedy occurring has been lowered significantly more since Gregg v. Georgia. (DPIC) In that same time hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been murdered or seriously injured, in that same time period, by criminals improperly released by the U.S. criminal justice system. So since no proof of an innocent executed has been established, doesn’t this prove that the system is working? Secondly we will look at the argument that race has role in the sentencing and enforcement of the death penalty. People try to argue that the Death Sentence is unfair to minorities because they come for poor urban areas, and the justice system is set up against them. It is true that non-white are the majority of all the prison populations across America, but when it comes to the “execution” of races, there is no proof of racial biases. Here is just a list of why I believe that race has no effect on the sentencing of the death penalty. First of all majority of those on death row are white, the majority of those executed are white since 1929, white murderers have been more likely to have been executed than black murderers, white murderers, no matter who they kill, are more likely to get the death penalty than black murderers 11.1% to 7.3%). (DPIC) Looking even deeper into the race issues we see that based on statistics whites who kill whites are slightly more likely to be on death row than blacks who kill whites. Whites who kill blacks are slightly more likely to be on death row than blacks who kill whites and whites are executed 15 months quicker than blacks. Studies have also shown that whites are executed at rates nearly 50% above their involvement in murder. Blacks are executed at rates 20% below their involvement in murder. (NAACP LDF) Now while looking at all of these facts, it would seem to point to the fact that whites are being discriminated against when it comes to the death penalty, but in fact it is just our justice system doing it’s job. In our justice system, murderers are put to death, not based on the race, or economic status of the victim or the murderer, but based upon death penalty statutes, the specific circumstances of the crime committed, the criminal background of the murderer, and the other factors determined over time by Supreme Court decisions that we have mentioned in previous sections. In a study conducted by Professor Baldus, Woodward and Pulaski, McCleskey, it was argued that the death penalty was racist and biased. In 1983, Judge J. Owen Forester a Federal Court Judge found that the study's conclusions of racial bias were without merit and not valid. In 1985 while appealing, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 9-3 vote, stated "Viewed broadly, it would seem that the statistical evidence presented here...confirms rather than condemns the death penalty system." (NAACP LDF) In April 1987, the Supreme Court 5-4 stated that the study in question did not establish that capital punishment discriminates against black defendants or killers of white victims. At most, the Baldus study only proves a statistical discrepancy that appears to correlate with race. Apparent disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system. The next area we will look at is the cost of life without parole “lwop” versus the cost of the death penalty. Many opponents argue that the death penalty is far more expensive than lwop cases, and it may be true, but only in the short term. Let’s take a look at the chart below;

Cost of Life Without Parole: Cases
Equivalent To Death Penalty Cases Cost of Death Penalty Cases
$34,200/year for 50 years , at a 2% annual cost increase, plus
$75,000 for trial & appeals = $3.01 million $60,000/year for 6 years , at a 2% annual cost increase, plus
$1.5 million for trial & appeals = $1.88 million Same, except 3% = $4.04 million Same, except 3% = $1.89 million Same, except 4% = $5.53 million e, Same, except 4% (3 = $1.91 million

DPIC

As you can see the price of the death penalty cases is less than 2 million dollars for the entire time, while the lwop cases are at a minimum 3 million in their entire lifetime. So look at these the two base figures, 3.01 million compared to 1.88 million. Now not all lwop case are going to have a 50 year lifespan in prison, but at the same time there are many more lwop people than death penalty ones. There’s many other factors that go into increases in prison costs and the higher cost to society as a whole, including prison conditions, medical costs, including the immense cost of geriatric care, that go hand in hand with LWOP sentences. Injury or death to the inmate by violence, injury or death to others caused by the inmate and gang participation and violence are three factors not included in the cost. Also add that without the fear of additional punishment, other than loss of privileges, there may be and increase in violence because of no consequences. So with all of these extra factors and cost for the lwop patients it is unimaginable too believe that the cost of death penalty cases is more expensive that lwop case. In the short term we can see that yes the high court cost is a bit much, but the limited time frame is a lot short than the average life span of lwop prisoners. There are a few other factors in dealing with capital punishment that have to be noted as well. Deterrence is a huge factor and Robert W. Lee brings this point up with Utah having had three executions since the Gregg v. Georgia and in every period after an execution took place the percentage of murders decreased at least 21%. Deterrence is a good reason to have capital punishment because if there is no fear of punishment for a crime than why not commit the crime when ever u feel like it. The eye for an eye argument is a message that some in the justice system believe how it should be done. If you commit an act that fits all the specifically laid out guidelines that the Supreme Court has laid out for the justice system, you deserve to be punished. Robert W. Lee brings up another factor that I wanted to touch on was the fact that the deceased is unable to tell us whether or not they want the murderer to be forgiven or not because they are dead. People want us to show mercy for these murderers, because they “see the errors of their ways,” “they have found god,” or even they “they didn’t know what they were doing.” None of these excuses are in any way helping the victim of this case and they focus on valuing the life of a murderer over the life of an innocent individual. So as I have shown the death penalty is a necessity to our society and the Supreme Court agrees with me. We have a society that has a ton of checks and balances, to prevent the continuation of injustices against us Americans and the Supreme Court has regulated what deserves Capital Punishment. There are mistakes made in the criminal justice system, but there is a justice process to prevent these mistakes to continue on. We need the death penalty to as Robert W. Lee writes, “To protect the innocent and transfer the fear and burden of crime to the criminal element where it belongs, we must demand that capital punishment be imposed when justified and expanded to cover terrible crimes in addition to murder” (McKenna pg.149) So the death penalty strikes fear into criminals, prevents crime and is justified so it is necessary for capital punishment to continue.