Position Paper over Death Penalty

The death penalty should be abolished. I absolutely agree with this statement. From a personal standpoint, I do not believe in the death penalty for several reasons. One is the fear of someone being put to death that is innocent. It is also, in my opinion, just as much punishment to sentence someone to life in prison without the chance for parole. From a business standpoint I do not believe the death penalty is cost effective. I know that it is expensive to run prisons; however it is also very costly to those states that do use the death penalty. In some states juries make the decision on which convicted criminals are put to death and in some states judges make these decisions. I am also again the death penalty because I do not feel that any person should have the part they played in putting someone to death on their conscious forever. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that a republican, Don Heller, former prosecutor, and the author of the 1978 ballot initiative to that reinstated California’s death penalty, “voiced his support for replacing the death penalty with life without parole.” In this article, Mr. Heller states that there are “staggering” costs and there is a significant risk of executing the innocent. He also states that he feels that at least one innocent person may have been executed under California’s current death penalty law. I agree with Mr. Heller’s current position on this subject. As a juror, prosecutor or judge, I think making this decision would be hard and that I would contemplate if I made the right decision for the rest of my life. William S. Sessions, a former director of the FBI and a former judge and prosecutor recently made this statement regarding the death sentence of Troy Davis “Without DNA or other forms of physical or scientific evidence that can be objectively measured and tested, it is possible that doubt about guilt in this case will never be resolved. However, when it comes to the sentence of death, there should be no room for doubt.” Mr. Sessions has an accurate argument and there is reportedly very much doubt to the guilt of Troy Davis in this case. Troy Davis will be put to death at 7pm on the very day that I am writing this paper. By the time his paper reaches you, a man with a doubtful conviction will be dead. On September 22, Derrick Mason will also be executed. The judge who imposed this death sentence on Mason in 1995 has written a letter to be submitted to the Alabama governor requesting Mason’s sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. This judge had only been on the bench six months when he heard Mason’s case. The cost effectiveness of the death penalty is something many people are rethinking. As of January 1st of this year, on death row there are 3,251 people in the US on death row. However, Troy Davis is only the 34th person put to death in the US this year. In 2010 there were a total of 46 executions and in 1998 a 30 year high of 98. By using the death penalty we are only taking .00003% of US inmates out of our prison system. On the other hand, the cost to implement the death penalty is approximately $137 million per year in California alone in ongoing costs. The state of Florida alone spends an estimated $51 million annually on this nonsense and for their investment they have not executed anyone in going on a year and a half. The cost of the present execution system in California with reforms recommended by the Commission to ensure a fair process would be $232 million per year… almost an $100 million dollar increase. My position on this is to implement a life in prison without parole sentence rather that the current death sentence. Numbers do not lie on the cost effectiveness of this. The cost to impose the maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty is .08% of the current death penalty costs in one state alone. This narrows annual costs from $137 million to a significantly less $11.5 million. Each death penalty case in Texas costs taxpayers about $2.3 million, 3 times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. It is my opinion that there are many cases in which are not tried correctly and fairly. Of the over 1,000 people executed, it is my belief that innocent people we killed and that many unnecessary tax dollars were spent. The $126 million we could save annually if the death penalty was abolished could be put at the forefront of crime in order to prevent it. I think many would agree with my position on the death penalty.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ www.deargpenaltyinfor.org/costs-death-penalty