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My two cents. I wrote this in late June for my class, so the last executed criminal is not up to date. Also, ignore any emoticons. That's how the paper was written and the coding doesn't like it.
Since 1608, America or its colonial predecessors have executed 15,592 individuals for capital crimes (Connors). Four hundred years ago, Captain George Kendall was shot to death in the Jamestown colony for turning spy and passing information to the Spanish. His treason inducted America into a fraternity of nations that engage in the practice of executing their citizens. To this day, it is a fraternity America has not retired from, much to the world’s protest (Simon). Today, treason has been joined by fifty-three other offenses states have ruled deserving of the death penalty (“Supreme Court…” 9). First-degree murder remains the most common crime for death row inmates (“Crimes…” 1). On 20 June 2008, Captain Kendall was joined by South Carolina’s James Earl Reed, a black man who represented himself at his trial in the face of circumstantial evidence, as the 15,593 victim of America’s state-sponsored killing system (“Executions in the United States in 2008” 1). The only way to ensure liberty and fairness for all is to repeal a portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and pass a bill outlawing capital punishment.
The Fifth Amendment stipulates “… nor [shall a person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” Proponents of the death penalty have an immediate and powerful ally in the Constitutional framers, who outlined a single but flawed proviso before the state may execute a citizen that runs contrary to the Declaration of Independence, America’s highest source of moral obligation. By requiring due process in capital cases, the nation’s first lawmakers, led by James Madison, envisioned a working judicial system that was not clogged with petty offenses such as drug use/abuse or financial squabbles. The reality of due process for capital offenses is a lengthy process of trial(s), appeals, and so on. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Florida spends up to fifty percent of its time on death penalty related cases, while it only constitutes three percent of the court’s overall business (Kogan 10). For the average death row inmate, it takes eleven years from booking to the execution chamber (Akers 3). Certainly this is not the ideal criminal system that the Founders intended. Thomas Jefferson, one of the most revered Founding Fathers, largely penned the Declaration of Independence, and it states that no one can be denied “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It would stand to reason that Jefferson followed John Locke’s belief that there is no reason whatsoever that the government may take a life. So it is suspect that the Constitution outlines due process as the requirement, thereby violating the spirit of America’s most oft-quoted principles.
Clearly the framers of the Constitution did not consult the Declaration of Independence, which has provided moral insight in times of darkness. This nation has a four hundred year legacy of darkness, part of which our two great documents have stood in opposition. It is easier to acknowledge the moral high ground inherent to the Declaration and modify the Constitution than it is to continue abusing this country’s most basic principles and promises. America’s unwavering support of the death penalty forfeits our right to chastise the rest of the world’s human rights abuses, given that our death row population is higher than most others (Simon 2). In order to bring cohesion to America’s message, Congress must repeal the portion of the Fifth Amendment responsible for the legality of the death penalty and pass a bill at the federal level outlawing it. It is the duty of America to preserve life, not take it.
Clive S. Smith, director of the United Kingdom’s Reprieve, a charity devoted to the abolition of the death penalty around the world, has argued that America does not have a moral obligation to retain capital punishment as a means of saving lives at all (2). Smith has refuted the idea altogether and dismissed it as absolutely immoral by claiming if America were really concerned in saving lives, it would reduce the speed limit on the highways to five miles per hour, thereby saving 50,000 lives annually (Smith 2). Smith’s example illustrates that there is no morality in the defense of capital punishment, since it is so disproportionately applied. Studies have shown roughly 22,000 homicides are committed in this country per year, yet only an average of 300 people are executed annually (Rosenberg). On a macro scale, 0.82 prisoners are executed for every 60.3 people murdered. This is not justice. Simply put, the percentage of capital offenders to actually be executed is so small in comparison to the number of crimes committed that it is impossible for capital punishment defenders to assign a moral crusader argument for their position without seeking spiritual guidance.
However, even the Bible refutes the idea of a death penalty. James McCloskey, director of the Centurion Ministries in Princeton, New Jersey, points out in his essay “The Death Penalty Should be Abolished” that Jesus overrode the Old Testament “Eye for an eye” mantra in favor of “… if any one strikes you on one cheek turn the other to him… love your enemies” (70-75). The government does not punish rape with rape, and it does not burn down the homes of arsonists as an act of retribution (American Civil Liberties Union 4). Americans who support the death penalty have lost the moral authority based on the most dominant religion two millennia before they were born. There is no religious, and therefore, no moral basis to argue in support for capital punishment. From a practical standpoint, American practices regarding capital punishment could be argued as patently immoral in accordance with Christian teachings pulled directly from the Gospel. Nationally, ninety-four inmates, otherwise scheduled by the government for death, were released in the last decade often at the last minute because of faulty evidence, or testimony reversal (Dutta 1 . There is no moral defense for the death penalty. There is no higher spiritual call for its implementation. Therefore, it is only logical to say that in the interest of fostering a better record of human rights protection, the Congress would take action to ban this immoral practice.
Of course there is validity to the opposition’s argument that executing criminals convicted of homicide provides closure and satisfaction to the victim’s family. This, however, is selfish. As Justice Thurgood Marshall points out: “I cannot believe that at this stage in our history, the American people would ever knowingly support purposeless vengeance” (qtd. in Grant 26). That is what capital punishment has become: purposeless violence. State sponsored executions are cold, dispassionate, and should provide no solace to family or loved ones of the victims of violent crime. It is true that violence begets violence, as shall be fully explored later (Rosenberg). The moral thing to do is to end the cycle of violence once and for all; the most obvious candidate for this is the state (Grant 30).
The sheer fact that sentencing is discretionary based on the personal beliefs of district attorneys, judges, and juries is immoral and corrupt enough, but add to the mix that 23 of 29 states where life in prison without parole is a sentencing option have statues barring judges from informing the jury of that option (American Civil Liberties Union 3). This fact alone is a gross breach of courtroom ethics. It is like sending a man into the wild without a compass. These statues plant a seed in the minds of jurors that theirs is an either/or decision: Let a murderer go free or send him to the death chamber. The law as it stands in a majority of states that practice the death penalty bars juries from being informed of a middle-ground that can literally make the difference between life and death. Take the fact that states cannot even agree with each other over what constitutes a capital offense and that the same crime performed in a state without the death penalty merits no execution at all, and a clear grey area is left for personal crusaders, vendettas, and discrimination. Justice may be blind, but the administrators certainly are not. The elemental morality inherent to the American system of compassionate justice is missing in capital trials and Congress must take action to restore fairness through a partial repeal of the Fifth Amendment.
Perhaps more tangible than the social contract or moral implications, the economic burden of capital punishment on this nation is certainly worth examining. For any given fifteen year period where 130 people are executed annually, the state of Florida spends $57 million on the death penalty, though it only costs $9.5 million to keep all death row inmates in prison for life (Potter 2). The extra $47.5 million could go to educational, welfare, or healthcare reform. Another example, Texas spends an average of $2.3 million per execution, though it only costs $760,000 to keep an inmate housed in a maximum security single-person cell for forty years (Potter 2). Texas leads the nation in terms of state sponsored execution, and a federal ban on capital punishment would pump two-thirds the cost of execution back into its annual budget (Potter 2).
Ohio once spent ten percent of its total capital crimes budget to execute one man, a death penalty volunteer, money that never would have been spent had it not been for capital punishment and could have been pledged to more humanitarian causes (McCloskey 73). Some of the costs that would be eliminated in Ohio by the outlawing of capital punishment include an average of $18,147 of overtime for security guards, $2,250 for State Highway Patrol officers, an unknown amount for twenty-five to thirty public information officials who have to work the night of an execution, $5,320 for a satellite truck so the official announcement can reach outside media, and payment of five-fifteen prosecutors who work on a single case (McCloskey 73). In thirty-eight states, similar costs choke the legal system (McCloskey 74). One Washington state county went $700,000 in of debt in order to execute a man (McCloskey 74).
During a two year period from 1992-3, Duke University examined seventy-seven capital crimes cases in North Carolina to determine the average cost of executing an individual. (Simon 2). Their findings determined an average cost of $2.16 million for a complete execution, whereas it would only cost $1 million on average for the costs of trial, and the sentence of life in prison (Simon 2). This study largely confirms the economic model presented in Texas. The cost burdens small towns, as was the case in Washington, and deflects money from nobler projects. Roughly a third of the cost necessary to carry out capital punishment is necessary to hold a person in prison for the rest of their life. However, there are glaring exceptions, as was the case of Timothy McVeigh. His trail, appeals, and eventual execution cost Oklahoma $13.8 million (Simon 2). Doing the math, I find that the cost of killing Timothy McVeigh would pay for 230 Habitat for Humanity homes at an average cost of $60,000 a piece in the United States and house at least 920 people (Habitat for Humanity Fact Sheet 1).
One point must be conceded to the defenders of capital punishment on the basis of race and the “fairness” inherent to it: It is true that more whites (45.3%) than blacks (41.7%) are currently living on death row, and that more (630 whites to 376 blacks) have been executed since the death penalty’s reinstatement. However, this does not explain why the United States General Accounting Office issued the following statement in 1990: "In 82% of the studies, race of the victim was found to influenc the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks" (“Race of…”1).
Perhaps the evidence for this statement lies in the raw data. Blacks make up 12% of the general United States population, but 35% of the overall death row (American Civil Liberties Union 1). Whites, on the other hand, represent 72% of the general population, but make up less than 50% of that on death row (American Civil Liberties Union 1). That lends itself to the majority opinion in Furman v. Georgia: “The death sentence is disproportion-nately imposed and carried out on the poor, the Negro, and the members of unpopular groups” (qtd. in Grant 2.
The American Civil Liberties Union has determined that “… in Florida, a defendant’s odds of receiving a death sentence are 4.8 times higher if the victim was white than if the victim was black” (2). The study also finds similar multipliers in Illinois, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Mississippi (American Civil Liberties Union 2). Dis-crimination is alive and well in the decision-making process for who is sentenced to death in Kentucky, there is no way for supporters of capital punishment to deny that. Since Kentucky’s 1975 reinstatement of the death penalty, a thousand blacks have been murdered there (American Civil Liberties Union 2). Until 1999, every single death row inmate was sentenced for the murder of a white victim; none for the murder of a black individual (American Civil Liberties Union 2).
When the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972, it called the selection process for those being executed “arbitrary” and “capricious” as well as “harsh and freakish” (qtd. in McCloskey 72). Indeed, take rape as an example. Rape occurs daily in untold numbers, and from 1930 to 1980, 455 men were executed as a result of their guilty convictions (McCloskey 73). Of these 455, 90% were black despite making up a mere 10% of the population for most of this period of history (McCloskey 73). Or, perhaps, more revealing of the abuses of the legal system: 1991 was the first case of a white man being executed for killing a black man in fifty years (McCloskey 74). The highest court in the land at one point in the whole debate admitted that the system was “arbitrary” and yet overturned its own decision four years later under a different political climate (McCloskey 74). Congress must have the courage to reaffirm the court’s original decision in order to end “capricious” abuses and human bias inherent to the selection of the execution of criminals.
While America goes to great pains to remain sovereign in the age of the United Nations and the “coming of age” of other world players, it remains the only western industrialized nation to continue the practice of capital punishment (American Civil Liberties Union 1). In fact, the European Parliament has passed resolutions urging the country to abandon capital punishment (Weier 3). The underlying argument behind their plea has been summed up by German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin: “The Americans do not hesitate, proud as they are of their democratic tradition, to reproach other countries over human rights violations” (qtd. in Weier 3). The United States has the second or third largest death row roster, second only to Pakistan and according to some studies: China (Weier 3). It also retains the ability to execute people considered mentally retarded (Weier 3).
The United States is also one of seven nations reported by Amnesty International to have executed a minor since 1990. The others include Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Character on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the American Convention of Human Rights all expressly forbid the imposition of capital punishment on children who were under 18 when their crime was committed. However, this has not stopped America yet. In fact, America leads the way of child executions in the world: 19 of the 38 recorded between 1990 and 2004 occurred in the United States (Weier 1-10).
In 1997, the United Nations appointed a special investigator, Bacre Waly Ndiaye, an attorney from Senegal, to evaluate the death penalty in America (Weier 5). His report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, accuses the United States of “unfair, arbitrary, and racist use of capital punishment” (qtd. in Weier 5). Indeed, Ndiaye’s claims go so far as to say “… allegations of racial discrimination in the imposition of death sentences are particularly serious in south states” (qtd. in Weier 5). Additionally, a petition from more than three million people from 130 countries reached the United Nations General Assembly calling for an end to all executions (Weier 7). In 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a moratorium on capital punishment around the world, citing its usage as “too absolute, too irreversible” (qtd. in Weier 7). As of June 2008, the United States has continued its use of capital punishment despite international concern (Weier 9).
Additionally, observers have taken note of America’s treatment of foreign nationals in cases of capital crimes. America’s hold over the death penalty is turning the nation into an international pariah as accusations of lawbreaking and human rights violation surround the detention of some 118 foreign nationals on death row and the execution of 21 such individuals since 1976 (Weier 2). According to Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, ratified by America in 1969, all foreign nationals held in American custody are to have the right to consult with their home country’s consulate “without delay” (qtd. in Weier 2). Mark Warren of Human Rights Research, a Canadian advocacy center, has found this is generally not the case (Weier 3). Congress knowingly passed an international convention that it cannot de-ratify and is honor-bound to adhere to. However, if, as Mark Warren contends, foreign nationals are not being informed of their basic rights on American soil in most cases, the cards are automatically stacked against them. By the time a foreign national reaches sentencing and faces capital punishment, if their consulate gets word of the proceedings, there is little that can be done by way of extradition or appeal to the American justice system (Weier 3).
Supporters of capital punishment have always harped on the deterrence value. For example, it is interesting to note that England once had public executions for a whole host of crimes, the least of which was pick-pocketing (Simon 2). Obviously, the minority that did not go around pick-pocketing were deterred from doing so because it was a capital offense! True, pick-pocketing still went on, even at public executions (Simon 2). It is a fact that executions did not curb petty theft (Simon 2). It is a fact that the death penalty is not decreasing crime rates in America (Simon 2). In fact, several psychologists have found that violent behavior towards other- especially when performed by adolescents, as in the case of the Columbine High School massacre- resort to violence only as an alternative to suicide (Grant 2.
Those who argue the deterring effect of capital punishment have not done the math: 22,000 homicides and non-negligent manslaughters are committed annually in America (Potter 3). Only two-thirds of these, roughly 15,000, ever see a suspect arrested (Potter 3). And of that, only 45%, roughly 10,000, of all accused are ever convicted (Potter 3). According to supporters, the United States uses the death penalty as a deterrent to homicide. The fallacy in that argument comes from the fact that the United States has more homicide than it knows what to do with despite having a deterrent (Potter 4). Gary W. Potter, a former Senator and current professor of Justice and Police Studies, sums up the point:
"Put simply, the dilemma is this: there is no crime control issue we know more about than the death penalty and there is no crime control issue where the scientific research has been more ignored by decision-makers and the public than the death penalty" (Potter 6).
Less damning than the hard data but no less meaningful, America has a regional problem in terms of capital punishment. The logical recourse is for Congress to ban the practice instead of continuing to deal with a national disgrace. Presently, the South is the only region with a homicide rate higher than the national average. As a matter of fact, the region accounts for 80% of executions in the entire nation. Take the fact that the average homicide rate for states with the death penalty is 6.6 compared to non-death penalty states where the average is 3.5. The burden of proof now falls to supporters of capital punishment to explain why the violent crime rates are not lower than those states without it if capital punishment is such a feared deterrent (Potter 1-4).
Law enforcement officials, psychologists, and sociologists have noted that people “observe that the state is backwardly killing people in order to teach others not to kill” (Grant 30). This societal observation manifests so that “homicide actually increases in the time period surrounding an execution” (Grant 30). Social scientists call this phenomenon the brutalization effect (Grant 30). According to Gary Potter, the brutalization catalyzes homicide in three ways, first, executions desensitize the public to the immorality of killing, increasing the probability that some people will be motivated to kill. Two, the state legitimizes the notion that vengeance for past misdeeds is acceptable, and third, executions also have an imitation effect, where people actually follow the example set by the state, after all, people feel if the government can kill its enemies, so can they (6).
While there is absolutism to the argument, a kind of “monkey see, monkey do” implication that all humans are automatons who will repeat behavior displayed by other humans, the point is the same. No matter what, no one can argue away that the government is meant to be above the laws of nature and is duty-bound to provide order (Weier 4). At its basest form, capital punishment does disenfranchise the individual from the government. Any institution that can kill its members is probably not a very fun club. The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, all its citizens, no matter what. Capital punishment is a supreme cause of brutalization of society, and runs contrary to the interest of the general public in terms of individual liberty.
There are alternatives to capital punishment, of course. The most widely-touted is called Restorative Justice (Grant 31). Under this system, rehabilitation of a criminal would be the sole condition for parole (Grant 31). Now, the specific benchmarks of rehabilitation are a bit unclear, but Restorative Justice “seeks to eliminate the culture of violence in U.S. society and replace it with a culture of caring” (Grant 31). The supporters of Restorative Justice seek to advance the belief that it should be the government to extend the first olive branch and stop the violence of capital punishment (Grant 31). The next step, they believe, is a more peaceful society in line with Gary Potter’s mindless drone model because the government has backed down.
A more beneficial and practical solution, though, is what 29 states already have: Life in prison without parole (American Civil Liberties Union 3). Given that there is little danger of a single prisoner living out the remainder of his or her life in a one-person cell inside a maximum-security prison cell, it seems to be the most promising solution to America’s death penalty problem. Naturally, there are those who advance the idea that all killers will escape and rape, murder, and shoot their way through the streets like a rabid dog. They have a legitimate fear, but the chances of such a thing happening are so incalculable that it seems insulting to general intelligence. Life without parole means losing the key and retaining ownership of the criminal’s body even in death. That is a rather permanent situation without running the risk of martyrdom inherent to capital punishment. Age has a way of sobering the mind and disinteresting the public. Kill a killer in their prime, create a hero in the heart of the depraved, scared, and isolated (Simon 2). Life in prison without parole robs a murderer any glory in death (Simon 2). What comes to pass in a prison cell comes to pass.
Congress must redress the Fifth Amendment in order to bring it into step with the expectations of the Founders, society, the international community, and for the first time in American history truly balance the scales of equality. Only through a partial repeal and passing of legislative measures can the abolition of the death penalty be achieved. Congress has a duty to preserve “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I believe there is a reason they listed life as the first priority. For, without life, the government loses tax revenue. It is yet another reason criminals must be left to live in this country. By removing the option of parole from life sentences, it becomes an acceptable alternative. Congress has been given ample reason to take action though it lacks impetus due to protests from pro-capital punishment advocates, who have lost the historical, international, fiscal, practical, and moral argument but continue to be a potent force of violence.
Works Cited
Akers, Ronald. "Deterrence and the Death Penalty: the Views of the Experts." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 87.1 (1996): 1-16.
American Civil Liberties Union. "Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished." (1999): 1-5.
Connors, Paul. "Introduction to Capital Punishment." Introduction. Current Controversies: Capital Punishment. By Paul Connors. Detroit: Greenhaven P, 2007.
"Crimes Punishable by the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. Dec. 2007. 18 June 2008 <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=144&scid=10>.
"Executions in the United States in 2008." Death Penalty Information Center. 17 June 2008. 18 June 2008 <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did
=2707>.
Dutta, Sunil. "Humans Playing God: Capital Punishment and Its Follies." Tikkun 17 (2002): 17-24.
Grant, Robert. "Capital Punishment Exacerbates Violence." The Humanist 64. (2004): 25-32.
"Habitat for Humanity Fact Sheet." Habitat for Humanity. 2008. Habitat for Humanity International. 18 June 2008 <http://www.habitat.org/how/factsheet.aspx>.
Kogan, Gerald. "Justice and the Role of the Death Penalty." The Tampa Tribune 26 Jan. 1998, Final ed., sec. B: 10.
McCloskey, James. "The Death Penalty: a Personal View." Criminal Justice Ethics 15.2 (1996): 70-75.
Potter, Gary W. "Capital Punishment is an Ineffective Crime Control Policy." Kentucky Legislature. Joint Interim Health and Welfare Committee. Kentucky Legislature, Frankfurt. (20 Mar. 1999): 1-8.
"Race of Death Row Inmates Since 1976." Death Penalty Information Center. 18 June 2008. Death Penalty Information Center. 18 June 2008 <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184#inmaterace>.
Rosenberg, Paul H., comp. Bush, Gore Both Wrong on Death Penalty. 18 Oct. 2000. <www.la-indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=4087>.
Simon, Paul. "Capital Punishment Does Not Make Nations Safer." Pew Forum. A Call for Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty. University of Chicago Divinity School, Illinois. 25 Jan. 2002: 1-5.
Smith, Clive S. "Studies Cannot "Prove" Capital Punishment Deters Crime." Current Controversies: Capital Punishment (2007): 1-4.
"Supreme Court Rulings - Constitutionality of the Death Penalty, Guidelines for Judges and Juries, Jury Selection, and Sentencing Procedures." Capital Punishment: Cruel and Unusual? (2006). The Gale Group. St Johns River Community College, St. Augustine. Keyword: Death Penalty.
Weier, John W. "Capital Punishment Around the World." Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center 1 (2006): 1-10. Gale Group. St Johns River Community College, St. Augustine. 3 June 2008. Keyword: Capital Punishment.
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