If someone told you that the government is killing people to show others that killing is wrong would you believe it? The death penalty practiced by the United States government has killed many people, some being innocent, and is very wrong and should be abolished. The death penalty seems like a good idea up front but it comes with many flaws.
The Death Penalty
The death penalty has ended the lives of about 1,330 American citizens since 1976 and I believe this process should stop being practiced in the United States. This is because of the many flaws that this sentence contains, including wrongful execution, being unconstitutional, and its ineffectiveness at being a deterrent to other criminals. The book The Stranger by Albert Camus displays the practice of the death penalty and how it affects the mind.
Thirty-nine… that’s how many people that should be alive today but are unfortunately not due to wrongful execution. Wrongful execution is when a person is convicted and sentenced with the death penalty and then executed then later evidence proved that they were actually innocent. This occurs because of many different factors including inadequate legal representation. Many defendants who are convicted and may be facing the death penalty are usually poor and cannot afford proper legal representation so they take whatever is given to them which may not be adequate at all. Many lawyers of these individuals are very incompetent by being asleep, drunk or asleep in court which will cause the defendant to be convicted. An example of this is from a case of a man named Jimmy Ray Bromgard. Bromgard, arrested when he was 18 and he spent 15 years in prison accused for the rape of an eight-year-old girl, a crime post-conviction DNA testing proved he did not commit. Bromgard’s trial attorney performed no investigation, filed no pre-trial motions, gave no opening statement, did not prepare for closing arguments, failed to file an appeal, and provided no expert to refute the fraudulent testimony of the state’s hair microscopy expert. Other than the forensic testimony and the tentative identification, there was no evidence against Bromgard. With any adequate legal representation Bromgard would have been easily proved innocent and not wrongfully convicted. This is shown in The Stranger during Meursault’s trial when Muersault says “In fact, there seemed to be a conspiracy to exclude me from the proceedings; I wasn’t to have any say and my fate was to be decided out of hand.” (Camus, 98). This shows the inadequate legal representation from Muersault’s lawyer because his lawyer is not letting Meursault to do anything and is basically deciding is fate for him. A second factor that could cause wrongful conviction is police and prosecutor misconduct and error. This is when the prosecutor illegally withholds vital evidence from the defendants causing them to lose and giving the false outcome of the case. According to the University of Missouri-Kansas, police misconduct was a factor in 50% of the DNA exonerations and prosecutorial misconduct was a factor in 45%. With these factors and many others, wrongful conviction and execution are surprisingly more common than most think and shows that the death penalty should be abolished.
Another reason that the death penalty should stop being practiced in the United States is that it is unconstitutional because it violates many amendments. One of the amendments that the death penalty violates is the 8th amendment where it states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” As William J. Brennan, Justice of the US Supreme Court stated, “Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment… The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats ‘members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded.” What Brennan is saying is that the death penalty is inhumane and very cruel and unusual because the government is not treating the people like citizens they’re treating them like objects to do with however they want and that is truly wrong and unconstitutional. Another way the death penalty violates the 8th amendment is from what is called botched executions where something goes wrong while attempting to execute a person, causing extreme pain and discomfort. An example of this is during the execution of Romell Broom by lethal injection in 2009. What had happened was according to Death Penalty Information Center, “Efforts to find a suitable vein and to execute Mr. Broom were terminated after more than two hours when the executioners were unable to find a useable vein in Mr. Broom’s arms or legs. During the failed efforts, Mr. Broom winced and grimaced with pain. After the first hour’s lack of success, on several occasions Broom tried to help the executioners find a good vein. “At one point, he covered his face with both hands and appeared to be sobbing, his stomach heaving.” This is very cruel and unusual, no matter how rare these occurrences are, happening once should be enough to realize that something needs to be done. Another amendment that the death penalty violates is the 14th amendment where it states that all persons will have equal protection under the law. In 2001, the New Jersey Supreme Court released a report stating that the death penalty law is more likely to proceed against defendants who kill white victims. Also, in 1997 there was a study among death eligible defendants in Philadelphia and it concluded that there was a 38% increased chanced to receive the death penalty if the accused was black.
Even with all the criminals being executed today, the death penalty is not a very good deterrent to other criminals. A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. This is a surprisingly large number and shows that the death penalty really is not as effective as most people think. Along with the same study, Radelet and Lacock discovered that nearly 78% of those surveyed said that having the death penalty in a state does not lower the murder rate. In addition, 91% of respondents said politicians support the death penalty in order to appear tough on crime. Both of these statistics strongly show that the death penalty is not the best thing for the United States. Politicians use it to become more favorable among the people and may not even personally believe in it and that most of the leading criminologists think that the death penalty does not deter other criminals from committing crimes. The ineffectiveness of the death penalty at deterring criminals can also be seen in The Stranger. In part one, chapter six when Muersault kills the Arab he does not think about being punished and sentenced to the death penalty showing that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent. These examples from real life statistics and from The Stranger show how ineffective of a deterrent the death penalty is and should be removed from the United States as a punishment.
People who are in favor of the death penalty will say that the death penalty gives the victim’s family closure and peace. This is true but, being locked up for life gives just as much closure and peace, knowing that the criminal is eternally stuck inside a prison cell. Also, to most people it is more of a punishment to be locked in a cell for life than to be killed and put out of the pain of sitting in a cell for life. Also, People who are for the death penalty will say that it works very well at keeping other criminals from committing crimes because it will scare them from doing anything illegal. But, most criminologists say that the death penalty is not a very good deterrent. Another point that pro death penalty people might say is that race has no influence but this is not true, as said earlier, just by being a minority there is a drastic increase in chance that you will be convicted.
The death penalty should be removed from the United States because of its many flaws. The three main flaws that the death penalty has is wrongful conviction and execution, to many people are dying wrongful deaths. Also, it is unconstitutional; the death penalty violates many amendments of the constitution. Lastly, it has very little effect on other criminals as a deterrent; criminals will still commit crimes even if the death penalty may be their demise. The death penalty has little benefits when put up against all the faults that it has and needs to be abolished from the United States.
World Studies World Literature 