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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

The Death Penalty Debate in The United States

Aaron Torres Medina

NorthWest Career and Technical Academy

English 12 Period 3

Ms. Acosta

March 5, 2021
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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

Abstract

As Coretta Scott King once stated, “Justice is never advanced in the taking of

a human life.” Although some may say that the death penalty is a valid option for

incarcerated dangerous individuals. The death penalty is costly to society, because of the

amount it takes to imprison a person for tens of years, ultimately wasting taxpayer money.

Viewed as eye for an eye, capital punishment is actually eye for a torso. As well as there

there being a background of prejudice and injustice in the death penalty.

Firstly addressed is exponential to address the cost of deathrow. In general there is

a problem with America's fond obsession with imprisonment and the prison system. The

median cost of the death penalty is $1.26 million dollars. With the worst being California,

annually costing taxpayers $114 million worths of money according to NY times. Even

non-death penalties expand resources and money more than necessary. According to

Penalreform.org the cost for a death penalty case that results in a different sentance or

innocence, results in $750+ thousand dollars. This means that as of 2020, there are over

2,200 incarcerated with capital punishment according to the NAACP. As well as there being a

4.1 percentage of innocent cases, though this doesn’t include cases that were later given a

different sort of punishment. Which means almost $2 billion dollars will be poured on

incarcerated prisoners. Taking away benefits that could be given to more needed areas. Such as

healthcare, mental help institutions, and most importantly, education.

Which brings up the question, if not capitol punishment, then what? Prisons are
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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

setting up a new type of prison, mental institutions such as psychiatric wards. According to the

reviews of mental hospitals in Las Vegas, such as Dessert Parkway, and Rawson-Neal. These

places have been credited for having care workers abusing patients and other violations.

According to TheChicagoSchool, it is shown that mental hospitals do exactly what they are

trying to fix. Amongst new numbers, it is shown that psychological trauma and diseases are

worsened by staying in hospitals as such. Meaning that the prison system is inept and unable to

set up a support system for mental health. An article written by ACLU argues that the death

sentence costs more, and delivers less. Which means that even life in prison is an adequate

sentence. Due to life in prison being up to 25 years, life in prison is way less harsh than it sounds

at first as well.

With this, this brings the question, why is it so important how much resources is poured

into capital punishment? Firstly, the death sentence has a known root of being used as

a tool against less fortunate people such as minority groups or families in poverty.

It is a well known fact that your court case can be held up entirely but a good team of lawyers,

though, not everyone has the commodity to afford lawyers, and even back then, some didn’t

even need lawyers to face the brutal reality of the US prison system. Joe Arridy is an example,

In 1936, Arridy was arrested for vagrancy. At the time, there was a murder of a 15 year old

girl under investigations. When authorities realized Arridy was neurologically atypical,

they decided to pin the murder on him. Due to his poverty, disabilities, and willingness to

cooperate with his own Grim reaper, he was wrongfully executed on January 6, 1936. As well as

according to deathpenaltyinfo.org, although black people make up 30% of North Carolina's

population, they fill up 60% of prisoners on death row. The case of Arnold Ventures took place
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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

in 1944, when a young black teen who was 14 years old was a victim of a 10 minute jury

decision that led him to the electric chair. This shows that even in recent times, where most of

our grandparents were still alive. Racism is still systematic and shows itself in more than just

verbal harassment.

Some may believe that, because the Supreme Court deems executions to be

constitutional, it is right to do so. According to the 5th, and 14th amendment, it is quoted, “no

person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” We have to

point out that it says, without due process of law. Making it completely possible for someone to

be judged and given the death penalty. Now, there is a famous law prohibiting “cruel and unusual

punishment”, which is why the death penalty is addressed as painless and quick. As a result,

there has a been a fight to keep the death penalty, which is why a majority of the states do not

prohibit this. However, on June 29, 1972, during the complicated ruling of Furman v. Georgia

deemed capital punishment unconstitutional. A quote by Livermore states, “But are we in the

future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel? If a more lenient

mode of correcting vice and deterring others from the commission of it would be invented, it

would be very prudent in the Legislature to adopt it;” Admitting that, throughout the years of

reform we have had. There are new ways we can adopt, so why not move on, and stop repeating

the past.

Human life is precious, which is why it is fundamentally wrong to kill someone. If the

punishment for murder is murder, then we are stuck in a loop. These people are mentally wrong

to be brought to kill, rape, or torture someone. Since the human develops in his environment, we

need stronger education, better mental help, and new ways for these criminals to pay their debt of

life. Not only is it morally wrong, but it puts millions of dollars in a fire. Dollars stained in
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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

discrimination, minorities, poor families, victimized by this legal system. We have tools to

change this. Written letters, phone calls, a call to action for our representatives. We need to

allocate our resources onto more pressing matters, rather than living in the past.
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Death Penalty: Capitol Punishment

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