“When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.” -Justice Thurgood Marshall (1990).

Scandalous is exactly the right word to describe the United States system for handing down the death penalty. Severity of the crime is not what is determining who receives life without parole and who gets a death sentence. The majority of the time it is race of the victim, lack of adequate representation, and gender. The United States needs to put an end to capital punishment because of the unfair sentencing. Although some believe the death penalty is less expensive than life in prison and may be a deterrent to crime, the statistics show it is simply not true.

Study after study has shown that there is a connection between the race of the victim and the future for the accused. People that kill white victims are far more likely to get the death penalty and be executed then those that kill black victims. Since 1976, the reinstatement of the death penalty, and January 1, 2008 there have been 1,099 executions. Of those, 228 were black defendants with white victims and only 15 were white defendants with black victims. Furthermore, of the 1,099 execution that have taken place 78.71% involved a white victim. (Fins, 2008) A study done in North Carolina based on data from 1993 to 1997 found that defendants whose victims were whites were 3.5 times more like to receive the death penalty. (Boger & Unah, 2001) This shows an obvious bias toward who is executed.

A lack of sufficient counsel is also a source of concern regarding capital punishment and its sentencing. Court appointed attorneys for capital punishment cases are extremely busy, not paid very well, and usually lack the experience necessary to save their clients life. There have also been instances of court appointed attorneys sleeping through trials, showing up under the influence of alcohol, or not showing up at all. “An examination of 461 capital cases by The Dallas Morning News found that nearly one in four condemned inmates has been represented at trial or on appeal by court-appointed attorneys who have been disciplined for professional misconduct at some point in their careers.”(Staff Writers of the Dallas Morning News, 2000) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it best in 2001,

“People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. . . . I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.”

Without someone fighting the case there is no possible way to win, innocent or not.

Although woman account for 1 in 10 murder arrests they only account for 1 in 50 death sentences and 1 in 92 executions. (Death Penalty Information Center, 2001) Women are also less likely to sit on death row. It is understandable that society has a hard time putting a woman to death, but then why not for men? Why is it more acceptable for one gender to kill then the other?

People that are for the death penalty have their reasons. Some say that it is for the victims’ families, but killing a defendant could never bring someone back. Another argument is that keeping these prisoners in jail for life would be too expensive. However, to maintain the death penalty system, California pays $114 million a year over what it would cost for life without parole. Also, it costs $90,000 more per person a year to house death row inmates because of their cells and security. (Tempest, 2005) Lastly, many capital punishment supporters believe that it is a deterrent to murder. It is good in theory, but it doesn’t work in real life. People aren’t thinking clear enough during a murder to be expected to care about the future if they might get the death penalty for their actions. The Death Penalty Information Center says: “When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average of murder rates per 100,000 population in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5, whereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states was only 3.6.”(Cooper, 2007)

While most of the World has protections in place against executing the mentally ill, the United States does not and has executed 100 people since 1977. (Amnesty International, 2008) Also, new research into the drugs used in the lethal injection cocktail is disheartening. The death could actually be felt by some and even be painful for others. So much so that a federal judge in California ruled the injection program was unconstitutional because it represented “cruel and unusual punishment”.(Reilly, 2007) There are also cases of innocent people being finally freed by advancements like DNA testing. What about the next advancement that clears a new round of innocent people? How can America justify taking one innocent life?

References

Amnesty International. (2008). Mental Illness – 100 Executions. Retrieved September 20, 2008, from

Amnesty International USA: http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/execution-of-mentally-

ill/mental-illness—100-executions/page.do?id=1101132&n1=3&n2=28&n3=105

Boger, B., & Unah, I. (2001). Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993-

1997. North Carolina: The Common Sense Foundation.

Cooper, D. (2007, January). Deterrence: States Without the Death Penalty Have Had Consistently Lower

Murder Rates. Retrieved September 19, 2008, from Death Penalty Information Center:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates

Death Penalty Information Center. (2001, December 31). Women & the Death Penalty. Retrieved

September 18, 2008, from Death Penalty Information Center:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty

Fins, D. (2008). Death Row USA. New York: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Reilly, M. (2007, April 24). Lethal injection drugs ‘unreliable’. NewScientist .

Staff Writers of the Dallas Morning News. (2000, September 10). Quality of Justice. The Dallas Morning

News , pp. 1-6.

Tempest, R. (2005, March 6). “Death Row Often Means a Long Life; California condemns many murderers, but few are ever

executed”. Los Angeles Times , p. B.1.

Moonstruck Mommy