In the name of deterring crime and protecting society, Americans have justified murder.
The death penalty is legal in 28 states, three of which have issued moratoriums on executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization providing research and analysis on capital punishment.
Those three states, California, Oregon and Pennsylvania, have governors with just moral compasses allowing their justice systems to bypass the law and inhibit the penalty.
According to the Los Angeles Times, California holds the national record for the number of death row inmates with an astonishing 737 as of March 2019.
My colleague Gia Pham tells you that the death penalty should not be exempt from any state law because it is a rightful punishment for certain crimes.
Her list of justified crimes that deserve the death penalty include sexual assault and first-degree murder, if defendants are convicted.
I’m glad she agrees that it should be proven crimes because wrongful incarceration that leads to the death penalty is extremely high in this country.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 82.4% of death row inmates who were released because of wrongful imprisonment were mistakenly convicted for official misconduct.
Another 76.5% were on death row for false accusations.
I disagree with death penalty supporters because families of victims will not overcome trauma through restitution.
We should encourage people to prevail without retribution because as a society, we need to believe that we are better than those who have wronged us.
There is no difference between government-sanctioned executions and murders. The former is simply justified with an outdated law while the latter is not.
Now, I am not saying that people like Ted Bundy, who raped and murdered dozens of women, should be given mercy.
For his heinous crimes, he should have faced a life-sentence without parole and restitution.
Killing him released him of his consciousness and accountability. It was freeing him from his actions.
Criminals, regardless of the severity of their crimes, are aware that they risk life imprisonment when engaging in illicit activity.
It is not the weight of the penalty, but the likelihood of getting caught that scares them.
Beyond its moral implications, the death penalty also poses as a financial constraint on the American justice system.
NBC News reported that in 2007, New Jersey became the first state to ban execution because of the financial burden it placed.
A 2011 article by Arthur L. Alarcón, a United States Court of Appeals judge for the Ninth Circuit, and Paula M. Mitchell, Loyola Marymount University law professor, stated that the exorbitant costs of capital punishment was a damper in California residents’ wallets.
“Since 1978, California’s [death penalty] system has cost the state’s taxpayers $4 billion more than a system that has life in prison without the possibility of parole,” stated Alarcón and Mitchell.
Not only is this a chunk of our paycheck going to unjustifiable homicide, it is a damning valuation of American society’s morals.
We cannot trust in a system that upholds the law of retaliation – an eye for an eye.
