Abolish the Death Penalty.

The death penalty is an ineffective and brutally simplistic response to the serious

and complex problem of violent crime. The victim total of this has been 590 of which, we

know of 400 cases that the person has been wrongfully accused. Scientific studies have

consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crimes.

The respected Thorsten Sellin studies of the United States in 1962, 1967 and 1980

concluded that the death penalty was not a deterrent, newer studies have shown it may

actually increase capital offenses. Innocent lives have been lost due to human mistake, and

death penalty is simply worth too much which might even bring a county to bankruptcy.

Studies show that in this century, at least 400 innocent people have been convicted

of capital crimes they did not commit. Of those 400, 23 were executed. The wrongful

execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified. In 1982, while

being held for an assault charge of which he was aquitted, Nick Yarris was forced to

endure withdrawals from methamphetamine and physical abuse while awaiting trial. He

read of the murder of Linda Craig in the Philly Inquirer, and tried to make a deal to get

out of jail by saying he might have information on the crime. He was convicted of the

murder of Linda Craig and sentenced to death. His guilt was physically impossible. There

is an unbiased witness who spoke to him and a hard piece of evidence establishing his

location and a time line. A deal with a snitch was made to set Yarris up in exchange for

getting off of a 20 year prison term. How and why are innocent people convicted of

crimes and sentenced to death? Despite the alleged protection of the legal system a

multitude of factors often interacts together resulting in the conviction of an innocent

person. Police and prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate legal representation, eyewitness

error, racial prejudices, perjury, false confessions, plea bargaining and many other factors

contribute to innocent victims being convicted, and in some cases executed. There was

also witness tampering, withheld evidence, and destroyed biological evidence. Nick

located 2 slides in another county. The prosecution confiscated it and it was held illegally

in the desk of a detective for two years. Nick is the first death row inmate to ask for DNA

testing in the US to prove his innocence (March 20, 1988). Dr. Edward Blake and Dr.

Tahir from the Sam Shepard case will jointly perform any possible DNA testing this year.

Sometimes justice does work but its too late, after 21 years in death roll what is the reason

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to live. James Richardson, a poor black farm worker, was convicted and

sentenced to die in Florida s electric chair for the murder of his seven

children. Authorities said Richardson s motive was to collect money from the children s

life insurance policies. However, the insurance polices had lapsed, and no one, including

his court-appointed attorney stated this during the trial. Furthermore, three jail inmates

testified that Richardson had confessed the murders to them. It was not mentioned

at the trial that the sheriff had promised the three inmates reduced jail time in exchange for

their testimony. In addition, the prosecutor had withheld 900 pages of evidence.

Richardson s neighbor, admitted to a nursing home after the children were murdered,

confessed she was the killer, however, the staff failed to report this. When these and other

details surfaced, authorities re-opened the case. Richardson was released after spending

twenty-one years on death row awaiting execution. Imagine yourself being in jail for 21

years of your life waiting to be executed for a crime you did not commit, how much pain

and suffering does a human have to go through for this barbaric practice to stop.

Consider we are the only western democracy that practice this method of justice, and we

call ourselves a developed country. Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma and

loss which no one should minimize. However, executions do not help these people heal

their wounds nor do they end their pain; the extended process prior to executions prolongs

the agony of the family. Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the funds

now being used for the costly process of executions were diverted to the provision of

counseling and assistance. If there are so many killings that happen each year why does a

person get the death penalty. Politics, quality of legal counsel and the jurisdiction where a

crime is committed are more often the determining factors in a death penalty case than the

facts of the crime itself. The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 22,000 homicides

committed every year 300 people are sentenced to death. You think racism is over, well

race is an important factor in determining who is sentenced to die. In 1990 a report from

the General Accounting Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies reviewed, race

of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or

receiving the death penalty, for example, those who murdered whites were more likely to

be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks." Death Row s population is at

3,565 men and women, we know of 1,671 cases that the conviction or sentence has been

reversed. This leaves no room for human error because the number is nearly half of those

convicted has been overturned.

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You would think that losing one human being is already enough, not only the

people whose son or daughter is killed due to death penalty suffer? Families of murder

victims undergo severe trauma and loss which no one should minimize. However,

executions do not help these people heal their wounds nor do they end their pain. There is

better ways to teach people a lesson than to brutally kill them, this is unnecessary and

easily prevented, in the next election there will be space for you to vote against, lets end

this horrible method of execution of a human life. There is only one life that a person has

and if ended by human error it is unjust and ridiculous. The forms of execution are as

follow: Lethal Injection is the most common used means of execution in the United States

of America. The condemned is secured on a gurney and receives several drugs

intravenous. The inmate is secured with lined ankle and wrist restraints to a gurney in the

preparation room outside the chamber. Cardiac monitor leads and a stethoscope are

attached. Two saline intravenous lines are started, one in each arm, and the inmate is

covered with a sheet. The saline intravenous lines are turned off and the thiopental

sodium is injected which puts the inmate into a deep sleep. A second chemical agent,

procuronium bromide (the generic name for Pavulon), follows. This agent is a total muscle

relaxer. The inmate stops breathing and dies soon afterward. Electrocution produces

visibly destructive effects as the body s internal organs are burned; the prisoner often leaps

forward against the restraining straps when the switch is thrown. The body changes color,

the flesh swells and may even catch fire. The prisoner may defecate, urinate or vomit

blood. Witnesses always report that there is a smell of burning flesh. Hanging, the prisoner

is weighed prior to execution. The "drop" is based on the prisoners weight, (tables were

developed in England during the 1800's) to deliver 1260 foot-pounds of force to the neck.

Essentially, the prisoners weight in pounds is divided into 1260 to arrive at a drop in feet.

This is to assure almost instant death, a minimum of bruising, and neither strangulation nor

beheading. Properly done, death is by dislocation of the third or fourth cervical vertebrae.

The familiar noose coil is placed behind the prisoner's left ear, so as to snap the neck upon

dropping. There is reportedly no protocol for the procedure which according to

information involves a five man team, one of who will use a blank bullet so that none of

them knows who was the real executioner. In the 1990 elections, politicians were

particularly blatant in their promotion of the death penalty. It was advanced at all levels of

the political process as an answer to crime and was used by liberals and conservatives

alike. This year, the death penalty rhetoric, while not as blatant, continues the charade:

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vital crime fighting programs are being cut while the high-priced death penalty goes

unchecked.

There is other ways to punish a person other than killing the person and making

loved one hurt, it has double effect on the loved ones of the victims. The offender

becomes the victim, and the individual who kills the other becomes a murderer, why

wouldn t this person be put to death as well? Society thinks that some things are excused

like the killing of an individual, well doesn t it keep going on and on as an endless circle?

There are more than one way to punish a person with equal result such as: serve a

minimum of 25 years in prison before the possibility of consideration for parole. Please

note: consideration for parole in no way suggests an inmate will receive parole. Parole

boards must abide by strict but fair standards in deciding who should receive parole. The

abolition of parole endangers prison workers. In certain cases, imprisonment should be

for life, with no possibility of parole ever. While in prison, prisoners should work in jobs

which are not slave-like and allow for some dignity and purpose of life for the inmate.

Such work situations create safer conditions for guards and others who work in prisons.

A portion of the prisoners' earnings should go to pay for their incarceration, and a portion

should go into a fund for the victims of violent crime and their survivors. This would allow

for a restitution fund for social, psychological and religious help for victims and survivor

families. Such funds could also provide financial help for families which have lost a wage

earner to murder. It makes much more sence for a person to pay for their time in jail,

instead of us paying for their stay at the jails. You think jails are bad, well guess again, the

Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Science provides all prisons with a master

menu that is nutritionally adequate. Inmates receive 3 meals a day, and at least two of

them are "hot meals". They even have an alternate menu, which is strictly, a vegetarian

menu. Contrary to popular believe most prisons cells are not the two beds, one toilet cell.

They are actually open bay dormitories. They look just like a dormitory that you would

expect to find in a summer camp. Each cell has up to 150 inmates, which foster the

prisoners with a family atmosphere. Prisons are completely responsible for the physical

and metal health of all inmates. Inmates receive free medical and dental attention, and if

they are in need of drugs, they are provided to them with the taxpayer money. Inmates

don't just have good facilities but they also have things like gyms and libraries to keep

them busy. Prison gyms have dumbbells, bench presses everything you would expect to

find in a private gym or in a club. Prisons provide inmates with general library services,

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most of the libraries in Prison have about 1 million books and audio visual materials. They

also have the resources needed to provide inmates with access to current information.

Judges have the option of sentencing convicted capital murderers to life in prison without

the possibility of parole. There are currently over 2,200 people in California who have

received this alternative sentence which includes no parole hearings. According to the

Governor's Office, no one sentenced to life without parole has been released since the

state provided for this option in 1977. Deterrence is a function not only of a punishment's

severity, but also of its certainty and frequency. The argument most often cited in support

of capital punishment is that the threat of execution influences criminal behavior more

effectively than imprisonment does.

No matter how careful courts are, the possibilities of perjured

testimony, mistaken honest testimony, and human error remain all too real.

We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been

executed, but we can be certain that there were some

- Justice Thurgood Marshall

When you murder an individual for the crime they have committed, would you fall in

their own category. This goes back to the eye for an eye thinking, why do we always see

things as revenge? Justice, it is often insisted, requires the death penalty as the only

suitable retribution for crimes. This claim does not bear scrutiny, however. By its nature,

all punishment is retributive. Therefore, whatever is to be found in punishment as just

retribution can be satisfied without recourse to executions. Moreover, the death penalty

could be defended on narrowly retributive grounds only for the crime of murder, and not

for any of the many other crimes that have frequently been made subject to this mode of

punishment (rape, kidnapping, espionage, treason, drug trafficking). Few defenders of the

death penalty are willing to confine themselves consistently to the narrow scope afforded

by retribution. In any case, execution is more than a punishment exacted in retribution for

the taking of a life. It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that

those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should

be punished according to their just desserts "making the punishment fit the crime." If this

rule means punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is

unacceptable: It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other

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horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors

and kill multiple murderers again and again punishments that are, of course, impossible

to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle,

it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murder. If,

however, the principle of just deserts means the severity of punishments must be

proportional to the gravity of the crime and since murder is the highest crime, it deserves

the severest punishment then the principle is no doubt sound. Nevertheless, this does not

apply support for the death penalty; what it does require is that other crimes be punished

with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the

punishment of murder. Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and the sentence

should be appropriate to their blame and the harm they have caused the innocent. The

sentence of punishment has its limits imposed by both justice and our common human

dignity. Governments that respect these limits do not use premeditated, violent homicide

as an instrument of social policy. Some people who have lost a loved one to murder

believe that they cannot rest until the murderer is executed. This feeling is by no means

universal. Unlike all other criminal punishments, the death penalty cannot be reversed. A

large body of evidence from the 1980s and 1990s shows that innocent people are often

convicted of crimes including capital crimes and that some have been executed. Since

1900, in this country, there have been on the average more than four cases each year in

which an entirely innocent person was convicted of murder. Scores of these individuals

were sentenced to death. In many cases, a relief arrived just hours, or even minutes, before

the scheduled execution. These false convictions have occurred in virtually every

jurisdiction from one end of the nation to the other. Nor have they declined in recent

years, despite the new death penalty statutes approved by the Supreme Court. Some cases

violate the peoples amendment rites as citizen some are as follow. Is person's sudden and

unprovoked flight from clearly identifiable police officer, who is patrolling high crime area,

sufficiently suspicious to justify temporary investigators stop pursuant to Teny v. Ohio.

Fourteenth amendment, Does a criminal defendant have a constitutional right to elect

self-representation on direct appeal from a judgment of conviction? Eighth amendment

When a capital sentencing jury informs the judge that it does not understand the

sentencing instructions held facilely constitutional in Buchanan v. Angelone and

specifically asks whether or not it is free to consider a sentence less than death if it finds

one or more aggravating factors, is the judge constitutionally required to clarify that a

death sentence is not mandatory upon the finding of an aggravating factor but that the jury

should consider mitigating evidence as well in making its sentencing decision? Fifth

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amendment, Did Second Circuit err in extending this Court's decision in Griffin v.

California, which prohibited prosecutor's comment on defendant's right to remain silent,

to prosecutor's comments on testifying defendant's presence in courtroom during

testimony of other witnesses?

Across the country, police are being laid off, prisoners are being released early, the

courts are clogged, and crime continues to rise. The economic recession has caused

cutbacks in the backbone of the criminal justice system. In Florida, the budget crisis

resulted in the early release of 3,000 prisoners. In Texas, prisoners are serving only 20%

of their time and reasserts are common. Georgia is laying off 900 correctional personnel

and New Jersey has had to dismiss 500 police officers. Yet these same states, and many

others like them, are pouring millions of dollars into the death penalty with no resultant

reduction in crime. The exorbitant costs of capital punishment are actually making

America less safe because badly needed financial and legal resources are being diverted

from effective crime fighting strategies. Before the Los Angeles riots, for example,

California had little money for innovations like community policing, but was managing to

spend an extra $90 million per year on capital punishment. Texas, with over 300 people on

death row, is spending an estimated $2.3 million per case, but its murder rate remains one

of the highest in the country. The death penalty is escaping the decisive cost-benefit

analysis to which every other program is being put in times of grimness. Rather than being

posed as a single, but costly, alternative in a spectrum of approaches to crime, the death

penalty operates at the extremes of political rule. Candidates use the death penalty as a

facile solution to crime which allows them to distinguish themselves by the toughness of

their position rather than its effectiveness. The death penalty is much more expensive than

its closest alternative, life imprisonment with no parole. Capital trials are longer and more

expensive at every step than other murder trials. Pre-trial motions, expert witness

investigations, jury selection, and the necessity for two trials--one on guilt and one on

sentencing--make capital cases extremely costly, even before the appeals process begins.

Guilty pleas are almost unheard of when the punishment is death. In addition, many of

these trials result in a life sentence rather than the death penalty, so the state pays the cost

of life imprisonment on top of the expensive trial.

The high price of the death penalty is often most keenly felt in those counties

responsible for both the prosecution and defense of capital defendants. A single trial can

mean near bankruptcy, tax increases, and the laying off of vital personnel. Trials costing a

small county $100,000 from unbudgeted funds are common and some officials have even

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gone to jail in resisting payment. Nevertheless, politicians from prosecutors to presidents

choose symbol over substance in their support of the death penalty. Campaign rhetoric

becomes legislative policy with no analysis of whether the expense will produce any good

for the people. The death penalty, in short, has been given a free ride. The expansion of

the death penalty in America is on a collision course with a shrinking budget for crime

prevention. It is time for politicians and the public to give this costly punishment a hard

look. Over two-thirds of the states and the federal government have installed an

exorbitantly expensive system of capital punishment which has been a failure by any

measure of effectiveness. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent

on a response to crime which is calculated to be carried out on a few people each year and

which has done nothing to stem the rise in violent crime.

For years, candidates have been using the death penalty to portray themselves as

tough on crime. But when politicians offer voters the death penalty as a solution to

violence, the people actually become worse off in their fight against crime. The public is

left with fewer resources and little discussion about proven crime prevention programs

which could benefit their entire community. In today's depressed economy, the criminal

justice system is breaking down for lack of funds while states pour more money into the

black hole of capital punishment expense.

Local governments often bear the brunt of capital punishment costs and are

particularly burdened. A single death penalty trial can exhaust a county's resources.

Politicians singing the praises of the death penalty rarely address the question of whether a

government's resources might be more effectively put to use in other methods of fighting

crime. A million dollars spent pursuing the execution of one defendant could provide far

more effective long-term crime reduction: many additional police officers; speedier trials;

or drug rehabilitation programs. Instead, in today's political atmosphere, politicians worry

about appearing soft on crime, even if soft means espousing proven methods of crime

reduction. Thus, there is little debate about whether the death penalty accomplishes any

good at all. Meanwhile, the death penalty is reaching a critical stage in America. No

longer isolated in the South, the death penalty has become a national phenomenon. There

are more people on death row than at any time in the nation's history. At the same time,

the United States has parted company from the other democratic countries of the world

which have largely abandoned capital punishment. Like the emperor's cowering subjects

who praised his invisible robes, many politicians extol the death penalty as if it were a

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solution to the problem of crime. It is a cynical manipulation of the public's legitimate fear

of the growing tide of violence: a symbol without substance, a "solution" for politicians

who know that no credible evidence exists linking the death penalty to a reduction of

murder. This report will focus first on the role the death penalty plays in the economic

crisis facing states and local governments. As budgets everywhere are being tightened, the

death penalty looms as an exorbitant and superfluous "luxury item." Some counties have

been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy and have had to enact repeated tax increases to

fund these extremely expensive cases. As money is spent on the death penalty, it is thereby

less available for the very programs which are the backbone of the effort to reduce crime

in this country.

Secondly, the report will illustrate how politicians have manipulated the death

penalty issue and avoided debate on the real causes of crime. Their approach has been

typically marked by a simplistic rhetoric of revenge which ignores the ineffectiveness and

costs of capital punishment. This superficial treatment comes precisely at a time when the

economic crisis in criminal justice and crime prevention demands that the death penalty be

given a harder look. Death penalty cases are much more expensive than other criminal

cases and cost more than imprisonment for life with no possibility of parole. In California,

capital trials are six times more costly than other murder trials. fnB0 A study in Kansas

indicated that a capital trial costs $116,700 more than an ordinary murder trial.fnB1

Complex pre-trial motions, lengthy jury selections, and expenses for expert witnesses are

all likely to add to the costs in death penalty cases. The irreversibility of the death sentence

requires courts to follow heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial.

The separate sentencing phase of the trial can take even longer than the guilt or innocence

phase of the trial. And defendants are much more likely to insist on a trial when they are

facing a possible death sentence. After conviction, there are constitutionally mandated

appeals which involve both prosecution and defense costs. Most of these costs occur in

every case for which capital punishment is sought, regardless of the outcome. Thus, the

true cost of the death penalty includes all the added expenses of the "unsuccessful" trials in

which the death penalty is sought but not achieved. Moreover, if a defendant is convicted

but not given the death sentence, the state will still incur the costs of life imprisonment, in

addition to the increased trial expenses.

For the states which employ the death penalty, this luxury comes at a high price. In

Texas, a death penalty case costs taxpayers an average of $2.3 million, about three times

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the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.

In Florida, each execution is costing the state $3.2 million. In financially strapped

California, one report estimated that the state could save $90 million each year by

abolishing capital punishment. The New York Department of Correctional Services

estimated that implementing the death penalty would cost the state about $118 million

annually. An increasingly significant consequence of the death penalty in the United

States is the crushing financial burden it places on local governments. The current

economic recession has made it clear that there is no unlimited source of government

largesse. Counties, which bear the brunt of the costs of death penalty trials, are also the

primary deliverers of local health and human services in the public sector. Hard choices

have to be made among the demands of providing essential services, creative crime

reduction programs such as community policing, and the vigorous pursuit of a few death

penalty cases.

While state and national politicians promote the death penalty, the county

government is typically responsible for the costs of prosecution and the costs of the

criminal trial. In some cases, the county is also responsible for the costs of defending the

indigent. Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, for example, provide little or no funding for

indigent defense from the state treasury. In Lincoln County, Georgia, citizens have had to

face repeated tax increases just to fund one capital case. Even where the state provides

some of the money for the counties to pursue the death penalty, the burden on the county

can be crushing. California, for example, was spending $10 million a year reimbursing

counties for expert witnesses, investigators and other death-penalty defense costs, plus $2

million more to help pay for the overall cost of murder trials in smaller counties. (Now,

even that reimbursement is being cut.) But many financially strapped smaller counties still

could not afford to prosecute the complicated death-penalty cases. Some small counties

have only one prosecutor with little or no experience in death-penalty cases, no

investigators, and only a single Superior Court judge.

In Sierra County, California authorities had to cut police services in 1988 to pick

up the tab of pursuing death penalty prosecutions. The County's District Attorney, James

Reichle, complained, "If we didn't have to pay $500,000 a pop for Sacramento's murders,

I'd have an investigator and the sheriff would have a couple of extra deputies and we could

do some lasting good for Sierra County law enforcement. The sewage system at the

courthouse is failing, a bridge collapsed, there's no county library, no county park, and we

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have volunteer fire and volunteer search and rescue." The county's auditor, Don Hemphill,

said that if death penalty expenses kept piling up, the county would soon be broke. Just

recently, Mr. Hemphill indicated that another death penalty case would likely require the

county to lay off 10 percent of its police and sheriff force. In Imperial County, California,

the county supervisors refused to pay the bill for the defense of a man facing the death

penalty because the case would bankrupt the county. The county budget officer spent

three days in jail for refusing to pay the bill. A judge reviewing the case took away the

county's right to seek the death penalty, thus costing the county the partial reimbursement

which the state provided for capital cases. The County took the challenge all the way to

the California Supreme Court and ended up costing the County half a million dollars. In

the criminal trial, the defendant was acquitted.

A similar incident occurred recently in Lincoln County, Georgia. The county

commissioners also refused to pay the defense costs when the attorney won a new trial for

a death row inmate Johnny Lee Jones. As in California, the commissioners were sent to

jail. Walker Norman, chair of the County Commission explained: "We're a rural county of

7,500 people with a small tax base. We had to raise taxes once already for this case when

it was originally tried, and now we are going to have to raise taxes again. It's not fair."

The first trial alone cost the county $125,000. The second trial was completed in

September and the defendant received a life sentence. In Meriwether County, Georgia, a

county of 21,000 residents and a $4 million annual budget, the prosecutor sought the

death penalty three times for Eddie Lee Spraggins, a mentally retarded man. The case cost

the county $84,000, not including the defense attorney's bill for appealing, and the third

conviction was again overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court. Spraggins was finally

granted a plea and received a life sentence.

In Mississippi, Kemper and Lauderdale Counties recently conducted a border

survey battle to avoid responsibility for a capital murder trial. Faced with a case that could

cost the county $100,000, Kemper County wanted to show that the scene of the murder

was outside their border and conducted two surveys of the site. County Supervisor Mike

Luke explained, "As much as we were talking about the taxpayers of Kemper County

having to pay out, we believed we needed to be sure." Luke said that the decision to seek

the death penalty was not his--he only had to come up with the money. Lauderdale

County, where the trial was originally scheduled, has now sent a bill to Kemper County

for expenses incurred while holding the defendant in jail for 19 months. Kemper County is

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considering how much it will have to raise taxes just to pay the initial costs of the

prosecution. In Yazoo City, Mississippi, the town is worried that it, too, might get stuck

with an expensive death penalty case. "A capital murder trial is the worst financial

nightmare any government body could envision," said the editor of the local paper.

Efforts are under way in both Congress and the Supreme Court to reduce the

avenues of appeal available to death row inmates. But most of the costs associated with

the death penalty occur at the trial level. Whatever effect cutting back on the writ of

habeas corpus may have on the time from trial to execution, it is not clear that the changes

will make the death penalty any less expensive, and they may result in the execution of

innocent people. With the number of people on death row growing each year, the overall

costs of the death penalty are likely to increase. Some state appeals courts are

overwhelmed with death penalty cases. The California Supreme Court, for example,

spends more than half its time reviewing death cases. The Florida Supreme Court also

spends about half its time on death penalty cases. Many governors spend a significant

percentage of their time reviewing clemency petitions and more will face this task as

executions spread. As John Dixon, Chief Justice (Retired) of the Louisiana Supreme

Court, said: "The people have a constitutional right to the death penalty and we'll do our

best to make it work rationally. But you can see what it's doing. Capital punishment is

destroying the system." From this; the cost of keeping a 25-year-old inmate for 50 years at

present amounts to $805,000. Assuming 75 years as an average life span, the $805,000

figure would be the cost of life in prison. So roughly it's costing us $2 million more to

execute someone than it would cost to keep them in jail for life. This is just the dollar cost,

the externalities will be discussed in a moment.

A study by the NY State Defenders Association showed that the cost of a capital

trial alone is more than double the cost of life imprisonment. In Maryland, a comparison of

capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years 1979-1984 concluded

that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a

non-death sentence," according to the US Government Accounting Office. In 1988 and

1989 the Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was

informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of more than $11 million. And

the Miami Herald reported that Florida, with one of the nation's largest death rows, has

estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or

approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence.

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As in the graph below, because of the shift in marginal benefit from MB to MB1,

perpetrators are willing to increase their risk of punishment from R to R1 in order to gain

the additional benefit derived from increasing the quantity of violent acts from Q to Q1.

Innocent lives have been lost due to human mistake, and death penalty is simply

worth too much which might even bring a county to bankruptcy. The death penalty is an

simple way of saying you killed me and I will kill you, again, it is eye for an eye . This is

a lethal lottery you play when you commit a crime, there is either life sentence or the death

penalty less than one percent of murderers receive the death sentence. This brutal and

unjust punishment does not deter criminals from committing the crime they intended, it

serves no purpose but as for revenge. Race and gender is a big factor that determines

which sentence you will receive, so remember once you kill someone you cannot bring

them back, the supreme court or courts that have these trials should go over the evidence

carefully, and Death Penalty should be abolished as it already is in most countries.