The overwhelming conclusion from years of deterrence studies is that the death penalty is, at best, no more of a deterrent than a sentence of life in prison. Some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is that society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. A survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies found that 84% of these experts rejected the notion that research had demonstrated any deterrent effect from the death penalty. States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively. Once in prison, those serving life sentences often settle into a routine and are less of a threat to commit violence than other prisoners. Prisoners who are given a sentence of life without parole will never be released. So, the safety of society can be assured without using the death penalty.
cruel & unusual
It is cruel because it is a relic of the earliest days of punishment, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society. It is unusual because only the United States of all the western industrialized nations engages in this punishment. It is also unusual because only a random sampling of convicted murderers in the United States receive a sentence of death.
Prisoners are executed in the United States by any one of five methods, many of them are easily messed up, and can cause a slow agonizing death. During electrocution smoke often rises from the person's head and there is an awful smell of burning flesh, no one really knows how long electrocuted individuals retain consciousness. We’re unable to determine whether or not the most commonly used method, lethal injection, is really painless. As the U.S. Court of Appeals observed, there is "substantial and uncontroverted evidence… that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…. Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation." (Chaney v. Heckler)
irreversible
Capital punishment denies due process of law. Its use is often arbitrary, and always irreversible – forever depriving an individual of the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might warrant the reversal of a conviction or the setting aside of a death sentence. Since 1900, there have been on the average more than four cases each year in which an innocent person was convicted of murder. Many of these individuals were sentenced to death. In many cases, a reprieve or commutation arrived just before a scheduled execution. These convictions have occurred in almost every jurisdiction in the country. This sample of innocence determinations also speaks to the concern that there are many more innocent people on death rows across the country – as well as who have already been executed. To retain the death penalty in the face of the demonstrable failures of the system is unacceptable.
costs & resources
It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. On average, it costs $620,932 per trial in federal death cases, which is eight times higher than that of a case where the death penalty is not sought. When including appeals, incarceration times and the actual execution in a death penalty case, the cost is closer to $3 million per inmate. However, court costs, attorney fees and incarceration for life only totals a little over $1 million. Recent studies have also found that the higher the cost of legal counsel in a death penalty case the less likely the defendant is to receive the death penalty, which also calls the fairness of the process into question.
It uses the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and law enforcement personnel. It unduly burdens the criminal justice system, and it is counterproductive as a tool for society's control of violent crime. Limited funds that could be used to prevent and solve crime (and provide education and jobs) are spent on capital punishment.