Capital Punishment
...ed appeals, and it would save money for the tax payers due to reduced court and imprisonment fees. Deterrence is another reason for the death sentence to be used. Capital punishments is, pardon the redundancy, a punishment for crime. As a punishment, the death penalty is 100% effective--every time it is used, the prisoner dies. Additionally, the death penalty is actually 100% effective as a deterrent to crime: the murderer will never commit another crime once he has been executed. Criminals are less likely to commit violent crimes if they know that they will pay for it with their own life. Deterrence exerts a positive moral influence by placing a stigma on certain crimes. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, at the end of the year 2001, thirty-seven states and the Federal prison system held 3, 581 prisoners under the sentence of death, twenty fewer than at the end of the year 2000. Even though the difference was only minuscule, it still supports that deterrence is a factor that will keep criminals from committing violent crimes. Even those who are not released, but still serve life terms, murder again. Professor Paul Cassell notes that, "At least five federal prison officers have been killed since December 1982, and the inmates in at least three of the incidents were already serving life sentences for murder." Had these prisoners been executed, innocent lives would have been saved. The death penalty is, without question, a deterrent to murder. Someone that is against capital punishment may argue that it leaves the possibility of having an innocent person executed. There are many safeguards in our justice system making it almost impossible for an innocent person to be killed. The possibility of an innocent person being executed is extremely small, and continues to decrease with the improvement of forensic science. It is true that death row prisoners have been released, but it is not true that they were innocent. Consider the following fact: a judgement of acquittal is final. Even if overwhelming evidence is later uncovered, the prosecution can never appeal. A retrial would constitute “double jeopardy” which is not permitted under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Out of the ten men executed in California since 1992, not one successful...