The Death Penalty
...y states that people with mental disabilities often may be unaware of what they are doing, and can often be easily coerced into confessing. A case in point is Jerome Bowden who signed a statement confessing to murder even though he was illiterate. He signed it because police had told him that signing it would be to his benefit. He was later convicted and executed ("Mental"). Another example of a mentally retarded person receiving the death penalty was when Morris Odell Mason was executed in 1985. On his way to the death chamber he told another inmate, "When I get back, I'm gonna show him how I can play basketball as good as he can." He clearly did not understand his impending fate ("Mental"). At present over 10% of the death row population are said to be afflicted by mental retardation ("Mental"). The current statutes that allow the execution of minors are in contradiction of every major human rights treaty on the subject of capital punishment ("U.S."). The United States is one of only six countries that have executed juveniles since 1990. The other five are Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran ("Stop"). The US has sentenced to death the most juveniles of any of these countries. Even China, famous for its human rights abuses, has criticized the US for this practice ("U.S."). In 1996, prosecutors in some states sought the death penalty for children as young as 13. This has brought about widespread criticism from other nations of the world ("Stop"). Death penalty opponents use these facts as evidence that society is not competent enough to carry out the death penalty. Death penalty opponents also feel that the judicial system is not flawless, and that in the United States the death penalty is handed down unfairly ("Executing"). One example of the unfair application of the death penalty is that women make up only 1% of the death row population in the U.S., even though women are responsible for 20% of the homicides that occur in the United States (Bedau). In addition, minorities are far more likely to receive the death penalty than whites. For example, 90% of the people that Federal prosecutors seek to execute are black. These statistics are blown even further out of proportion when one looks at the punishments that killers of whites receive versus killers of blacks. In Maryland, a person who kills a white person is 7 times as likely to receive the death penalty as the killer of a black person. Furthermore, 90% of people executed in The United States were convicted of killing whites, even though minorities account for over half of the homicide victims in The United States. According to the National Coalition For the Abolition of the Death Penalty, of the 486 people executed in the United States only 6 were whites convicted of killing blacks ("Executing"). The death penalty is also applied almost exclusively on those who are from the poorest segments of society and are unable to afford to defend themselves. According to Nick Dispoldo, author of "Capital Punishment and the Poor," "In researching a book in progress about the 300 year history of the death penalty in The United States, I have discovered only 6 cases in which those executed were individuals of influence or affluence." There have been 7,000 executions in this century alone (Winters 164). Over 50% of people on death row were unemployed at the time of their conviction, and almost all of the people on death row were unskilled. This is problematic because often their court appointed attorneys are overworked and underpaid, and thus they are unable to provide the same quality of defense as a private lawyer. Many states, such as Louisiana, also pay the public defenders very little. Public defenders are paid up to $1000.00 for pre- trial work. The average amount of pre-trial time put into a capita l case is 2000 hours; this comes out to $0.50 an hour pay for the public defenders. The amount of money that can be spent for investigative purposes is often limited at $500.00; this is not nearly enough to pay for expensive blood and DNA tests (Star). The State, on the other hand, has nearly unlimited resources at its disposal to bring about a conviction. Despite the fact that the defendants in capital murder trials are given so little money to defend themselves, the death penalty is extremely expensive. Various state government studies, according to an NCADP fact sheet, have stated that a single death penalty case costs taxpayers between 1 and 3 million dollars. The cost of life imprisonment costs taxpayers $500,000 ("Millions"). The high cost of the death penalty is another one of the concerns expressed by death penalty critics because the $1,000,000,000 that has been spent on the death penalty over the last 18 years could often be used more effectively. In 1991 the state of New Jersey spent $16,000,000 to impose the death penalty. The next year the state was forced to lay off 500 police officers because it could not afford to pay them (Winters 134- 138). Perhaps the gravest concern expressed by opponents of capital punishment is that innocent people can be executed. According to ex- Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, 23 innocent people have been executed this century (Winters 84). In 1994, the state of Texas executed Robert Nelson Drew even after another man confessed to the murder and exonerated Drew ("Guilty"). Cases as clear cut as this are admittedly rare, but there are other cases where people have been executed for crimes that would be considered by many to be less than first degree murder or have mitigating circumstances. One such example of this is the case of Alan Jeffery Bannister, who was executed on October 22, 1997. He was charged and convicted of murder for hire. Alan Bannister stated that he had killed in self- defense. This defense seemed to many people to be pretty strong. The investigating officer, who had testified against him in his trial, later admitted that the police had no conclusive evidence proving that the murder had b een for hire or even that Bannister had committed murder in the first degree. (Matthews). Death penalty opponents feel that since there is no conclusive proof that the death penalty has no deterrent effect, it is unfairly administered, and because there is a risk of executing innocent people; the death penalty must be eliminated. Death penalty proponents hold that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime despite what critics of the death penalty may think . They also feel that the death penalty eliminates the possibility that any murderer will murder again. Death penalty supporters support their claim that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime with statistics. One of the most widely cited studies in favor of the death penalty is the study conducted by Isaac Erlich at the University of Chicago. His findings stated that each imposition of the death penalty saved between 1 and 8 innocent lives (Ortman). The death penalty saves lives by deterring would-be murderers from committing crimes. It does this, according to those in favor of the death penalty, by making people fear that if they kill somebody they could be executed themselves. It was based on Erlich's studies that the Supreme Court decided to reinstate the death penalty in the United States (Flanders 50). The response to death penalty opponents' arguments that claim that the death penalty does not save lives is that if the death penalty were properly enforced more lives would be saved. Since there have been 333,000 murders and only 486 executions since 1977, the death penalty is not being adequately enforced. Death penalty opponents feel that the reason that murderers don't fear the death penalty enough is because they know that there is an extremely slim chance that they will be executed (Winters 114- 119). Death penalty supporters have attributed the drop in murder rates between 1993 and 1998 to the increase in executions during that same period. Most studies conducted by death penalty opponents were conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s. During this period there were relatively few executions per year as compared to the amount of executions in the late 1990s. For example, there were only 21 executions in 1989, as opposed to 79 in 1997. Death penalty supporters feel that if the rate of executions increases, the mu...