AN EYE FOR AN EYE?

The burning of the house of the offender is not a permissible punishment for arson. The rape of the offender is not a permissible punishment of a rapist. Why should murder be a permissible punishment for murder?
- Justice Ismail Mahomed, S v Makwanyane, 6 June 1995

There are a few things I’d like to talk about here so bear with me.

Okay. So, in theory, the death penalty is a just and accurate punishment for murder. The taking of a life results in the taking of the offender’s life. Fair, yeah?
So, by that logic, why don’t we rape the rapists then? Why don’t we take the arsonists out to their homes and watch them squirm as we set them alight? Why don’t we beat the living daylights out of people who commit assault, and why not take the kidnappers and lock them in the trunk of a car for a few weeks while we’re at it?
You see, that’s absurd. It’s unfeasible. It’s completely ridiculous.
Then why do we still murder the murderers???
Fair enough, murder is probably the worst crime you can possibly commit. So, supporters of it might say that it is the most extreme punishment for the most extreme of crimes. Okay, I’ll go along with that for the time being.
But by that logic, why are only some murders punished by death and others by life, or less, even? That doesn’t sound very fair to me. Who gets the honor of deciding who lives and who dies? (Again, we’re touching on hypocrisy here but I’ll let it pass – I’m hypothetically agreeing that it’s suitable for the time being).
Let me put this into a scenario that is easier to digest.
Okay, speeding. Let’s say that in one month the police caught 100 people going over the speed limit. But they only gave 50 of the people a ticket. The other fifty got prison time. All 100 were breaking the same law, doing something equally as wrong, but some were punished differently than others.
That’s not fair. But that’s how the death penalty works.
You see, the states couldn’t possibly execute every single murderer that walked through the prison doors. For one, there would be a nationwide outcry. Touching back on cost, it would just not be feasible.
So only some get death. Others don’t.
And it gets worse. You might say ‘okay, so punish the really bad murders with death and the not-so-bad ones with life’. But it doesn’t work like that.
One case that I was really fascinated by was the case of two men who broke into a house with the intent of robbing the place. Midway through the robbery, the owner of the house woke up and came to see what was happening. One of the burglars drew a gun and shot the man dead. When the case went to court, this man received a life sentence. The other man – the man who did not even touch the gun, and murdered nobody – received a death verdict and was executed. *
Ironic, huh?
What I’m trying to say here, and I know I reached this point through a lot of rambling and hypothetical’s, but the death penalty is not in the slightest bit ‘just’. We are not even just taking an eye for an eye, which is a hypocritical nightmare in itself – it’s more like we are taking one eye for every ten, and sometimes we’re even taking an eye for an eye taken by someone else.
I’ll end on a quote from Ghandi I think. ‘An eye for an eye makes us ALL blind’. If we just keep on gouging, then God help us all.

*Note: This was not a case of wrongful imprisonment; this was a true case tried under felony murder.

THE COST OF LIFE

‘The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life.
Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions.’
- L.A. Times, March 6, 2005

It is complete fiction that executing a criminal is cheaper than life imprisonment. In Texas alone, a death penalty case costs on average $2.3 MILLION – about THREE TIMES MORE than the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 YEARS.
With the economy the way it is at the moment, we have better things to spend our money on than legal murder. Our taxes should be being spent on more important things, like education, crime prevention, victim services... All of these things compete with death penalty cases for funds.

So why is capital punishment so damn expensive?

Most people who are facing the death penalty can’t afford their own attorney and so the state must assign them public defenders, which costs money. And that’s on top of the costs of the prosecution. There are also pre-trial costs because capital cases are way more complicated than normal cases so a lot of the time experts have to be hired to testify about things like forensic evidence and mental health issues in defendants. Experts costs money. And then there is the jury selection. Jury selection takes a lot more time and money in capital cases due to the death penalty question.

All of this is on top of the trial itself! Death Penalty trials often last a very long time, sometimes up to 4 times longer than normal trials and so jury members and attorneys must be compensated. And, of course, court personal must be paid, and so on.

And the costs keep building up once the inmate is handed his death sentence. The death row unit of a prison involve solitary confinement in a special facility which requires more security, etc. as inmates are in the cells for 23 hours of the day.

Perhaps most expensive is the appeals. Every inmate is entitled to a series of appeals. They are really important because some inmates have come within hours of execution before evidence was uncovered proving their innocence. Very few wave this right. Taxpayers pay for these appeals.

In conclusion, the death penalty costs the taxpayers a fortune! So why are we paying for the state to commit legal murder? SAY NO TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!

Thanks to ScofieldBurrows for researching this article

New Jersey murder rates drop after abolition of death penalty

I just got sent some really interesting info that I hope you enjoy.

The state of New Jersey instituted a moratorium abolishing the death penalty in that state in 2006. The next year, the murder rate had dropped by 11%. The rate continued to decline in 2008, making it the first time that New Jersey had seen a drop in murders for two consecutive years since 1999. And in the first six months of this year, 2009, the number of murders declined by 24% compared to the same period last year.

New Jersey was the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the 1960’s. In the first six months of this year, the overall statewide homicide rate was down every month as compared to the same month in ’08 and the broader category of violent crime also went down in the last 2 years.

In my opinion, this proves that the death penalty doesn’t work as a deterrent and that its abolition can be exceedingly beneficial to the people.