Introduction
The death penalty status is a long-standing public debate subject in the United States. In terms of legislation, the country is almost equally divided between the states where capital punishment is legal and those where it is prohibited. By June 2021, the death penalty was authorized by 27 states and prohibited in 23, including the District of Columbia.
However, no executions have been carried out in over a decade in 13 out of 27 jurisdictions that authorize the death penalty (Gramlich). Given the evident trend for a gradual prohibition of capital punishment, one can argue that the death penalty should be abolished across the United States. Capital punishment is ineffective, costly, and unethical, which renders it useless, cruel, and generally unnecessary in modern society.
Ineffectiveness in Crime Deterrence
Most importantly, the death penalty fails to provide crime deterrence, one of its most important presumed benefits. Capital punishment proponents may claim that the fear of death may stop potential offenders from committing severe crimes. However, the empirical evidence of the death penalty producing a crime-deterrent effect in the United States is mixed at best (Chalfin and McCrary 29). Moreover, papers that have found the deterrence effects of capital punishment share several flaws, such as weak research instruments, failure to report standard errors, and sensitivity of estimates (Chalfin and McCrary 29). Meanwhile, the most accurate paper by Kovandzic et al., which used a long-time spanning dataset and explored various impacts of execution risk, provided no evidence of a deterrent effect (qtd. in Chalfin and McCrary 29).
As such, one can conclude that the death penalty does not deter potential offenders. In contrast, the death penalty may cause further violence since the criminals have no incentive to stop after committing a capital offense (Amnesty International). For instance, a murderer can kill several witnesses to avoid detention and the death penalty. Therefore, the criminal justice system cannot rely on the crime deterrent effect of capital punishment.
High Costs of Execution
A death penalty proponent may argue that executing dangerous criminals is cheaper for the economy than keeping such criminals locked away in prisons for life. However, several state studies provide contrary evidence, showing that seeking the death penalty incurs extra expense. For instance, an independent study for the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission revealed that a capital punishment case costs the state $110,000 more on average. A 2016 study in Oregon found that 61 death sentences cost taxpayers an average of $2.3 million, while 313 aggravated murder cases cost an average of $1.4 million (Death Penalty Information Center).
In addition, studies from Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and several other states demonstrated that death penalty cases are significantly more expensive compared to non-capital cases (Death Penalty Information Center). The cost of pre-trial, trial, sentencing, and post-sentencing stages explains such a difference. Death penalty cases require the presence of exceptional defense lawyers and extensive pre-trial and trial hearings. The process may take several years or decades, while the defendant stays in prison for the whole time. As a result, duly organized capital punishment becomes the opposite of fast and cheap execution.
Violation of Ethical Principles
Finally, the death penalty should be considered unethical since it violates the fundamental right to life and the principle of human dignity. According to Barry, the practice of the U.S. Supreme Court makes it possible to conclude that a right to life comprehends all others, essentially being a right to have rights (1564). As such, a right to life cannot be denied to anyone, including convicted criminals. Consequently, the death penalty should be perceived as a violation of an individual’s right not to be killed by the state.
In addition, mistakes at the crime investigation stage remain, which leaves a possibility for wrongful sentencing. In the non-capital case, the state can alleviate the consequences of such a mistake and pay compensation to a wrongfully convicted individual. However, capital punishment takes the victim’s life, which makes a mistake irreversible. In the end, the death penalty worsens the criminal justice system’s flaws by adding an element of arbitrariness and unreliability. The principle of human dignity gets trampled as the state considers particular individuals unworthy of being kept alive.
Conclusion
Given these considerations, one can claim that the death penalty does not make any valuable contribution to the U.S. criminal justice system. In its essence, this practice equalizes the state with convicted murderers by giving the state the power to deny its citizens the right to life. In addition, capital punishment has a questionable crime deterrence effect since it gives potential offenders an incentive to do whatever it takes to avoid detention.
Furthermore, death penalty cases require a lengthy investigation and extensive pre-trial process, which turns them into costly procedures. As such, the death penalty is unethical, ineffective, and expensive; this practice causes more harm than good to the jurisdictions. Consequently, the U.S. states should consider imposing a moratorium on capital punishment and eventually abolish it to improve their criminal justice systems’ effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and moral outlook.
Works Cited
Amnesty International. “Does the Death Penalty Deter Crime? Getting the Facts Straight.”. Web.
Barry, Kevin M. “The death penalty and the fundamental right to life.” Boston College Law Review, vol. 60, no. 6, 2019, pp. 1545-1604.
Chalfin, Aaron, and Justin McCrary. “Criminal deterrence: A review of the literature.” Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 55, no. 1, 2017, pp. 5-48.
Death Penalty Information Center. “State Studies on Monetary Costs.”. Web.
Gramlich, John. “10 Facts About the Death Penalty in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, 2021. Web.