Introduction
The death penalty is one issue that is sensitive and has disputing views on whether it is fair or unfair. Currently, capital punishment is a settled law implying that many states have rejected and abolished it due to the challenges it imposes on the constitution. Approximately twenty-eight states still allow the death penalty, while twenty-two negate the act. Over the recent years, confirmable motives for the demise sentence have become more uncertain. A survey taken in 2018 revealed that approximately 54% of Americans supported the death forfeit, which increased to 56 % in 2019 (Munoz, 2021). Despite fifty-five percent favor the death punishment for crimes like murder, sedition, state espionage, and drug trafficking, others view death as an escape from their crimes (Munoz, 2021). Instead, criminals ought to serve their remaining lives behind bars as their final punishment. Unlike serving lifetime imprisonment, the death penalty cannot be reversed.
History of Death Penalty
The death penalty, often known as capital forfeit, had existed as part of America’s legal arrangement since 1608, when European colonizers first arrived in the Modern Globe. The death penalty was declared constitutional in the United States in 1976. A cumulative 1,516 individuals were killed while on murder string as of July 2020. Between 1993 and 1996, two death row convicts in Washington D.C. and a single in Delaware were hanged. Three of them were by gunfire crew in Utah (the record currently being Ronnie Gardner, 49-year-old, killed in 2010 for assassinating a man). Also, eleven through a gas compartment in California, Mississippi, Arizona, and Nevada. Similarly ,one hundred and sixty-three by electro assassination and one thousand three hundred and six by lethal inoculation (Munoz, 2021). Since 1973, the number of people on death row has increased dramatically. The United States Supreme Court abolished the death sentence for juveniles through Roper v. Simmons in 2005. Since 1976, twenty-two people have been executed for crimes while still minors.
Opinions on Death Penalty
Based on recent surveys, there are diverse opinions on the death penalty issue. Sixty-four percent regard the death penalty morally vindicated in certain crimes like murder, while the remaining percentage opposes it. Similarly, over half of defendants in America (56%) think that Black citizens are more liable than White individuals sentenced to death for related felonies (Gramlich, 2021). Sixty-three percent (63%) think the death punishment does not dissuade individuals from perpetrating substantial offenses (Gramlich, 2021). Almost seventy-eight percent of individuals believe an unsophisticated individual is likely to be executed.
Some think that the death sentence differs based on ethnicity, race, party, and education. Conservatives and Conservative freelancers are far-off more expected than Liberals and Democratic learners to advocate the killing forfeit for executioners (77 vs. 46 proportions). People with a lesser extent of proper schooling are too prospective to keep it (Gramlich, 2021). Sixty eight percent of individuals with a high conservatory certificate or less are backing the death forfeit.
The death penalty is backed by a mass of White and Asians constituting sixty-three percent, and Hispanic adults constituting fifty-six percent. At the same time, the black grown-ups are equally split up, with forty-nine percent opposing and the same proportion in favor (Gramlich, 2021). Concurrently, based on religious attachment, approximately sixty-six percent of Protestants in the United States approve of the death sentence. In comparison, approval among White evangelicals and non -evangelicals (75% and 73%, respectively) is significantly more than fifty percent for Protestants who are Black (Gramlich, 2021). Approximately fifty-eight percent of Catholics back the death punishment, while sixty-one percent are Hispanic Catholics, and fifty-six percent of White Catholics advocate it. Moreover, based on the survey on the phone polls and online polls, the backing for the death punishment was higher in the online election as opposed to phone polls.
Costs Associated with Death Penalty
As of July 2021, most states had the authority to apply the death penalty. Still, most do not put into practice the act due to various reasons, including the costs associated with capital punishment (Munoz, 2021). There are legal fees associated with many convicts on death string. They have insufficient means in hiring representatives in their cases, forcing the state to engage public defenders. Similarly, the taxpayers are affected by funding the experts dealing with the investigation of the inmates on death row so that a final decision based on facts and truth is achieved.
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Additionally, due to predetermined views on the death sentence, more time is required in gathering appropriate jurors for capital cases. The time is much longer than the cases whose penalty is not death consuming the court resources and capital. Consequentially, due to the crimes committed by the inmates on death row, they are confined in single cells requiring more spaces in the prisons and more security, special monitoring, and handling different from the non-capital convicts (Munoz, 2021). Also, there is an appeal process cost; each convict is entitled to an appeal, decreasing the possibility of errors. These costs are directly passed to the taxpayers to bear the burden.
Data on Death Penalty
The death verdicts have declined progressively in contemporary eras corresponding to the Department of Justice Data. Based on the statistics there were two thousand five hundred and seventy convicts on death racket America in 2019, down from three thousand six hundred and one in 2000 (Munoz, 2021). Around thirty-one individuals were condemned to fatality in 2019, much less than the approximately three hundred and twenty individuals convicted to mortality yearly between 1994 and 1996. Like Philadelphia and Orlando, the prosecuting attorney in other U.S. metropolises has sworn not to trail the death forfeit in current years, citing worries about its application. At the close of 2019, almost all (98%) of those on trial for murder were men (Gramlich, 2021). The country’s death row population was 51 years old on average and on the median. During that year, black inmates made up forty-one percent of death string prisoners, suggestively greater than their adult populace which constituted thirteen percent. Conferring to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, around 15% of demise row inmates identified as Hispanic in 2019.
Debate on Death Penalty
The death penalty has fueled debates where some individuals conquer with death sentence since it would result in criminals avoiding repeating mistakes done by their fellow convicts who were executed. Similarly, they view it as a more convenient way to end the convict’s life than being imprisoned and subjected to unbearable humiliations. Also, they support the act since it is reciprocation for life lost due to the convict, especially to the families whose loved one was lost due to the convicted. However, some individuals contest the act since some individuals are genuinely blameless. It is brutal since some metropolis still permit hanging, electrocution, and gunfire crew killings (Pelli, 2020). It reduces the potential for that individual to progress and obligates another homicide, among other reasons.
According to the Information Center on Death Penalty, counties with the highest death row inmates have some of the most remarkable reversal rates. Many have been accountable for justice system failures and unjustifiable mistakes. In 2013, the Region Prosecutor in Arizona, Maricopa County, was expelled for misconduct after using the death penalty excessively (Munoz, 2021). There were four times as many deaths penalty cases in this county than in Los Angeles or Houston. Four convicted criminals were pardoned and released due to prosecutorial wrongdoing in the occupancy of one Region prosecutor in Orleans, prompting a scathing condemnation from four Supreme Court justices (Munoz, 2021). Since 1973, approximately 170 persons have remained vindicated due to an investigation confirming their incapability. Each year, around 3.5 death row convicts have been wrongfully convicted.
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Exceptions on Death Penalty
If capital punishment is applied in countries that have not negated capital punishment, it should be regarding terrible crimes. Its coverage should not broaden beyond deliberate offenses with deadly or severe costs. Correspondingly, it should only be for wrongdoing for which the decease forfeit is mandated by decree at its directive. The perpetrator will gain if a reduced sentence is imposed by legislation after the transgression has been devoted. Also, individuals below eighteen years of age ought not to be condemned to death. As well as pregnant women, insane or mentally ill individuals, and novel mothers. (OHCHR, 2020). Likewise, capital punishment may be used when the convicted inmate is proven guilty of the terrible offense beyond a reasonable doubt based on accurate and convincing investigations, rendering no possibility for a different interpretation of the circumstances. Equally a capital sentence ought to be done after a conclusive verdict has been done and executed by qualified court judgment.
Moreover, after a lawful procedure that provides all reasonable protections to guarantee a just probationary, at least like that confined in artifact 14 of the Global Agreement on Civic and Governmental Justices. Equally, all convicts have the right to legal assistance in all proceedings. Any individual who is to be sentenced to death has the alternative of appealing to a higher jurisdiction court, and the appropriate procedure is followed to ensure such appeals are compulsory. Likewise, any inmate on death string can request for resentencing or pardon of a sentence -this is mandatory for all individuals associated with capital sentence cases (Howells, 2018). Death sentence ought not to be done while there is pending recourse procedure, appeal, or sentencing proceedings. Similarly, capital sentencing is to be done with minor pain.
Conclusion
The death penalty is not fair in whatsoever case since life lost cannot be reversed. Still, an individual can amend their behavior to the socially accepted way. An innocent individual may be executed for the crimes they did not commit whatsoever due to failure of adequate representation. Even if they once made awful mistakes, the years they spent while in prison made them to be upright individuals and have pleaded with the maker of the world to encompass His pity and forgiveness (Schweizer & Beck, 2020). The death penalty is not a solution to crimes and not the best policy to punish convicts with awful mistakes.
Racial discrimination should not play an influential role in defining who should be sentenced to death, but rather should be based on equality and fairness to all individuals. The same judgment should be made to white and black, protestant and non-protestant, and whether democrats or republican. The death penalty should not be a matter of dispute, instead, humanity should be considered in possible situations. If not, appropriate punishment for various offences should be put in place.Most convicts commit crimes due to frustrations and necessities lacking in their everyday lives rather than out of pleasure and greed, as most people say. Proper punishment modes need to be adopted rather than capital punishment.
References
Gramlich, J. (2021). 10 facts about the death penalty in the U.S. Pew Research Center
Howells, C. (2018). The death penalty and its exceptions. Deconstructing the Death Penalty, 87–98.
Munoz, M. (2021). Is the death penalty fair? MBU Timeline.
OHCHR. (2020). OHCHR | Rights of those facing the death penalty.
Pelli, G. (2020). The argument of against the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty, 85–102.
Schweizer, J., & Beck, E. (2020). The death penalty from the family perspective. Social Work, Criminal Justice, and the Death Penalty, 196–212.