The best arguments against the death penalty are:
2. The cost is actually higher than life imprisonment.
3. Some innocent persons might get executed.
4. It discriminates against the poor, or against Blacks.
How can we know if the death penalty is a deterrent, or could be, if this penalty is not applied consistently and with some frequency?
Even the state of Texas executes only a small fraction of first-degree murderers. If you commit murder, in Texas or anywhere else, your chances of getting the death penalty are slim, and probably less than 1% of actually being executed.
So anyone contemplating murdering someone has little disincentive from the death penalty. The right conclusion, though, is not that the death penalty should be abolished, but rather, that it should be expanded and made consistent.
Those who argue against the death penalty because it is not a deterrent, if they are serious, will agree to the following test:
Let the death penalty be applied consistently, in at least one test state, preferably 3 or 4. In those test states, let EVERY first-degree murderer receive the death penalty and let that sentence be carried out within a year or two.
THEN, after a few years of comparison between states, we will be able to draw conclusions, from empirical evidence, about the death penalty as a deterrent. Until then there is no basis for drawing any such conclusions.
Now, what if it is true that there is no deterrent? Can the death penalty be justified even if there is no deterrent?
(A "deterrent" here has to mean an additional deterrent beyond that of imprisonment. In other words, if death adds no additional disincentive beyond that of punishment by incarceration, then it is not a "deterrent".)
There are two rationales left for the death penalty, if there is no deterrent. One is cost savings (it costs less to execute the criminal than to imprison him for 40 or 50 years), and the other is pure vengeance or retribution for its own sake.
Those who advocate pure vengeance/retribution must either give a reason for it, i.e., show some practical benefit to society, or they must admit that it is a pure impulsive craving, similar to sadism, or to an instinct to practice religious rituals or to follow a charismatic cult leader. To those who don't have such an impulse, this rationale is insufficient to justify the death penalty.
But there is another rationale for the death penalty, even if there is no deterrent: it saves on cost. This brings us to the next argument against the death penalty:
Is the cost of death penalty cases actually higher than that of life imprisonment cases?
This is a bad argument against the death penalty.
Why is the cost higher? Only because of artificial demands imposed on death penalty cases which result in years of appeals, which go on forever and run up huge court costs.
Why should death-penalty convicts be entitled to more appeals than other types? What is the purpose of appeals? Is it not to determine whether the trial was fair and if the convict is truly innocent or guilty? Isn't a life-imprisonment case just as entitled to this consideration?
If the purpose is to overturn a wrongful conviction, why shouldn't a lifer who was wrongfully convicted be just as entitled to the appeals process? Is it somehow permissible to imprison an innocent person for life, though it is not permissible to execute him? Why is the false imprisonment any more tolerable than the false execution?
Because the falsely imprisoned could be eventually released, if exonerated, while the executed one could not be because it's too late? This is not a good reason, because the fact is that the vast number of falsely imprisoned ones will never be exonerated or released until they have served their full sentence.
It is just as imperative to exonerate the falsely-convicted for life as to exonerate the falsely-convicted on death row. Both types of cases are equally unjust and intolerable.
So the added cost of death penalties is an artificial condition which should not exist.
Fundamentally, without the artificiality, death-penalty cases are less expensive, and the state saves money by executing criminals rather than imprisoning them for life. The cost of imprisonment, for high-security cases, is in the range of $40,000 to $50,000 per year. Obviously it would be cheaper to execute them rather than warehouse them for life.
Furthermore, given the fact that extra effort is made to seek out those wrongfully convicted and who received the death penalty, beyond the effort to seek out those wrongfully convicted and who only got life imprisonment, then it is actually better to impose the death penalty on them all, because then we can be sure that maximum effort will be made to exonerate all rather than only some.
In other words, a convict who is actually innocent is better off to get the death penalty because he is assured of getting the best access to the appeal process and a chance to get exonerated and released. Which makes it clear how ludicrous it is to treat the two types of cases differently (with regard to appeals).
Aside from the above, there is a further cost advantage to the death penalty. Any extra cost of death penalty cases can be easily offset so that society suffers no extra cost, and will actually come out ahead:
Let executions be made available to public viewing, by television, and let one of the TV networks, the highest bidder, pay a price for the contract to cover the events. These telecasts will receive very high viewer ratings and will bring in millions of dollars for each execution and will more than make up for any extra cost for the death penalty cases.
So even if the irrational and pointless cost difference is maintained between death-penalty appeals and life-imprisonment appeals, this is still not a good argument against the death penalty.
A further approach to the high-cost issue is to completely overhaul the appeal process. The appeal process could be made much better as well as less expensive. This brings us to the next argument against the death penalty:
3. Some innocent persons might get executed.
Most of the high-profile cases are not of convicts who might be innocent, but rather, who might not have got a fair trial, or who should have got a lighter sentence than death, or who should have been found insane and committed to an institution, or who were "rehabilitated" and are no longer a threat to society (and so should be kept in prison for life!!).
Yes, a few have been exonerated by DNA evidence. But this is a small fraction of the high-profile cases publicized in the media. The arrival of this new kind of evidence serves to make the whole system of justice more reliable than before and to protect the innocent better. The existence of DNA evidence is an argument in favor of the death penalty, not against it.
There is very little evidence that totally innocent persons have been executed.
Nevertheless, proponents of the death penalty must admit at some point that they are willing to tolerate some small number of innocent executions. Who knows what the percentage is? 1%? .1%? .01%?
Each person will draw the line somewhere. We cannot assume that there have been no such executions at all. Zero. There is some small number, just as there are innocent convicts serving prison terms.
Is anyone suggesting that all prisoners be released, because some of them might be innocent? Then why suggest that death-penalty convictions be overturned? Or why change the sentence to life imprisonment? If the person is innocent, then ANY punishment is unjust.
Obviously, the solution is not to change the sentence to life imprisonment, which is just as bad. The solution is to improve the appeal process. Society has an obligation to do whatever it can to separate the innocent from the guilty and punish only the guilty.
Here is how the appeal process could be overhauled and made much cheaper, as well as more efficient at finding the innocent and exonerating them:
Have citizen appeal boards, or grand juries, which would take on criminal cases and review them. Create more grand juries: for example, let the current county grand juries create additional bodies, "affiliate grand juries" or whatever they want to call them, and let these take on criminal appeals, perhaps without the need for high-paid judges or attorneys.
The members of these bodies could be chosen by lottery, similarly to present jurors, and could be paid a small compensation. If they are paid minimum wage, or a little higher, some citizens might serve on them permanently and full time.
The present appeal process is grossly unfair because of the huge backlog of cases. The reason the appeal courts are so jammed is mainly the high cost, due to the high salaries of judges and lawyers. Why not do away with the whole lot of them and let citizen boards or grand juries take on the job?
The judges and lawyers have little interest in innocence or guilt anyway. Their main interest is in preserving their dominance and status and their stranglehold on the justice system, and propping up their salaries. They have become an obstacle to justice in the appeal process, not something which promotes the process.
We will never have a perfectly just system. If perfect justice is necessary before we can ever impose penalties on criminals, then we might as well set all criminals free and forget the whole thing.
What we should do is create the most efficient appeal process that is possible. Then we will minimize false convictions and false imprisonments and false executions.
The argument of false convictions really has nothing to do with the death penalty per se, but with the entire justice system and all penalties.
Once again, the death penalty is being singled out for something which is a problem throughout the justice system, not something limited to capital punishment per se.
There is no more discrimination with regard to death penalty cases than there is with all the other penalties. If ending discrimination in justice is the goal, then do away with the entire justice system, with all the penalties, not just the death penality. Even if the death penalty is eliminated, the justice system will be just as discriminatory as before.
Is it somehow OK to put innocent Blacks in prison, but just not OK to execute them? Why isn't it just as wrong to imprison them? Why is only death-penalty discrimination wrong and not all the other discrimination?
People who give these arguments need to wake up to reality and figure out why they're REALLY against the death penalty, instead of giving all these superfluous arguments which have nothing to do with the death penalty per se.
Doing away with the death penalty won't do anything to change the fact that the rich are able to buy their way out by hiring fancy lawyers and finding some technicality to get themselves off, or to get "sentenced" to a country club prison.
All that will remain the same, no matter what happens to the death penalty. Blacks and other minorities will still occupy most of the prison slots and get heavier penalties and less competent representation in court. Not a thing will be changed as far as the discrimination goes.
Now, aside from all the above, there would be nothing wrong with trying to balance the scales by having more executions of Whites. Even if a quota system were established requiring a certain percentage of White convicted murderers to be executed, there would be nothing wrong with that.
The solution to any imbalance of Whites executed vs. Blacks is to simply execute more Whites. The solution is not to abolish executions altogether. Abolishing executions will do nothing to erase the imbalance, because the same imbalances will continue with regard to other penalties.
Whites should have no objection to a quota system requiring more executions of Whites. No one need fear such a quota system unless they're planning to commit a capital crime sometime in the future.
We're talking about convicted murderers here. What does it matter if they're White or Black or Whatever? If it will make someone feel a little better if the score is brought more into balance, then why not increase the number of Whites to be executed? or the number of greens or whatever group is underrepresented? The more murderers executed, the better, no matter what their color!
If you are against the death penalty, post your argument(s) here (click here) or in the SocialContract.com Message Board.
