Capital Punishment Case - Is the Retribution Worth the Risks?

Is the Retribution Worth the Risks?

Ever since the 1960's, capital punishment has been a term filled with lots confusion and emotion. Over the years, the penalty has been abolished, then reinstated, and then abolished again in countries all over the world. However, the question remains: Is capital punishment still a fair and logical means of justice? According to Donna Lyons, who wrote an article for the State Legislatures, she claims that "7 out of 10 people are in support of the death penalty" (Lyons). Recently, the process that leads to execution has greatly changed, and it has become quite difficult for a murderer to actually be put to death. Prisoners spend a long while on death row awaiting their fate, but it often occurs that the court system interrupts the process. Many factors can contribute to this.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution is often the leading cause in a jury's decision to revoke a death sentence. They argue that capital punishment "violate[s] the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment" (Williams). Many years ago, US states would prohibit the use of the death penalty for this exact reason. They claimed that it is not right to punish a murderer with murder. How does this justify the reason this person is on death row in the first place? Other states would abolish this law because of cost. P.W. Keve, a corrections administrator explains that the "cost of keeping one person in prison is calculated at a current average of about $17,000 per year" (Keve), while the cost of putting someone to death is about $2 million. Initially, it does appear that keeping a prisoner for life would be more cost efficient than putting them to death. Another point that these anti-death penalty advocates like to point out is the fact that crime rate has not decreased with the use of the death penalty, which would be its primary purpose. But at the same time, the use of the death penalty has decreased over the years. An article written by Ernest van den Haag reports that the courts are "adding an average of about 170 new cases each year to the death rows, while the actual executions have been averaging only about 21 annually" (van den Haag). This is due to the fact that "the death sentence is imposed mainly for felony murders...for murdering police officers or for other murders regarded as particularly heinous" (van den Haag). Although these all seem like sensible reasons to abolish the death penalty, there are many reasons that it can be advantageous.

Once someone has committed a murder, they will always be a murderer. They have done it once, so what guarantees they won't do it again? A criminal sentenced to life without parole still has the opportunity to commit another murder. These crimes happen all the time in prison. Inmates kill other inmates or even officials that work in the prisons. If this prisoner were put to death, it would guarantee that they could not harm another individual. The death penalty can also be a deterrent to others. If a person is thinking of committing a murder, they might stop and think twice knowing the harsh consequence. If the death penalty were used more frequently, it would show these potential criminals that there is a good chance that they will receive this consequence as well. After all, ultimate retribution to murder is the death penalty, but when the government uses capital punishment, it is not necessarily considered murder. The definition of murder is "unlawful killing of a person with malice and aforethought" (Keve). When the