Why Oppose The Death Penalty?

There are both principled and practical reasons why capital punishment is never warranted. Here are some reasons from a civil liberties perspective:

• Killing is wrong whether it is done by an individual or by a government. Killing is inherently at odds with the underlying goals of civil liberties -- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment -- a violation of the 8th Amendment.
• Courts and juries sometimes get it wrong. The wrong person can be convicted, because of procedural errors or inadequate representation -- a violation of the 5th and 6th Amendments.
• Capital punishment juries are inherently partial since citizens opposed to the death penalty are disallowed -- a violation of the 6 th Amendment.
• Inadequate representation is almost always the result of poverty. Poor defendants are assigned counsel, who may be inexperienced and are almost always over-worked. Unequal protection is a violation of the 14th Amendment.
• Geography and race play key roles in the imposition of the death penalty. Thirty-eight of the 50 states have death penalty statutes, with the great majority of executions taking place in 10 Southern states. Clearly, there is a much greater chance that a defendant will be put to death for committing a violent felony in Texas than in Vermont. There is also a much greater chance that a defendant will be put to death if he or she is black. A disproportionate number of death row defendants -- based on general population or race of victims -- are black. This may be the result of poverty (resulting in inadequate representation), geography, or race prejudice itself -- all violations of equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Here is a closer look at some of these specific objections.

Inherently Cruel And Unusual

The history of capital punishment is replete with examples of botched executions.   But no execution is painless, whether botched or not, and all executions are certainly cruel. Eyewitness accounts confirm that execution by any means is often an excruciatingly painful, and always degrading, process that ends in death.  

The death penalty does not deter crime. The homicide rate in states with the death penalty is higher than in states without the death penalty.

Unequal Legal Representation

Capital cases are among the most emotionally and financially draining of all legal cases. They demand hundreds of hours of preparation, and extensive resources.

Many defendants cannot afford a lawyer, so they must rely on the state to provide them with representation. Few states provide adequate funds to compensate lawyers for their work or to investigate cases properly. As a result, capital defendants are frequently represented by inexperienced, or over-worked lawyers.  

In capital cases, a competent attorney can -- quite literally -- mean the difference between life and death. Executing people because of who their attorney was, instead of what their crime was, adds to the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of the death penalty.

Geographic Disparities

The imposition of a death sentence has more to do with where the crime was committed and where the trial took place than with the facts of the actual case.

Of the executions performed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 82 percent were carried out by 10 states ( Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia).

Texas and Virginia accounted for more than half of all the executions.

Texas has executed more than 300 people since 1976. Twelve other death-penalty states performed no, or only one, execution during that time.

Racial Bias

Many studies have found that, when all other variables remain constant, the one most reliable predictor of whether a defendant will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.

Between January 1976 and May 2005, more than 80 percent of executed defendants had been convicted of killing white individuals -- even though African-Americans alone make up about half of all homicide victims.

Of those on death row in May of 2005, only 45 percent were white, while U.S. Census Bureau figures for 2000 showed more than 75 percent of the population of the U.S. to be white.

In an initial U.S. Department of Justice survey of federal death penalty prosecutions released in the fall of 2000, statistics show the influence that the race of the victim has in determining potential capital cases.U.S. Attorneys recommended the death penalty in 36 percent of the cases with black defendants and non-black victims, but recommended the death penalty in only 20 percent of the cases with black defendants and black victims.

Risk Of Executing The Innocent

Between January 1973 and February 2005, evidence of innocence resulted in the release of 119 people from death row in 25 states.

The majority of those exonerated were found innocent because someone came forward to confess committing the crime, key witness testimony was found to be illegitimate, or new evidence was found to support innocence

The potential risk of executing an innocent person is real. Even ardent proponents of capital punishment recognize this flaw of the system.

Costs Of Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is more expensive than a life prison sentence.

In Texas, the state with the highest capital punishment rate, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million -- about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest-security level for 40 years.

The death penalty cost in Florida is $3.2 million, compared to $600,000 for life imprisonmenet.

It’s not just appeal proceedings after a verdict that make capital punishment cases so expensive. It’s the trial itself. The death penalty system requires two-phased trials (conviction and sentencing), which are costly.

The death penalty diverts resources that could be better spent on genuine crime control measures.

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