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Noah Freiburger
Mrs.Rohlfs
English 10
19 May 2014
Death Penalty
Desmond Tutu once famously said

, "To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge,

not justice"(Anti-Death). The death penalty has been abolished by 18 of the U.S. States, but is
still legal in 32 of our states. The United States is known as one of the freest countries in the
world, but now joins countries like Iraq, Iran and China in killing thousands of people under the
death penalty (Report). Many countries and states have ruled out the death penalty as an
option because of the enormous cost, the racial discrimination, the mistake of taking innocent
peoples lives, the wrong ideals of deterrence, and the cruel and unusual punishment that goes
along with the execution.
The United States spends a tremendous amount of money each year on our legal system
and prisons to keep them running in an orderly function, but not nearly as much as it is to go
through the process of giving a person the death penalty. The death penalty costs nearly four
times as much as it is to keep a prisoner in a prison for a full lifetime, $2 million per person vs.
$500,000(Against). After someone is convicted of a crime and given the death sentence, they
are sent to Death Row and stay there for 10 15 years depending on how long it takes the
execution to get approved by the court. To keep a normal prisoner in a regular state prison for a
single year costs around $200,000, but to keep a prisoner on death row for a year costs around
$300,000. Many inmates will die before they even get their execution date. The actual execution
isnt any cheaper either. A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a

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death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case (Death
Penalty). Most death penalty cases go to the court system around every nine months to get
settled on the execution date. Each time the case goes to court the attorneys, court room, judge,
and transportation must all be paid for making it expensive for the state and the inmates family.
Since 1978, California has spent around four billion dollars from court costs, constructing death
row buildings, and the actual execution. But, from the same year California spent around 1.6
billion dollars maintaining the prisons and the prisoners. The overall cost of the death penalty
outweighs the cost of life in prison. Not only does the government pay a ridiculous amount of
money to put people through the death penalty, it is also racially discriminatory.
Racial discrimination is something that has been a problem in the United States since its
origins. Many people believe that racial discrimination is dwindling but what's behind the scenes
of the death penalty may disprove this. A report sponsored by the American Bar Association in
2007 concluded that one-third of African-American death row inmates in Philadelphia would
have received sentences of life imprisonment if they had not been African-American (Death).
There is a hatred to minorities in our country with some people not even being aware of it. Many
people of different skin colors, or different races are pre-judged and automatically thought to be
guilty. Many articles say people feel less guilty putting someone of the black race on the death
penalty as they would if it was a white person. Blacks out of all races receive the most guilty
verdict. A 2007 study of death sentences in Connecticut conducted by Yale University School of
Law revealed that African-American defendants receive the death penalty at three times the rate
of white defendants in cases where the victims are white(Death). Many lawyers will turn
down black clients just because of the fact that they are more likely to get a guilty verdict. Black
people are 67% more likely to get sent to death row than any other race. Also, poor people or

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people that are in a minority cannot usually afford an attorney and are given a court appointed
attorney. These attorneys are usually not as trained and do not necessarily care about the outcome
of their client. Of the 1,058 prisoners on death row by Aug. 20,1982, 42 percent were black,
whereas about 12 percent of the United States population is black. Those who receive the death
penalty still tend to be poor, poorly educated, and represented by public defenders or courtappointed lawyers(Meehan). But, blacks aren't the only ones affected. Other minorities in the
United States are at a disadvantage. The inmate more likely to get sent to death row if they kill a
white person than if they kill a different race. In 1990 a report from the General Accounting
Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to
influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e.
those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered
blacks."( "Death Penalty : Racial). Not only does the death penalty cost a tremendous amount of
money and racially discriminates, it also has the risk of killing innocent lives.
The United States legal system goes through very strict procedures to make sure that no
innocent person gets a false verdict. However, nothing is ever certain, so to take someones life
when it is not 100% that they are guilty, there is a risk that they could be innocent and just lost
their life because of a flaw in the legal system. Since 1973, over 130 people have been released
from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. In 2003
alone, 10 wrongfully convicted defendants were released from death row (Innocence). This
statistic shows that many men and women are wrongfully accused. For some people its too late
before the legal system finds out that the person they just executed was wrongfully accused. The
Center of Wrongful Convictions at NorthWestern Law school said that there are many reasons
why individuals could be wrongly convicted. Most of the time, the eyewitness had an error or

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faulty memory, but also 43% of the time it was a false confession because of the police
harassment and interrogation. Unfortunately, 28% of the time it was snitch testimony which
means that another inmate made up false accusation to try to get a shorten sentence (Cause).
As of March 12, 2014 there have been 144 wrongly accused people executed in 26 different
states (Cause). Once inmates are put on death row the chances are very slim to get out. Only
about 3% of the people that get sent to death row get out alive and are still sent to a prison to
spend life there. After the legal system wrongly accuses someone and they are executed, the
family members usually try to get compensation from the court from their error. However, only
about 10% of the cases actually make it to court and the other cases are turned down before even
getting to the judge. Many people will say that the court system is a strong enough system that
not many people are wrongly accused. However, the court is made of people. People will lie,
change their story, and of course human error which could make the court system unreliable. The
United States feels that the death penalty has a strong enough court to not make mistakes, but is
the death penalty really a strong punishment.
Deterrence is the thought that having the death penalty in place scares people of
committing the crime. Eighty-eight percent of the countrys top criminologists do not believe
the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to a new study published in the
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Facts). Many people believe that if we enforce
the death penalty that people will be scared to commit the crime because of the punishment they
man face. However, the people that are put on death penalty are usually not in their right mind
and do not care about the consequences that they will face for doing their crime. Inmates who
are insane, that is, so out of touch with reality that they do not know right from wrong and cannot
understand their punishment or the purpose of it, are exempt from execution (Mental). Many

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people that are placed on death row do not understand what is happening in society and do not
know that what they are doing is wrong. If an inmate pleads insanity then they are exempt
from the death penalty. However, if they regain sanity then they go straight to death row to be
executed not even giving them a chance to change. In fact, the death penalty increases homicide.
In a study done in Oklahoma where the death penalty is legal it not only shows that the
homicides remained the same, it showed a dramatic increase in murders. There were 200,000
more murders when the death penalty was introduced then when it wasn't (Frederick 41). The
people that commit these crimes do not care about the outcome of the situation because they do
not care if death is coming their way. Also, states with the death penalty have a higher homicide
rate than the states that do not. The average homicide rate for a state without death penalty is
3.6%, compared to the 5.5% for the states that enforce the death penalty (Frederick 42). Not only
are the people that commit the crimes unstable, the crimes are usually passion crimes. This
means that the person does not just randomly decide to kill someone, it means that the person has
rage toward another being and wants them to be dead or badly hurt. This desire takes precedent
over their consequences so they do not care about the outcome. Many people believe that if the
person does go to death row that their execution will be painless and fast, but will it?
The United States passed the eighth amendment in 1791, which makes cruel and unusual
punishment illegal. The government has decided that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual
punishment, but the things that sometimes happens after the injection is put it is cruel and
unusual punishment. These executions are known as botched executions. The injection that
they give the prisoners consists of three drugs to stop the heart and kill the person. Sodium
thiopental is the first of the drugs the prisoner is given. This drug will make the inmate become
unconscious in less than thirty seconds. But, many states are trying to save money and will not

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give the inmates the needed amount to make them fully unconscious which makes the other
drugs a painful experience for the inmate before death. The second drug the inmate in injected
with is Pancuronium bromide. This drug puts the body in paralysis making the human body
unable to move. Once this drug is injected into the body the medicine attacks the nerve and
muscles in the body slowly eating and deteriorating them away until they are unable to function.
The third and final drug that is given to the inmate is Potassium chloride. This final drug stops
the heart putting the inmate into cardiac arrest and finally killing the inmate. The inmate is
usually dead within the first thirty minutes. The execution is supposed to be painless for the
inmate, but that often does not happen. The people hired by the state to kill the prisoners are not
highly educated and barely certified to administer the drug. Botched executions slowly and
painful kill the inmate by giving them problems like heart attacks, lung failures, twitches, and
muscle spasms. Most people believe that botched executions are something that happened in the
olden days and that the injection does not have any issues. However, less than a month ago a
man in Oklahoma went through a botched execution. The doctor that administered his drugs
missed his vein put the injection straight into his tissue. The doctor then thought the inmate was
unconscious and started administering the other drugs. The inmate was 65% conscious are could
feel his body going through things like paralysis and muscle spasms (Carter et al). What
happened to this man is an example of cruel and unusual punishment and goes against the eight
amendment of the United States. Also, In 2007, a man in Ohio was botched during his execution
on May 24. Christopher Newton was sentenced to death for his execution date to be May 24.
Once he was strapped to the gurney it took the doctor two and a half hours before he was
pronounced dead, and it took an hour and a half to find a vein to put the injection in. The
officials even gave him a bathroom break because it took so long. After the drug was injected, he

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experienced several convulsions and muscle spasm which would not have happened if the drug
was administered correctly (Bizzare).
The death penalty is an issue that people have the wrong idea about and are in favor of
because of the wrong reasons. The United States likes itself to be known as a free and just
country but when we believe murder is the ultimate crime does it make sense to fight back at it
with more murder? The death penalty is not a sensible solution for many reasons some being that
it is four times more to execute them, the unfair treatment of ethnic diverse people, the inmates
are sometimes innocent, the thought of deterrence, and the cruelness of the punishment. The
death penalty is something that should be abolished to save them, and ourselves.

Work Cited

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"Anti-Death Penalty Quotes." Anti-Death Penalty Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014.
<http://www.antideathpenalty.org/quotes.html>.
"Bizarre Execution In Ohio." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d. Web. 21 May 2014.
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bizarre-execution-in-ohio/>.
"Causes of Wrongful Convictions." DPIC. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/causes-wrongful-convictions>.
Carter, Chelsea, Dana Ford, Greg Botelho, and Ross Levitt. "Documents: Not enough drugs left
to finish botched Oklahoma execution." CNN. Cable News Network, 1 Jan. 1970. Web. 20 May
2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/01/us/oklahoma-botched-execution/>.
Costs of the Death Penalty." DPIC. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014.
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty>.
"Death Penalty and Innocence." Amnesty International USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
<http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/deathpenalty-and-innocence>.
"Death Penalty and Race." Amnesty International USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2014.
<http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/deathpenalty-and-race>.
"Death Penalty Cost." Cost . N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2014. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/ourwork/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost>.
"Death Penalty : Facts." Death Penalty : Facts. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2014.
<http://www.deathpenalty.org/section.php?id=13>.
"Death Penalty : Racial Disparities." Death Penalty : Racial Disparities. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May
2014. <http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=54>.

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"Facts about Deterrence and the Death Penalty." DPIC. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty>.
Frederick, Millett The Death Penalty Increases Murder The Death Penalty Dudley,William.
Farmington Hills, MI: 37-44. Print. (BOOK detterence)
Meehan, Mary. "Ten Reasons To Oppose the Death Penalty." America Staging. N.p., n.d. Web.
29 Apr. 2014. <http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/100/ten-reasons-oppose-death-penalty>.
"Mental Death Penalty." Death Penalty. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2014.
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/122AReport.pdf>.
"Reasons to be Against the Death Penalty." Reasons to be Against the Death Penalty. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 Apr. 2014.<http://www.antideathpenalty.org/reasons.html>.
Report, Progress. "Reasons to Give Up the Death Penalty - The Progress Report." The Progress
Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://www.progress.org/tpr/reasons-to-give-up-the-deathpenalty-2/>.

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