Capital Punishment is Illegal: The System is Broken

“The question with which we must deal is not whether a substantial proportion of American citizens would today, if polled, opine that capital punishment is barbarously cruel, but whether they would find it to be so in light of all information presently available.” Justice Thurgood Marshall. (DPIC)

Even though only 1 in 33 people who are charged with criminal homicide are sentenced to death there more than 3,700 men and women in the United States who are currently awaiting execution on death row. The majority of people who will be put to death will be poor, members of a minority, uneducated, or of questionable sanity and were represented by some of the worst lawyers available. (Berlow) The execution rate was seven times the murder rate in 1995, a sign that capital punishment is clearly not an effective deterrent. (Bedau)

Racism plays an essential factor in determining who gets a death sentence. For example, U.S. attorneys recommended 183 people for the death penalty between 1995 and 2000. Only 48 white people were recommended for a death sentence compared to 81 black people. (U.S., T-17) Among the minority groups; African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population but they are 35% of those on death row and 9% are Native American, Latino, or Asian. (Death Penalty)

Those who kill a white person are more likely to receive the death penalty than those who kill a black person. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) says that in its studies that examined the relationship between race and the death penalty, there was a 96% pattern of race-of-victim discrimination, race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. (Death Penalty)

In Florida, a defendant’s odds of receiving the death penalty are 4.8 times higher if the victim was white than if the victim was black. In the state of Kentucky, there have been 1,000 African Americans murdered since the 1975 reinstitution of the death penalty as of spring 1999. However, all of the state’s 39 death row inmates were sentenced for murdering a white victim; none were there for murdering an African American. (Death Penalty)

Public opposition to the death penalty reached an all-time high in the mid-1960’s even though it has existed for most of our nation’s history. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision that the state death penalty rules lacked any standards and that they gave too much discretion to individual judges and juries to decide the final punishment. After this decision, states passed new laws that provided sentencing guidelines for juries. The Supreme Court in the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case readdressed capital punishment. The Court reversed its previous decision and said, “the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution”. (Death Penalty)

Even though the Supreme Court reversed its decision, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims that capital punishment is unconstitutional because it is both cruel and unusual punishment. (Bedau) Cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited under the eighth amendment of the constitution, “nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted”. (Wilson, 394) The ACLU contends that it is cruel because it is derived from ancient times when institutions like slavery were commonplace. It is unusual because the United States is the only western industrialized nation that engages in this punishment. (Bedau) The fourteenth amendment of the constitution states, “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws.” (Wilson, 395) Capital punishment violates this because it is applied randomly and discriminatory upon those whose victims who are white, offenders who are people of color, and on those who are poor and uneducated. Capital punishment denies due process of law. As a result, the individual would not have the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might result in the reversal of a conviction or the setting aside of a death sentence. (Bedau)

Most people would agree that murder is an immoral act because it demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Capital punishment is also an immoral act since it consists of state-authorized killings. “A society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social problems – the worst possible example to set for the citizenry. The benefits of capital punishment are illusory, but the bloodshed and the resulting destruction of community decency are real,” says Hugo Bedau in The Case Against the Death Penalty.

The death penalty does not discourage other criminals from criminal activity because some individuals who commit serious felonies think they are too clever to get caught. Most of these capital crimes are committed when the individuals involved are under great emotional stress or are under the influence of drugs or alcohol. As a result, logical thinking has been suspended. Political terrorists are not threatened by the death penalty because they see it as an end that justifies the means. (Bedau)
The death penalty is not effective in lowering crime. Death penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death penalty states. Death penalty states that include 38 states, the U.S. Government, and the U.S. Military averaged an annual rate of 7.9 criminal homicides per 100,000. An important factor to remember is that seven states along with the U.S. Military have had no executions since 1976. (State) Abolitionist states, which include 12 states as well as the District of Columbia, averaged a rate of 5.1. This shows that states that have the death penalty actually have a higher annual rate of criminal homicides. (Budeau)

An example illustrating this point is that in Oklahoma, the reintroduction of executions in 1990 produced “an abrupt and lasting increase in the level of stranger homicides” in the form of “one additional stranger-homicide incident per month”. Between 1990 and 1994 the homicide rates in Wisconsin and Iowa (non death-penalty states) were half the rates of their neighbor, Illinois, who restored the death penalty in 1973 and by 1994 had sentenced 223 persons to death and carried out two executions. (Budeau)

The death sentence is carried out in some states much more than in others. In 1999, Connecticut had five people on death row and Kansas had only two on death row. Many more people are on death row in the southern states. Texas had 443 death row inmates and California had 513 inmates on death row. In some states, inmates can be executed at age 16 while in other states the inmate must be 18 years of age. (Death Penalty)

The American Bar Association (ABA) called for a nationwide freeze on capital punishment until states can ensure that “death penalty cases are administered fairly and impartially, in accordance with due process”. The ABA standards include call for knowledgeable lawyers for the accused, restoring the right to litigate constitutional claims after conviction, reforms to eliminate racial discrimination, and outlawing execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded. (Berlow)

Speaking of the mentally retarded, 10% of people on death row are mentally handicapped. The U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that allows the execution of the mentally handicapped. Many people who are on death row who are mentally handicapped have the mental age of a pre-teenager and are convinced by police to admit to a crime that they didn’t commit. More states are barring the execution of the mentally handicapped. Now fifteen ban this practice compared to two in 1989. (Martin)

Some people argue that we should make the punishment fit the crime and that death is what murderers deserve. The problem with this fundamental principle is that it says that punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime. This would mean that we would have to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. We would have to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again – punishments that are obviously impossible to inflict. (Bedau)

When presented with possible sentencing alternatives, 50% of those surveyed by the DPIC chose life imprisonment without parole plus restitution to the victim’s family as an alternative to the death penalty. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll states that 80% of Americans believe an innocent person has been executed in the United States in the past five years. A Harris Poll found that support for the death penalty has dropped 9% since 1997. In another poll, 64% of Americans support a freeze on executions until issues of fairness in capital punishment can be resolved. (Dieter)

“Until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate,” said Governor George Ryan of Illinois in February of 2000. He has appointed a commission to examine why so many mistakes were being made in capital cases. He also has allowed for the possibility that the death penalty will be abolished in Illinois. (Dieter)

In mid 1997, prisoners were executed in one of five ways: hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, a firing squad, or a lethal injection. The most traditional mode of execution is hanging which is still done in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington. Death on the gallows is indisputably a cruel act. If the drop is too short, there will be a slow and painful death by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the head will be torn off. (Bedau)

Electrocution is the most widely used form of execution in this country and is used in eleven states. The prisoner is strapped into a chair and electrodes are fastened to the head and legs. After a switch is thrown, the body strains jolting as the voltage is raised and lowered. Smoke often rises from the head while the smell of burning flesh is present in the air. (Bedau)

The gas chamber was introduced as an attempt to improve on electrocution. Prisoners are strapped into a chair with a container of sulfuric acid underneath, the chamber is sealed, and cyanide is dropped into the acid to form a lethal gas. In 1996, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California, a state where the gas chamber has been used since 1933, called the method “cruel and unusual punishment”. (Bedau)

Another traditional form of execution is the firing squad practiced in only two states: Idaho and Utah. The prisoner is strapped into a chair and hooded while a target is pinned to the chest while five marksmen, one with blanks, take aim and fire. (Bedau)

Lethal injection is performed in more than 30 states and of all the methods this one is more approved of by the public. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1983’s Chaney v. Heckler case observed that there is “substantial and uncontroverted evidenceâÂ?¦that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted healthâÂ?¦Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation.” In the execution of Stephen Morin in 1985, authorities jabbed needles into him when they had trouble finding a usable vein since he was a drug user. (Bedau)

It is obvious that the whole system of death penalty is broken. More people are opposing the death penalty than in the past as they learn about innocent people who were executed and how discriminatory the system really is. All states including Connecticut are considering a variety of proposals to reform, study, halt, or abolish the death penalty altogether. (Dieter) It is time for our Supreme Court to revisit the issue of the death penalty and state the obvious; that it is illegal and a call for a nationwide abolition.

Graph Caption:
Area chart of the number of persons under sentence of death in the United States from 1953 to 1999. The number of persons gradually increased from 131 in 1953 to 631 in 1971. In 1972, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in Furman vs. Georgia that the death penalty as applied in various States was unconstitutional. This resulted in a significant decrease in the number of persons under sentence of death as States overturned death sentences: the population of inmates on death row decreased 48% between 1971 and 1972, and 60% between 1972 and 1973. As States began enacting new death penalty laws, the death row population began to grow from a low of 134 in 1973 to 3,527 at year end 1999.

References

Bedau, Hugo Adam. “The Case Against The Death Penalty”. Death Penalty: American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Network. . 24 September 2001.

Berlow, Alan. “The Broken Machinery Of Death”. The American Prospect. Vol. 12. No. 13. 30 July 2001. 8 October 2001. < http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/13/berlow-a.html>. Death Penalty Information Center. DPIC. 13 October 2001. .

Dieter, Richard C., and Bernstein, Paula. “The Death Penalty in 2000: Year End Report” Death Penalty Information Center. December 2000. 11 October 2001. . United States. Dept. of Justice.

The Federal Death Penalty System: A Statistical Survey (1988-2000). 12 September 2000. 24 September 2001. .

Martin, Marlene. “Tell Bush: This Has To Stop!: Executing The Mentally Handicapped Under Review”. The New Abolitionist. Issue 20. July 2001. 8 October 2001. < http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/currentna/index.html>.

McDonald, Betsy. Photo Voyage: Life & Death Row in Texas: Death Row: Final Day. Aurora & Quanta. Washington Post. 13 October 2001. .

“State By State Death Penalty Information”. Death Penalty Information Center. 11 October 2001. .

“The Death Penalty”. American Civil Liberties Union Briefing Paper. No. 14. Spring 1999. 24 September 2001. .

Wilson, James Q. American Government: Brief Version: Fifth Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2000.