[11.28.11] The Death Penalty

Liam
How severe does a crime have to be to legally gain the ability to end someone's life with the crime?

Justin J.
If the sentence someone to life in prison, why not just sentence them to the death penalty?

Tristan G.
How much does it cost to pay for the death penalty, with court cases and expenses included? How does it compare to the inmate living in a prison?

Answers can be found here, here, here, and here.
Interesting website : LINK





To put it straight-forward: I am on the line about the death penalty. I feel that a murderer should be punished for his crimes (my sources say that

In some countries death penalty can only be used to punish people for willful murder. In other countries it is also used as punishment for other crimes, such as dealing drugs or in some countries even for adultery.

and

The death penalty is reserved for the most heinous of crimes; murders involving special circumstances (e.g. rape, multiple murders, lying in wait, etc.))

but at what point do we determine which crimes are punishable by death and which are not? A "plus" about the death penalty is that the country can be "rid of" the horrible killers that may ruin others' lives. (Isn't it possible that people that are sentenced to life in prison can spread their secrets to others that may be released later, posing a harm to the community?) However, one of the cons to the death penalty is the fact that one may execute an innocent person. Also, there are reports that show that with this penalty, the crime rate does not go down:

The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. 

This reminds me of a well-known Japanese graphic novel named Death Note. This story is about Light Yagami, an intelligent teenager (around 17 or 18 years old) that finds a Death Note, a notebook that death gods write in to kill people. He decides to use it to try and kill all the criminals in the world. Of course, he starts out with good intentions, but later in the series he basically goes mad.

But anyway, back to the topic-

What I had learned previously was that the death penalty costs less than having criminals with the life sentence. With the room, food, and other things one has to provide to inmates, of course the amount of money needed (x amount of people multiplied by y amount of money multiplied by z amount of years they're alive) is a huge number. But after my research, I saw that many said the amount of money needed for the death penalty is much greater than having a person living in prison for the rest of their life. It seems that the reason why the death penalty costs much more than a life sentence is because of all of the cases (legal fees), not to mention the "lengthy appeals and red tape designed to assure that the utmost caution is taken before ending a life."

Something that I found to be amusing but horrifying at the same time is Chris Clem's, an attorney, reason for saying that the death penalty costs less than life [sentence] without the possibility of parole (LWOP):

Executions do not have to cost that much.  We could hang them and re-use the rope. No cost! Or we could use firing squads and ask for volunteer firing squad members who would provide their own guns and ammunition. Again, no cost.

One of my sources says that "The average time on death row, for those executed from 1973-1994, was 8 years... Using the 8 year average, the DP equivalent LWOP cases are still $1 million more expensive than their DP counterparts ($2 million @ 2% annual increase)."

(Strangely enough, it's a bit difficult to find a source that simply states how much it is for a DP case and a LWOP case.)

I guess the death penalty just comes down to the amount of humanity each person has. I support the death penalty on those who have committed a definite wrong, but it takes a lot of time and money to absolutely determine that - the court cases, the witnesses, the evidence. Could it be possible to go through these cases and reach a conclusion more quickly?