Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty in America

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." -John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence[1]

At the center of the debate over the death penalty is the question of whether it is right or wrong to kill a human being for having inflicted injury and/or death upon another human being. Many Americans believe that there is never an excuse for sentencing a person to death, even if the crime that person is convicted of, is murder. This view, however, is strongly centered in Christian ideals and morals. After all, the Bible states: "Thou shalt not kill" and, for many, this simple statement is enough to convince them that the death penalty should be abolished. Religion, however, does not belong in our courts or our jails. The subject of the death penalty is a legal matter and should be viewed and accepted or rejected based on what is more beneficial to society as a whole rather than the individual morality of the issue.

If we look at the death penalty in terms of its costs and benefits to society we can get a clearer, less morally motivated, idea of whether or not the death penalty is something that should remain a practice in the United States. First, what does the death penalty cost society? According to opponents of the death penalty, it is fiscally more costly to seek a death penalty conviction than it is to provide for lifetime imprisonment.[2] They also claim that the danger of convicting innocent individuals and too great and that the death penalty is too often disproportionately applied to defendants who are non-white.[3]