Death Penalty: a Cruel and Unusual Punishment Or Justice in Work

Introduction

The increasing lack of general support network in criminal’s lives today has created within them an emptiness which an increasing percentage look to fill with destructive behavior. This behavior manifests itself in a variety of ways but some common ones that have directly impacted society today are drugs and alcohol, depression, anxiety, suicide and school shootings. All of these behaviors result in significant unrest in our communities, schools, homes and personal lives. Ultimately, this leads to decreased levels of happiness and satisfaction in life which creates even greater levels of emptiness. This is a vicious cycle which eventually can lead to something as serious as the death penalty. ProCon.org writes, “since 1977, more than 1,480 people have been executed in the United States due to capital punishment”. The death penalty should not be allowed. Throughout history, as it has proven to be inhumane, expensive, and dangerous. It is important to eliminate the hypocrisy of killing a killer. To define whether death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment this essay explores complex issues and promote understanding on this crucial topic.

Death penalty: cruel and unusual punishment (essay)

One tragic way young people seek to cope with the void in their lives is through suicide and school shootings. Colorado is unfortunately no stranger to both of these and both have shaped our way of thinking. It is home to Columbine, STEM, and Arapahoe high schools. Not to mention one of the most devastating shootings that the state has had, “A gunman who killed a dozen people inside an Aurora movie theater in July 2012” (Berman). These institutions have unfortunately been center stage to some of the most disturbing shootings. It is hard to understand how people can commit such heinous acts but one contributor is undoubtedly the lack of belonging and the feeling of being alienated by their community.

The death penalty is nothing new to the United States. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 2,639 prisoners are currently facing execution in the United States while being on death row. Capital punishment has evolved from executing one who steals vegetables in the 1700’s to executing another who murders dozens of people in the 2010’s. The idea of killing as a form of consequence for one’s crimes goes back centuries. Back then, hanging was the first choice of execution, but worse methods like beating, burning, and breaking on a wheel were also used. However, in 1790, the bill of rights and the eighth amendment states that no cruel or unusual punishment would be inflicted on the United States citizens. Once 1924 struck, another form of punishment was introduced, the gas chamber. During the great depression in the 1930’s, the U.S. entered it’s most popular time for capital punishment, killing almost 170 people every year. On December 7th, 1982, lethal injection was first used and soon was chosen to be the first choice of execution. Support for the death penalty was at an all time high at 80 percent in 1994, and since then it has declined. In the start of the 2010’s, the argument was brought up after a man named Troy Davis was executed and millions thought he was innocent. 16 states abolished the death penalty all together. Although, because of many different belifs, the death penalty will always remain a very controversial topic.

In the state of Colorado, death row is located in the state penitentiary. There are currently three people awaiting execution. “Nathan Dunlap was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder, other charges, and was sentenced to death in the electric chair on May 17, 1996. A judge initially set an execution date for him in August 2013, but Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed a temporary reprieve that would postpone Dunlap's execution date.” (Ingold). Quincy Snowdon who is a writer for the Sentinel Magazine said, “Robert Ray was found guilty of assaulting and attempting to murder in 2007 and was first sentanced to 108 years in prison”. A friend of Robert Ray, Sir Mario Owens, shot and killed multiple people minutes after Ray attempted murder but was not caught. Three years later, for helping Owens get away, Ray was sentenced to death. According to state records, Owens was also sentenced to death for participating in the crimes in 2008. “All of the men currently sentenced to death in Colorado attended Overland High School in the Cherry Creek School District” (Snowdon).

In the state of Colorado, capital punishment is a very controversial topic and is currently being argued on if the death penalty should be allowed or not. “Some crimes are so heinous and inherently wrong that they demand strict penalties, up to and including life sentences or even death.” (Muhlhausen) If the death penalty is abolished, it will be a waste of time. Trials will continue for years and we will have to keep paying for their room in prison too. As time goes on and crimes get worse, jails will be overpopulated to the point where criminals will be allowed to leave before their sentence has been met and will definitely put communities at risk. The death penalty will also punish people for what they have done and we wont have to put them on suicide watch.

In order to execute someone, the California Commission states “the death penalty costs on average $137 million per year, and a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration costs on average, $11.5 million.” This statistic proves how much cheaper it is to keep them in prison for life. Spending money on capital punishment can lead to low, if any, resources put to use for crime prevention, treatment for mental health, rehabilitation, and education. It can also drive away law enforcement, emergency services, libraries, schools, health, and construction. If the state doesnt abolish the death penalty, it will put many things at risk and will hurt our economy in the end.

Although there are many reasons to abolish the death penalty, a huge one is the backlash of the media. The media will take the truth and switch it around just enough to keep not only their reputation in tact but also to keep the story believable. Once race has been entered into the media, especially with the death penalty, things will end very badly. Not to mention how big the movement, “Black Lives Matter” is. “People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white” (ALCU). That statement is wrong. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 516 people of color and 998 people of other races have been executed since the year 1976. The media will be very quick to hop on the most trending topic and if that means race, then they will go to the ends of the earth to tag along.

Another very important argument is the amount of innocent people being executed. The ALCU writes, “Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence.” To carry on, for every nine people forced to death in this country, one person has been proven innocent after they were Executed. Going into the U.S. Bill of Rights, the eighth amendment states, “No cruel or unusual punishment should be inflicted on any United States citizen.” We as a country are not abiding by that at all and the death penalty is getting in the way of us killing a completely innocent human being.

The United States Department of Justice Archives states, “according to a report from the Council of State Governments Justice Center, funded in part by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) National Institute of Justice (NIJ), 16.9 percent of the adults in a sample of local jails had a serious mental illness. That’s three to six times the rate of the general population. And while the serious mental illness rate was 14 percent for men, it was 31 percent for women.“ Between the years 2000 to 2014, 4,508 prisioners committed suicide. 47% of the suicides were by prisioners being held for offenses that were non-violent. For the thousands of suicides in prision, nine days was the average time served in jail. Andrew Crawford, a writer for The Washington Post wrote, “An inmate awaiting trial is nearly five times as likely to kill himself or herself than someone on the outside. Most jails don’t even conduct reviews after suicides.” These statistics show how incarceration in the United States, can put so much pressure on one person which leads them to commit suicide. Whether they are on death row or not.

Conclusion

Not only is this topic very controversial, it is of great significance to remember how inhumane execution is. First, the electric chair had an awful history of setting people on fire, so that was the end of that method. The view of a hanging body at the end of a rope was soon disgusting to the eye, even though certain states still allow it to this day. A gas chamber, the number one method in the state of California for years, showed intense pain as criminals couldn’t breath and within minutes, suffered heart attacks. Eventually it was forgotten by the state when a federal judge stated, “this is no place in civil society.” Lighting people on fire, was also destroyed because of the awful torture. Lethal injection seems safe and reliable, but Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College reports, “over 120 years, 8,776 people were executed and 276 of those executions (3.15%) went wrong in some way. Lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions.” Lethal injection proved to be the most humane method, but is very risky and still distasteful. “With each devel­op­ment in the tech­nol­o­gy of exe­cu­tion, the same promis­es have been made, that each new tech­nol­o­gy was safe, reli­able, effec­tive and humane. Those claims have not gen­er­al­ly been ful­filled.” (Austin Sarat). There is no right or wrong argument for the death penalty, as it still remains a very controversial topic. The debate will live on for as long as we have prisoners on death row. The debate will never end. There is no best way to execute someone and it holds absurdity and inhumanity. It would make no sense in the end if civilians in our country keep comitting crimes at the highest level that holds concequences consisting of capital punishment, because it’s a vicious cycle of murder. No government should be allowed to hold the power of life and death over people.