stella40
Posts: 417
Joined: 1/11/2006
From: London, UK
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: selfbnd411
I wouldn't have a problem with voting for the death penalty. It costs over $1 million to incarcerate a prisoner for life. How many worthy young people could go to college on that money? How many sick kids could have medical treatment? How many libraries could we build?
I wonder how many of those individuals who believed that their moral views would keep them off a jury would vote in favor of the death penalty if they were given a choice between executing the prisoner and slashing the social services they use the most to pay for room and board for life for him.
You do realise, do you not, that on average the legal costs alone spent in bringing one condemned prisoner from trial to the gurney amount to $ 3 million? The figures I'm quoting come from the Death Penalty Information Center and from what I gather originate from Texas. I cannot remember the source but I have also read that the average figure for Virginia exceeds that.
We are talking here legal fees. Now a court appointed defense lawyer gets a nationally fixed flat rate of $11.84 per hour. Very few condemned prisoners waive their appeal rights and 'volunteer' for execution, so in the vast majority of cases after the two stage trial (required after Furman in 1976, making the death penalty in the US constitutional again) there is a system of appeals - habeus corpus, certoriari, constitutionality of the imposition of the death penalty, and more recently, challenges to the actual imposition of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment - going all the way from state court to the American Supreme Court.
From what I can gather the money spent isn't coming from the condemned prisoner, but from the taxpayers who are funding the prosecution who have to fight each appeal.
You can add to this $ 3 million the costs of keeping that condemned prisoner in prison on Death Row, where unlike other prisoners, the Death Row prisoner in many states doesn't work. On average a Death Row inmate spends 10 years incarcerated before being executed.
Consider also that even if a given state has the death penalty on its statutes for certain felonies such a first degree homicide or homicide coupled with a rape or for financial gain prosecutors won't always seek the death penalty and therefore the death penalty is sought only in a minority of cases. This may be because that the appeals are already overburdening the courts system and may also be a heavy financial burden for the taxpayer.
So what do you do? Reduce the number of appeals the condemned prisoner may have? But what about (again I'm quoting the DPIC) the 96 prisoners released from Death Row in recent years after being found innocent? How about the moratoria currently in place in illinois, New York and Georgia?
Then you have the debate of the AMA criticising the role of doctors in executions.
I agree with what you are saying, that income from taxes should go towards other public services such as education and healthcare rather than to the criminal justice system.
However I find your argument in favour of the death penalty because it saves money to be rather dubious. Following your logic this would justify imposing the death penalty for lesser crimes than murder because it is cheaper. Okay, so does that mean you are for the death penalty in cases of rape, assault, and burglary?
In Britain the last death sentence was handed down in 1965. In 1972 it was abolished for all common crimes. A life sentence is 25 years, but a judge can impose a minimum recommended prison term to keep a criminal in longer. Ever since the trial of the multiple child murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1965 all the notorious more 'heinous' criminals are kept in prison. Recently - perhaps in line with other European Union member states - legislation was introduced for what is known as a Whole Life Tariff for the most serious crimes - basically you go to prison and you come out in a coffin - no parole, no licence, no remission. Studies have shown that the Whole Life Tariff is a deterrent.
However I'm sure if you were to do a survey among people in Britain you would find the majority are also in favour of the death penalty. But why are they in favour of the death penalty? But how many among that majority are purely interested in justice? How many of them confuse retribution and justice? And how many of them feel that the death penalty would be cheaper than keeping prisoners in prison? How many of those surveyed would know the ins and outs of the criminal justice system?
It's my hunch that if you did the same survey among American judges or lawyers the result would be somewhat different.
I cannot remember the British politician who said it but they did say "It is better to not have the death penalty than to hang one innocent person."
The death penalty in the United States at best represents a peculiar form of social cleansing in that those who are at the lowest end of the social scale tend to be the ones who get the death penalty. IMO America would be better off without it, and the money spent by the prosecution in fighting appeals to get someone executed - especially in the southern states - would be better spent on restoring public services and rebuilding communities which were destroyed after Hurricane Katrina.
But that's just my $0.02
< Message edited by stella40 -- 6/9/2007 10:58:07 PM >
_____________________________
I try to take one day at a time, but several days come and attack me at once. (Jennifer Unlimited)
If you can't be a good example then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
|
RE: Majority of Americans favor the death penalty - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread