Bill Reflection

There is a heated debate about if the United States should abolish the death penalty.
Some people believe that death penalty should be kept since if the cost of murder or other
serious crime is really high and will lead to execution, the murder rate will become lower. And
others believe that death penalty should be abolished, since no one has the right to take others
life. I stand for death penalty should be abolished, there are three reasons: people who receive
death penalty are most likely poor and uneducated people who don’t know laws and do not
have the right to choose, death penalty will cost more compared to lifetime imprisonment, and
judges sometimes didn’t make right judgement.
The first problem is almost all of the people selected for execution are poor, some of
them are members of racial minorities, some of them have mental illness, and some of them
lived on the margins of society before their arrests. We could find this information from Florence
Bellivier who wrote an article called “The death penalty: a punishment for the poor?”. According
to the Equal Justice Initiative, 95% of convicts languishing on death row in the United States
come from underprivileged backgrounds. Their court-appointed lawyers often don’t have the
means to expedite the DNA or ballistics tests that could unravel the prosecution’s case.(1) Also
Bryan Stevenson from the NGO Equal Justice Initiative stated that “We have a system of justice
that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.”(1) By research,
there is another important fact that Over 75% of the murder victims in cases resulting in an
execution were white, even though nationally only 50% of murder victims generally are white.(2)
The majority of criminals who received death penalty are crimes against white victims. This is a
really serious social problem that although the United States’ amendment stated that everyone
should be equal, in some ways white people were treated in a preferential way. The solution I
proved is to hire better lawyers for those poor criminals which provide them with a better chance
to escape death penalty and for those have mental illness, they should be send to the hospital
first.
The second problem is that the death penalty costs more than life without parole, does
not reduce murder rates. Since death penalty is a way to avoid that person to do crime again,
why not just put that criminal into the jail for the rest of his life instead of taking a person’s life.
Meanwhile, putting the criminals into the jail for rest of their lifetime will cost less. Defense costs
for death penalty trials in Kansas averaged about $400,000 per case, compared to $100,000
per case when the death penalty was not sought. (3) A new study in California revealed that the
cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4 billion since 1978. Study considered
pretrial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of
federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on death row.(4) 4 billion dollars that
is a really large amount of money and death penalty did nothing to lower the murder rate, as a
result to put the criminals into the jail for rest of their lifetime will be a better idea.
The third problem is that as long as a criminal received a death penalty, there is no
change to revise the case, even the judge realizes the solution is wrong later on. As we know,
judges are not always giving right judgment. Since 1973, more than 150 people have been
released from death row with evidence of their innocence.(5) And at least 4.1% of all defendants
sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study
to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate
punishment.(6) We have reasons to question the fairness of the death penalty, we should not
take others’ lives easily. The solution for this problem is each criminal who deserve a death the
death penalty should be signed by the President.
However, some people held different ideas, they believe that death penalty should not
be banned. They think death penalty is an extreme sanction that is properly reserved for the
worst of the worst. The murder rate dropped because of the death penalty in the last 10 years
since judicious use of the death penalty can have a clear deterrent effect. A study showed that
for each actual execution, about 17 murders are prevented. And about the worry innocent
people will be executed is not necessary. The reason us that in every state that allows capital
punishment, murderers found guilty get a series of appeals that result in an average 12-year
delay between sentence and execution. And also, DNA testing can now establish with virtual
certainty in many cases whether someone is the real killer. However, just like what I mentioned
in the third paragraph, there is no direct evidence showed that the death penalty can reduce
murder rate and lifetime prison will be a better idea. Another thing is that there is no innocent
person get executed, I don’t agree that. Most criminal who receive the death penalty are come
from underprivileged backgrounds. Their court-appointed lawyers often don’t have the means to
expedite the DNA or ballistics tests that could unravel the prosecution’s case. As a result, no
one knows they are the real killer or not. Besides that, on a moral level, life was either hallowed,
even it is not perfect. People don’t have the right to decide others’ life.
Furthermore, Mr. Newsom, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, stated that “I
know people think eye for eye, but if you rape, we don’t rape,” he said. “And I think if someone
kills, we don’t kill. We’re better than that.” To people a better citizen, there is no reason to use
kills to stop kill. According to all the problems and facts above, I stand for abolish death penalty.

Sources:
1. Florence Bellivier, former President of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty &
Dimitris Christopoulos, President of the International Federation of Human Rights
(France). “The death penalty: a punishment for the poor?” 10,10, 2017
2. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf
3. Kansas Judicial Council, 2014
4. Alarcon & Mitchell, 2011
5. Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights, 1993, with
updates from DPIC
6. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-
defendants-innocent