Gina Bonazelli

Red Group

The Death Penalty is Dead

The Problem with Capital Punishment

Gina Bonazelli

Red Group

May 12, 2019

 Gina Bonazelli
Red Group
The death penalty is a constant source of controversy in the United States. The first

successful effort to abolish the death penalty was in Michigan, 1846 abolished all crimes except

treason. These efforts have expanded to 20 states that have abolished capital punishment

regarding all crime. Additionally the 30 states that declare capital punishment execute it in a

variety of ways and the execution numbers are widely distributed. As of 2019, the five states

with the highest execution numbers account for around sixty-five percent of the country’s

executions since 1976 when the court re-affirmed the constitutionality in its ​Gregg v. Georgia

decision (“Death Penalty Information Center”). Alone, Texas is responsible for thirty-eight

percent of the country’s executions. On the other hand, states like Wyoming, Colorado and

Oregon haven’t had an execution in over two decades. Out of the 1,495 executions in the United

states (since 1976) at least 4.1 percent are innocent (“National Academy of Sciences”).

Furthermore death row inmates typically spend over a decade awaiting execution in solitary

confinement. Some prisoners have spent over 20 years awaiting their death. (“Death Penalty

Information Center”). Solitary confinement not only causes life-changing mental effects on the

prisoners but it’s three times more expensive than housing the average federal inmate. In

addition, cases where the death penalty is sought almost double the price of cases without Capital

punishment. The Supreme Court must abolish the death penalty because of wrongful executions,

excessive confinement and high cost.

The death penalty has an extensive problem with the amount of innocence that are

sentenced to death. Too often is the error noticed after the execution or that the error was never

noticed. In a study held by Columbia University Law School, students discovered that 76% of

the reversals at the two appeal stages where data are available for study were because defense
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Red Group
lawyers had been egregiously incompetent, police and prosecutors had suppressed exculpatory

evidence or committed other professional misconduct, jurors had been misinformed about the

law, or judges and jurors had been biased. Half of those reversals tainted the verdict finding the

defendant guilty of a capital crime as well as the verdict imposing the death penalty. 82% of the

cases sent back for retrial at the second appeal phase ended in sentences less than death,

including 9% that ended in not guilty verdicts (Columbia University Law School). The capital

punishment system in the United States is broken. A substantial amount of cases retried ended up

being sentenced to less than death. Prof. James S. Liebman who conducted the study at Columbia

University argues that “​Studies reveal growing delays nationwide between death sentences and

executions and inexcusably high rates of reversals and retrials of capital verdicts. The current

system persistently malfunctions because it rewards trial actors, such as police, prosecutors, and

trial judges, for imposing death sentences, but it does not force them either to avoid making

mistakes or to bear the cost of mistakes that are made during the process.” These working ethics

not only cause excessive delays on the trial but also conclude inaccurate outcomes of the case.

Liebman described the capital defendants appointed “do not have experience trying capital cases

or who receive inadequate resources from the State to pay litigation expenses.” (Liebman, James

S). Unqualified standards like these result in unjust executions or delays that can last decades.

For many a death sentence means a double punishment. People on death row can spend

decades locked alone in a tiny, cement room before they are ever strapped in an execution

gurney. According to DOC spokesman Brian Garnett, inmates sentenced to life without parole

are allowed outside their cells six to seven hours a day and can spend that time with other

inmates. While death row inmates spend 23 hours a day in their cells, have no congregate
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Red Group
activity, and are always by themselves (Garnett, Brian). Cells are usually furnished with a bed,

sink and toilet but rarely much else. Food is delivered through a slot door and inmates are

allowed 1 hour of exercise in a cage. Under these conditions prisoners are at a higher risk of

developing psychological problems as well as declining social skills. Stuart Grassian, a

board-certified psychiatrist and a former faculty member at Harvard Medical School, has

interviewed hundreds of prisoners in solitary confinement. In one study, he found that roughly a

third of solitary inmates were “actively psychotic and/or acutely suicidal.” Grassian has since

concluded that solitary can cause a specific psychiatric syndrome, characterized by

hallucinations; panic attacks; overt paranoia; diminished impulse control; hypersensitivity to

external stimuli; and difficulties with thinking, concentration and memory. Some inmates lose

the ability to maintain a state of alertness, while others develop crippling obsessions (Grassian,

Stuart). Those on death row may not be guilty, but are still subjected to this critical intellectual

damage. These conditions also increase the number of suicides immensely. In one study of

California’s prison system, researchers found that from 1999 to 2004 prisoners in solitary

confinement accounted for nearly half of all suicides. A 1995 study of the federal prison system

found that 63 percent of suicides occurred among inmates locked in “special housing status,”

such as solitary or in psychiatric seclusion cells (Breslow, Jason M). The conditions were so

intolerable that inmates killed themselves in their own cells, however some inmates found

another way out. “I saw guys who dropped their appeals and elected to die because of the

intolerable conditions” states Anthony Graves, exonerated former death row inmate who spend

12 years in solitary confinement before proven innocent (Graves, Anthony).

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Red Group
The death penalty causes a strain on the state’s funds as it can cost almost double to

house a prisoner for life than to execute them. From lethal injections to solitary confinement, the

death penalty creates substantial dent in the state’s budget. Both defence attorneys and

prosecutors say they spend more hours preparing for death penalty trials than in years past. ​ The

2010 judicial conference report found that attorneys for defendants facing the death penalty spent

an average of 1,889 hours per trial between 1989 and 1997. Between 1998 and 2004, the average

was 3,557 hours. ​By 2007​, according to the American Bar Association, many counties were

paying at least $100 per hour (Chammah, Maurice). A new study by U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge

Arthur L. Alarcon (a former prosecutor) and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell,

found the death penalty has cost California $4 billion since 1978. If left unchecked, it will

consume $9 billion from state coffers by 2030. California spends $184 million a year more on its

714 death- row inmates than it would if the same inmates had been sentenced to life without

parole. Judge Alarcon and Professor Mitchell confirm the ACLU’s own conservative estimate

that California will save $1 billion over five years by eliminating the death penalty (“American

Civil Liberties Union of Northern California). In addition, housing the prisoners on death row is

extremely expensive compared to general prisons. Though limited nationwide data exists, state

data suggests that the cost of housing a prisoner in solitary confinement is 2-3 times that of

housing a prisoner in general population (“Paying the Price for Solitary Confinement”).​ It costs

about $78,000 to keep an inmate in federal solitary confinement, according to a report by the

Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. This is three times

more than the $22,000 it costs to house the average federal inmate (Curley, Caitlyn). By
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abolishing the death penalty, states can save millions of dollars. Trials on Capital Punishment

and confinement buildings cost substantially more than normal trials and prison buildings.

Supporters of the death penalty argue that the death penalty decreases crime rate

(“Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed”). However, states with the death penalty continue to

have higher murder rates than states without the death penalty. A recent study by Professor

Michael Radelet of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading

criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime (Radelet,

Micheal). Murder rates in ​states with the death penalty are 25% higher than in states without the

death penalty (Death Penalty Information Center). Supporters also argue that the Death Penalty

brings closure to victims families. In 2012, Armour and University of Minnesota researcher

Mark Umbreit interviewed 20 families of crime victims in Texas. a state which regularly uses the

death penalty and 20 more families in Minnesota, which instead offers life without parole. The

study concluded families in Minnesota were able to move on sooner; because their loved ones’

killers were sentenced to life without parole, rather than the death penalty, they weren’t

retraumatized in the multiple appeals that often precede an execution (Armour, Marilyn P).

Those supporting the death penalty refuse to acknowledge that families aren’t given the justice

they anticipated.

The death penalty is a problematic sentence used for a multitude of reasons. Although

supporters argue that it reduces crime rates and brings justice to families of victims, it would not

only be more humane but it would save the states millions of dollars. Innocent people spend

years in an unhygienic area about the size of a horse stall. The death penalty causes a handful of
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Red Group
innocents to be murdered, keeps inmates in psychological torments for years and puts a damper

on the state's budget.

Work Cited

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what-does-solitary-confinement-do-to-your-mind/. Accessed 14 May 2019

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May 2019.

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2019.

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Gina Bonazelli
Red Group