The death penalty is an issue that evokes arguments that are ideological, moral and practical in nature. It generates such immense debate because its end result is one which exacts the most ultimate of costs. There is no \appeal"" from death, no relief or redress of grievances once an immoral costly error has been made. To that end, many have argued for the elimination of the death penalty, claiming that its effects serve ultimately no deterrent, retributive or moral purpose. The converse of those arguments are made by death penalty proponents, who find it a fitting means of deterring the most heinous of crimes, while serving as a way society expresses its denunciation of evil and wrong, and in doing so affirms the intrinsic value of human life.
There is a stark contrast between the two presidential candidates in regard to capital punishment. President Bush, then serving as Governor of Texas, presided over 132 executions, more than any other governor in American history. John Kerry has been quoted as opposing the death penalty ""other than in cases of real international and domestic terrorism. As president, I'll enforce the law but I'll also have a national moratorium on federal executions until we use DNA evidence to make sure those on death row are guilty.""
The editors of Progressive magazine noted in the February 2000 issue that in 1999, 98 inmates on death row were put to death, an average of two per week. The article quotes a story in USA Today contrasting the rates of capital punishment convictions and executions across the nation, noting that nearly 80 percent occur in the south. According to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, in 1999, Connecticut, for example, had five people on death row, while Texas had 443. Such a system can never achieve real justice for a community or the individual if it varies so much; how can it be said that each defendant is treated justly if the final outcome is always in flux?
Issues stem even further back to the actual commission of the crime and the subsequent trial. While African Americans constitute roughly 12 percent of the U.S. population, Progressive notes they occupy nearly 35 percent of death row cells. The ratios of those of different races sentenced to death row for the same crime certainly speaks to a justice system that is far from ""far and balanced."" It is difficult to find any merit to a deterrence argument either, as states that employ the death penalty actually maintain the highest murder rates. While the average murder rate per 100,000 people in 1994 among death penalty states was 8.0, the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was a paltry 4.4.
Even from a purely cost-benefit analysis, the death penalty exacts a cost on society that is too much to bear. According to Amnesty International, each execution averages over 2 million dollars, an astounding $800,000 more than incarcerating a person for life. While the act in and of itself is not costly in a monetary sense, the numerous constitutional and legal safeguards involved in any capital punishment trial demand an extraordinarily high price tag. After an initial trial establishing guilt, a defendant must then proceed through a separate trial to determine if the application of the death penalty is appropriate, with the automatic option of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Donald Downs, UW-Madison political science professor, notes that the appeals process could be streamlined if the state could guarantee adequate representation to a defendant in a death penalty case. As is stands now, most defense attorneys are ill-prepared and underpaid and do not constitute the caliber of lawyer one would expect in a life or death situation. To correct the problem, Downs advocates the establishment of a national bar that would certify defense lawyers with the experience and capability to provide a strong defense. As he argues, ""If the state is going to pursue capital punishment, they should be required to provide and pay for good defense lawyers.""
By any measure, whether the decision calculus is moral, monetary or deterrent, capital punishment makes very little, if any, sense. As Senator Kerry has stated, there may be extreme cases in which its application makes some retributive sense, but the manner in which Governor and now President Bush has endorsed it is simply unconscionable. To continue to employ such a practice which we know to be racially and economically discriminatory, and one whose consequences are steep and irreversible is morally abhorrent.
