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The Death Penalty: the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a…
The Death Penalty: the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime.
Root Causes
Britain’s Influence
When European settlers came to the new world they brought the practice of capital punishment (Death Penalty Information Center). Laws regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony. We can see that the start of the death penalty was due to influence from another country.
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Supposed to Deter Crime
However, this is not true because the death penalty does not reduce crime rates. A study from Washington DC examined murder rates in 11 countries that have abolished capital punishment, finding that ten of those countries experienced a decline in murder rates in the decade following abolition(Death Penalty Information Center). This is proof that capital punishment does not do anything to deter crime. There are many studies like this to support that the death penalty doe not discourage crime. A solution to this: Dr. Groner from the Death Penalty Information Center explains that the murder rate is more closely associated with the well-being of the country rather than the impact of the death penalty. During the Great Depression where the U.S was at its lowest socially, it was also at its highest murder rates. Dr. Groner infers that good access to health care can deter crime/murder rates rather than the death penalty.
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Used to Enforce Racial Hierarchies
The historic role of the U.S. death penalty was used to be an instrument of social control. During slavery, capital punishment was a tool for controlling Black populations and suppressing rebellions. After the Civil War, public officials promised legal executions as a means to discourage lynchings (Death Penalty Information Center, 2015). As lynchings decreased, executions began to take their place in circumstances. Across the South, African-American men were executed for the alleged rape or attempted rape of white women or girls. No white man was ever executed for raping a Black woman or girl. This started the basis of building a racially biased capital punishment system.
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New Capital Punishment Laws
In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional because the death penalty was a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court suggested that new laws might be acceptable if they provided clear standards for imposing death sentences. Between 1972 and 1976, 35 states wrote new capital punishment laws to try to meet the Supreme Court’s suggestions and the executions began again in 1977 (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2012). We can see the death penalty clearly goes against our amendments but this cruel system is still in place today.
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Effects
Institualized Racism
The death penalty was created upon a racist system and we can see the effects today. Jurors in Washington state are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant(Death Penalty Information Center, 2021). Also in 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination or both. We can clearly see this system is racially biased against defendants of color and therefore needs to be abolished.
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Increases Mortality Rate
A straightforward effect of the death penalty is that it kills people. 1538 men and women have been executed in the United States since the 1970s. The Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”(Death Penalty Information Center, 2018). The death penalty goes against the life and dignity of human beings.
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Disproportionately affects the Poor
According to UN rights “If you are poor, the chances of being sentenced to death are immensely higher than if you are rich”(American Civil Liberties Union). People living in poverty are disproportionately affected by the death penalty: they are an easy target for the police, they cannot afford a lawyer and the free legal assistance they might receive is of low quality. Today, about 3,350 people are on "death row." and virtually all are poor.
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Creates Unnecessary Harm
The death penalty mainly impacts African Americans and a disproportionate number are Native American, Latino, and Asian. The death penalty puts these groups at risk because on average, there are around four wrongly convicted death-row prisoners who have been exonerated per year which proves this system to be faulty. This system implemented in the United States creates unnecessary harm for citizens. In Alabama alone, over 160 death sentences have been invalidated by state and federal courts(American Civil Liberties Union). We can see many people who have been put on death row, only to have been wrongly sentenced which creates unnecessary harm for innocent people and especially in those groups mentioned first.
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Solutions
An alternative to capital punishment is life without parole meaning remaining in prison for their entire life. Victims’ families often prefer LWOP and many prosecutors have come to the conclusion that the costs associated with capital cases are not worth their limited resources. As the use of LWOP has expanded, the number of death sentences has declined dramatically(Death Penalty Information Center). Link to Website
To abolish the death penalty we can pass the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2021 by writing letters to our State Representatives and Senators(Death Penalty Information Center, 2021). To read the actual bill visit this link. Most importantly we can educate ourselves and others about the death penalty using deathpenaltyinfo.org and see how capital punishment disrespects human life
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Examples
Cause
This article explains the cause of why the death penalty is not abolished yet and how Joe Biden said he was against the death penalty(his attorney general announced a stop to federal executions) and yet attorneys for the same administration recently went before the Supreme Court to argue for the reinstatement of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence. President Biden has the responsibility to protect human rights and him going against his word by instating the death sentence on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s disregards the CST of Rights and Responsibilities.
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Effect
This article explains an effect of the death penalty: a botched execution. John Marion Grant’s execution was botched and it took more than 40 minutes before he passed. Instead of going into his vein, the lethal drugs went into his muscles. The people on death row are already put into very vulnerable position and to make them endure more pain by performing a botched injection violates the CST of giving preferential treatment to the vulnerable.
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Solution
After multiple botched procedures of the death penalty in Oklahoma, people speak out and say it is time to get rid of the death penalty. People argue that “it’s wrong because all human life has value, no matter what a person has or hasn’t done”. We can see that the Life and Dignity of a human person is clearly absent here.
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