Till death
do us part: DNA as evidence for the death penalty! By Jerry Gardner
Cock your
guns….. Load your syringes….. Crank your generators….. Folks, today we are putting a man/woman to
death that has been judged by a jury of his/her peers. I have 2 hands, you have 2 hands. We all have an angel on 1 shoulder, and the
devil on the other. On 1 hand, I say the
death penalty is good and on the other, I say that it’s not. Who believes in the death penalty? Every year
that I grow older, I flip flop back and forth; do I believe in the death
penalty or not? Could you pull the
trigger? Could you shoot someone full of drugs?
Could you flip that switch? Let’s
take the time to contemplate….DNA as evidence for the death penalty. You be the judge!
Every 4
years we have an election, and we vote on a new president (or re-elect the old
one.) He is always asked “where do you stand on the death penalty?” I am bringing this topic up to see if anyone
can help me get off the fence, should I be for or against the death penalty?
OK, I AM,
for the death penalty! I look at my kids
(6 little girls) and say, what if something happened to one of them? What if
someone raped them, even murdered them? GOD FORBID!!!!
OK, I AM
NOT, for the death penalty! I just read
about another innocent man exonerated in the United States due to DNA evidence
and he is released from jail after sitting on death row for 30….29……28…..27
years. Who am I to judge? Who are we to judge? What if we electrocuted
someone, put someone to sleep and they were innocent? GOD FORBID!!!!!!!
Look at some
numbers:
DNA
profiling was developed in 1984 and first used in forensic science to convict a
man in 1988. In 1988 we had 2,124 people
on death row. As of April 2011 there
were 3,222 people on death row. There were a total of 37 executions in the US
last year, the fourth highest national total. Four people were released from
death row in the US last year after being found to be innocent, taking to 130
the number of people on death row who have been exonerated since 1973. That is
10% of the people executed.
FINANCIAL
FACTS ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY
The
California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond
the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers
have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions. (L.A.
Times, March 6, 2005)
In Kansas,
the costs of capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-capital
cases, including the costs of incarceration. (Kansas
Performance Audit Report, December 2003).
In Maryland,
an average death penalty case resulting in a death sentence costs approximately
$3 million. The eventual costs to
Maryland
taxpayers for cases pursued 1978-1999 will be $186 million. Five executions
have resulted. (Urban Institute 2008).
The most
comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North
Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to
life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke
University, May 1993).
Enforcing
the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to
punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Florida
carried out 44 executions since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for
each execution. (Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000).
In Texas, a
death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost
of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40
years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).
Why spend
all this money on killing someone? Are we that desperate to put someone to
death just for the sake of punishing that person? The main reason for the death
penalty is to curb crime. Statistics show that the death penalty has not helped
curb crime nor has it made crime go up. The money we use to execute someone
with is taken from taxpayers. This is
the money taxpayers have paid the government to keep our highways safe, build jobs, even help people through the financial
crisis. This money is used to put
someone to death and cuts are made in the public sector to cover the cost, and
innocent people (honest hard working people) are hurt again.
As I sit
here tonight, I know that there are over 3000 people on death row! I know that some are guilty as hell, but I also
know that looking at the numbers, 10% of them are probably innocent. Where do you stand? Can you live with the fact that you pulled
the trigger on someone that was actually innocent? It cost us so much money to put someone to
death, is it wrong to give them life in prison if no DNA evidence exist? I am
for the death penalty when it comes to DNA as evidence. If there is NO DNA, prosecutors must seek
life in prison. That’s what I am for. Am
I wrong? GOD FORBID!!!
Sources:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/24/capital-punishment-research-amnesty-international
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year
I agree with you Jerry. I toggle with this question each time that I hear of an execution. I believe that DNA should be used to decide if that person is of interest in a killing. I believe that this would decrease the number of individulas on death row. Each year you see people who were exonerated from prison due to the DNA results. So what does that tell you? It tells me that we should incorporate that into our system so that there will be no cracks in our judicial system.
ReplyDeleteI have always been sickened by the thought of the death penalty and with each passing year the topic seems to enrage me more. My father and I would get into heated arguments over this subject quite frequently. As a supporter of the death penalty my father always firmly believed that the death penalty was a good way of prevent murder. I do not believe that the death penalty in anyway discourages someone from the act of murder. Murder is often committed for three reasons passion, profit, or compulsion. Crimes of passion are not premeditated and are committed in a moment of “blind rage” there is no thought given to punishment at the time of the act. Second those who commit murder for a profit do so rationally and know all the consequences of their actions. These violent offenders assume that they will not be caught and are therefore not deterred by the death penalty. Lastly crimes of compulsion cannot be stopped; these are your serial murders and rapist. Nothing can discourage the compulsion to commit murder, this individuals need to be kept far from the general public. Just look at the differences between states that have the death penalty and those without capital punishment alongside the rates of violent crimes committed within each state. 2010 FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that the South had the highest murder rate and the south accounts for over 80% of executions. The Northwest on the other hand tied with the west for the lowest murder rate. The difference the Northwest accounts for less than 1% of executions (deathpenaltyinfo.org). Often the states strictest on violent offenders see higher rates of those crimes; this to me does not support the case of the death penalty as deference.
DeleteSecondly supporters of capital punishment make a big deal about the cost of keeping violent offenders in prison for life. I will not touch on this topic too much because I think you made some good points about how much more a death penalty case cost the taxpayers. But what I often say to these supporters is that if we did not spend so much money punishing our citizens for “victimless crimes” (such as possession of marijuana or prostitution) we would not have the concerns of money and overcrowding prisons.
Lastly murder is wrong! Is that not what we have all been taught all of our lives? Is taking the life of someone that has committed a murder not wrong? I believe that it is! OR look at it this way:
If murder is wrong and just one innocent person is executed than by reason we as a country have committed murder. Look at the rates of people that have been exonerated, now imagine how many innocent people have possibly been executed in this country. Oh well guess we are all murders in the end.