Death Penalty Debate: Research Paper Topics

Richard C. Dieter Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center. Written for CQ Researcher, November 2010

It is past time to end the free ride that the death penalty has been given for years and start to examine it like any other government program in terms of costs and returns.

Per person, the death penalty is probably one of the most expensive state programs, and it produces no measurable gain in public safety. While states were spending millions of dollars on a single capital case, the average police budget had to be cut by 7 percent this year. States are letting prisoners go early, curtailing ambulance services and closing schools. Programs that clearly benefit the safety of society are being slashed because of the budget crisis, but death penalty expenditures continue to rise.

Some say you can't put a price on justice, but you can put a price on programs that actually lower crime. Cities like New York and Washington have been enormously successful in cutting murder rates without the death penalty through programs like community policing and new technologies that focus on high-crime areas. States have a choice: They can execute perhaps one person per year at a cost of $10 million, or use the same money to hire 200 police officers.

The death penalty is not needed and is not regularly carried out in most of the country. Over 80 percent of our executions are in the South, mostly in a few states. Over 99 percent of murders do not result in an execution. Those cases that do end in a death sentence are often overturned and, when done over with a fair trial, frequently result in a life sentence anyway.

The costs of the death penalty are not only measured in dollars spent. Executions can't be undone, and they risk innocent lives. More than 135 people have been freed from death row and exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated. The death penalty divides the community by distinguishing between “worthy” and “unworthy” victims, with the difference often falling along racial and economic lines.

The selection of who lives and who dies cannot be rationally explained. Just this year, an organized-crime boss got off with time served after seven years for 11 murders, while a grandmother with a 72 I.Q. was executed. Replacing the death penalty with a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, and using the resources saved to reduce crime, is simply a matter of responsible government.

Kent Scheidegger Legal Director, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. Written for CQ Researcher, November 2010

The American people remain solidly in support of capital punishment. Three-quarters of the people believe it should be imposed at least as often as it is at present, according to a recent Gallup Poll, and this number has remained rock steady over the 10 years Gallup has been asking the question. The horrible murders in Connecticut of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters illustrate why. For some crimes, anything less is a gross miscarriage of justice.

In addition, the preponderance of evidence supports what common sense has always told us — the death penalty has a deterrent effect and saves innocent lives when it is actually enforced. The studies showing deterrence have been criticized, but the criticisms have been answered, and their conclusion still stands.

Having failed to convince the people of their position on grounds of justice, the opponents of the death penalty are now resorting to a cost argument. The death penalty takes so long and costs so much for the few executions actually carried out, the argument goes, that we should simply throw in the towel and give up, sacrificing justice to expediency.

The argument assumes that long delays and exorbitant costs are an inherent part of the death penalty. They are not. Much of the delay can be eliminated with the proper reforms, and much of the cost can be cut at the same time. For example, John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. Sniper, was executed less than six years from the date of sentence. That is not uncommon in Virginia, a state that has taken reform of its death penalty reviews seriously. Capital cases are complex, to be sure, but this case was as complex as they come, and it was thoroughly reviewed in a quarter of the time a capital case takes in California.

Most of the delay and expense reviewing capital cases has nothing to do with questions of actual guilt or innocence. It is the choice of sentence for a clearly guilty murderer that is litigated over and over in court after court. We can eliminate much expense and delay by having only one full review for the penalty and limiting all further reviews to claims with a substantial bearing on actual innocence.

As President Bill Clinton said in a different context many years ago, “Mend it; don't end it.”