By: KEVIN JOLLY
Staff Writer
Capital punishment is something that’s been debated in American discourse for decades now. In this day and age, we’ve seen some continued wavering of support for the death sentence. The most recent annual Gallup Poll on capital punishment from 2021 showed a continued downwards trend since around 2010 leaving us in 2022 with some of the lowest support in half a century. In the mid-90s, one of the most crime-filled decades in modern times, support rested at 80 percent; the most recent poll shows now only 54 percent. But despite this downward trend, a majority of Americans are still in support of the death penalty. So, the future of the American death sentence is a little uncertain. Will this downward trend continue into the future and cause support to be the minority? Or is this trend only a speed bump? Perhaps support will continue in the majority for the foreseeable future. It’s hard to say, but what are some of the arguments and ideas surrounding the topic which make it so controversial?
Something to take into account is that capital punishment is a relic of the past, not just in the western world or even 1st world countries, but in the majority of the world. Really, the only countries which still regularly practice capital punishment are typically fundamentalist or authoritarian Northern African, Middle Eastern, or Asian countries. The US, being included with these countries, is strange and can make the practice seem like an archaic tradition that most of the rest of the world has forgotten. This isn’t so much of an argument; other countries doing something different doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right or wrong, but it’s just something to take into consideration to understand the uniqueness of the issue in the US.
One argument heard pretty consistently is economics. It’s almost always mentioned that execution is a much cheaper solution for those convicted, as opposed to keeping them alive while they use up tax money for living expenses. But as many critics have pointed out, this is quite the opposite of reality. The Legislative Services Industry found over a dozen states reporting executions actually costing 10 times more than non-lethal options. A 2008 study by Urban Institute found that a single execution in the state of Maryland cost almost 2 million more than a non-lethal decision. That same study also found Maryland had spent 186 million extra to execute a grand total of five people. The extra costs come down basically to the more complex trials which are sometimes retried or overturned several times and also require more lawyers. Not to mention most inmates sentenced to death don’t actually face execution and continue to absorb the extra costs that come along with death row for the rest of their time in prison. The National Bureau of Economic Research also found that the huge costs fall for the majority of tax money and actually cause funding cuts for civil services, mainly police and infrastructure.
One of the morality-based arguments relates to the ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy. Some will claim when someone commits murder, they’ve forfeited the right to their own life. Originally, this argument was rooted in religion and the ancient systems of punishment described in the religious text which promotes the concept of retribution. In modern times, however, the religious side is lost a bit more as different sects and branches splinter further apart and disagree more and more, but even the big overarching religions have begun to shift, mainly in Judaism and Roman Catholicism which have relaxed capital punishment in their respective majority religious countries. Moral arguments made against this line of reasoning consist mainly of the idea that taking someone who’s committed something deemed so hideous (Murder) and then using the perpetrator’s disregard of morality as an excuse to then commit the act yourself, is hypocritical. Even further, murder is not necessarily required to warrant a death sentence. Some states possess the legal ability to hand out death sentences for non-lethal crimes like espionage or drug trafficking affiliation.
Another utilitarian argument is that the threat of execution works as a deterrence to criminals. The thinking is that potential offenders will be less enthusiastic to commit crimes out of fear of such a severe punishment as death. This is actually one of the weakest arguments, considering the vast amount of evidence suggesting otherwise. A 2009 study from the University of Colorado found that a remarkable 88% of the leading criminologists claimed capital punishment did not discourage crime. The ACLU claims the nonexistence of serious evidence to suggest a legalized death sentence deters any significant amount of crime any more than life imprisonment, and despite the ACLU being a more biased account, it’s true. The vast majority of studies across the entire world all consistently show a lack of evidence suggesting the death sentence has any measurable or substantial effect on crime rates.
Of course, there is the question of wrongful convictions of innocent people. Some will argue that as I previously mentioned, the majority of those on death row don’t actually ever face execution and exonerations do happen, therefore the necessary safety nets are in place to filter out the innocent. Some argue against this in a Libertarian sense that the state shouldn’t be given the power to even have the chance to accidentally execute someone innocent. Whichever side you choose for this argument, you have to consider this because it’s inevitable that capital punishment will and has in the past caused innocent people to die.
With utilitarian arguments dealing in pure statistics and analytics, there’s an undeniable conclusion to be drawn due to the fact the research on this topic is all consistently pointing towards abolishment. The moral and philosophical side of the argument is where it’s more interesting and gives more ground to the pro-capital punishment stance. Whichever way you view the topic, these are just some of the arguments to be consulted before drawing your line in the sand.