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Capital punishment is costly, immoral
By U- WIRE
By Todd Portnowitz Independent Florida Alligator (University of Florida)
The word "capital" in capital punishment comes from the Latin for head, "caput." Capital punishment therefore refers directly to "losing your head." I think it's fair to say that any state government still enforcing capital punishment has indeed lost its head.
One month ago, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed another death warrant for convicted murderer Clarence Hill. Hill was supposed to be executed in January, but the Supreme Court stayed his execution. They ruled that Hill and others on death row had the right to challenge the use of lethal injection as a method of execution.
Lethal injection has come under suspicion recently based on research done in the state of Florida at the University of Miami. A UM study found that in 43 of 49 investigated cases, condemned prisoners did not receive enough sodium thiopental to induce a quick and effective state of unconsciousness. That means convicts were awake while being executed.
Is that not cruel and unusual punishment? Besides, who gave us the right to take another human's life in the first place?
I don't see where the popular support for capital punishment comes from. Only 69 countries administer capital punishment compared to the 88 that have abolished it. Of those 69 countries, 29 have not executed a condemned prisoner in the last 10 years. Clearly, the United States is lagging.
America is a predominantly Christian country. Isn't God's message to love unconditionally — even your enemies? Yes, in the Bible, God takes revenge countless times. But we are not God.
How can one be pro-life and pro-death-penalty at the same time? You may argue that a fetus is innocent, whereas a criminal is not. But how can we judge the nature and nurture that steered the course of a criminal's life with enough certainty to execute him?
As much as capital punishment is a moral issue, it is also an economic one. The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that between 1982 and 1997, the cost of capital punishment trials was $1.6 billion.
Florida would save $51 million a year by punishing all first-degree murderers with life in prison. Capital trials are long and expensive — and in cases like Clarence Hill's, in which constant appeals burden the justice system, the cost of actually executing a condemned prisoner is outrageous.
So why not save our tax dollars for education and try to prevent criminal behavior before it begins?
Perhaps the most effective argument in favor of the death penalty is, "What if someone killed a person you love?" My answer is that I, of course, would go insane — meaning I would be in no place to make a sane decision regarding the criminal's life.
We cannot, as sane voters, allow politicians to act as demigods, meting out life and death.
But if we as voters want to see justice carried out with human decency — and our tax dollars put to good use — we're going to have to speak up.
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