While most countries have abolished the death penalty, believing it to be barbaric, it flourishes in the United States. It provides a convenient symbol for politicians wishing to demonstrate their toughness on crime. Conservative philosopher Walter Berns defended capitol punishment as "dramatic poetry" which serves to "enhance the dignity of the legal order in the eyes of moral (sic)" people.
In reality, each instance of the death penalty is an ugly intersection of bureaucratic procedure, official violence and rampant error. It is about strapping a person, almost always too poor to afford a decent lawyer, into a chair for lethal injection. All too often, the person being killed just happens to be African-American, mentally retarded, violently abused in childhood, or just plain innocent.
Does the death penalty protect the public?
A survey of criminologists shows that 80% believe the existing research fails to show a deterrence justification for the death penalty. A 1995 poll of police chiefs found that 67% do not believe that the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides. Murder rates are 45% lower in states without the death penalty than in states with the death penalty.
Who gets put to death?
In practice, "blind justice" is notoriously racist. Since 1930 over half of the 3859 persons executed in America have been African-Americans. An African-American convicted of killing a white is seven times as likely to be executed as a white convicted of killing a black.
What about children?
Defying all international human rights standards, the US Supreme Court has approved the execution of 16 and 17 year olds; 143 American children have been sentenced to death since 1973. Since 1990, the only other countries in the world that have executed children for crimes are Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
What about the poor and the mentally retarded?
Those who can afford good lawyers almost never end up on death-row. Virtually all the people on death-row today are poor. In most cases, lawyers assigned to represent poor defendants receive only minimal compensation and lack experience with capitol cases. They don't get fair trails.
Since 1976, 31 mentally retarded Americans have been executed.
Are wrongful convictions and executions extremely rare? Not according to experts. The authors of the most comprehensive survey on the subject conclude that there are hundreds if not thousands of cases since 1900 in which innocent persons were convicted of homicide and sentenced to death. So far, 417 such cases have been documented, including 23 that resulted in executions.
Since 1970, more than 60 innocent persons have been discovered on death-row.
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