1. However framed, capital punishment is an act of homocide. It is a simple demonstration of how viciously polluted the human mind is with violence. It is despicable that anyone wants our concept of justice to remain one of bloody revenge, which is deprived of all admirable emotions that makes humanity human. "What says the law? Not to kill. How does it say it? By killing."
2. The application of capital punishment is seemingly arbitrary. Rarely does it have anything to do with the nature of the crime. Instead as it is often pointed out, who dies for their crime lies almost entirely on the personal inclinations and aspirations of the prosecutors, the quality of the defense attorneys and the mental stability and economic status of the defendant.
3. The survivors of the victim have had a life taken from them, but in which fantasy does killing another person for his/her crime contribute to their mental health? I have never seen the argument for the betterment of mental health by slapping a person who's inconvenienced you, or shooting a person who's hurt you. Yet watching another person die is both healthy and rational?
4. There has been 62 post-conviction exonerations between 2000 and 2014, the list which is available here. As a comparison there were 761 executions. That is an error rate.
5. It costs more to execute a criminal than to seek life imprisonment. Capital punishment is a wanton waste of the taxpayer dollar and the gov'ts services.
"In terms of dollars spent behind bars, the California Commission found that “the additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.” Since that statement, California’s death row has grown to 721, the largest in the country. The story is the same in North Carolina. A 2010 Duke University study found that taxpayers in the Tarheel State could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty." - Death and Taxes: The Real Cost of the Death Penalty, from Forbes.
6. The USA and pro-death penalty advocates have the honor of joining reputable and sophisticated countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan in using homocide as a punishment; as compared to 97 countries that have abolished capital punishment in all cases.
7. It's barbaric.
2. The application of capital punishment is seemingly arbitrary. Rarely does it have anything to do with the nature of the crime. Instead as it is often pointed out, who dies for their crime lies almost entirely on the personal inclinations and aspirations of the prosecutors, the quality of the defense attorneys and the mental stability and economic status of the defendant.
3. The survivors of the victim have had a life taken from them, but in which fantasy does killing another person for his/her crime contribute to their mental health? I have never seen the argument for the betterment of mental health by slapping a person who's inconvenienced you, or shooting a person who's hurt you. Yet watching another person die is both healthy and rational?
4. There has been 62 post-conviction exonerations between 2000 and 2014, the list which is available here. As a comparison there were 761 executions. That is an error rate.
5. It costs more to execute a criminal than to seek life imprisonment. Capital punishment is a wanton waste of the taxpayer dollar and the gov'ts services.
"In terms of dollars spent behind bars, the California Commission found that “the additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.” Since that statement, California’s death row has grown to 721, the largest in the country. The story is the same in North Carolina. A 2010 Duke University study found that taxpayers in the Tarheel State could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty." - Death and Taxes: The Real Cost of the Death Penalty, from Forbes.
6. The USA and pro-death penalty advocates have the honor of joining reputable and sophisticated countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan in using homocide as a punishment; as compared to 97 countries that have abolished capital punishment in all cases.
7. It's barbaric.