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Death Penalty the United States Term Paper
Pages:5 (1676 words)
Sources:2
Subject:Government
Topic:Death Penalty
Document Type:Term Paper
Document:#67004188
Murder cannot be a decried and yet practiced by the same entity without being hypocritical. Innumerable individuals on death row have been wrongfully convicted due to any number of reasons. The appeals of death row inmates sometimes never get heard. Those inmates who cannot afford to fight a good appeal are the worse off of all. Because DNA testing and more traditional forms of evidence can be used to reverse the death penalty, caution should be used when sentencing a citizen to death. Death is irreversible; life in prison is not. The families of the wrongfully convicted deserve such consideration.
Moreover, the death penalty is meted out unjustly to a greater number of poor, minority, and disabled population. Capital punishment reveals biases and flaws in the American judicial system. The death penalty is also extremely costly even though it would seem that killing a convict costs less than feeding one. Rather, data shows that the price of death penalty trials, the appeals to those trials, of keeping inmates on death row, and of the executions themselves is greater than it would be if the same individual were tried for life in prison without parole. The death penalty is costly to our society in both financial and ethical terms.
Works Cited
ACLU. "Race and the Death Penalty." 2003. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.aclu.org/capital/unequal/10389pub20030226.html
Amnesty International. "Cost of the Death Penalty." Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.amnestyusa.org/Fact_Sheets/Cost_of_the_Death_Penalty/page.do?id=1101084&n1=3&n2=28&n3=99
Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford. "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates." The New York Times. 22 Sept 2000. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.truthinjustice.org/922death.htm
Death Penalty Focus. "Cost Studies." Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost
Death Penalty Information Center. "Costs of the Death Penalty." Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108&scid=7
Death Penalty Information Center. "The Federal Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. 2008. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=29&did=147
Goering, Laurie. "Florida Leads Nation in Wrongful Convictions among Death Row Inmates." Chicago Tribune. Feb 28, 2000. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.truthinjustice.org/fla-deathrow.htm
Robinson, Bruce a. "Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty." Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 2006. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.religioustolerance.org/executb.htm
Sample Source(s) Used
Works Cited
ACLU. "Race and the Death Penalty." 2003. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.aclu.org/capital/unequal/10389pub20030226.html
Amnesty International. "Cost of the Death Penalty." Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.amnestyusa.org/Fact_Sheets/Cost_of_the_Death_Penalty/page.do?id=1101084&n1=3&n2=28&n3=99
Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford. "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates." The New York Times. 22 Sept 2000. Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.truthinjustice.org/922death.htm
Death Penalty Focus. "Cost Studies." Retrieved Feb 21, 2008 at http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost
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