Death Penalty Background

Ray Crone was a normal man. However, he would not be like this for long because he was convicted of a murder and then sent to death row. This innocent man ended up serving on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. The death penalty is one of the most controversial acts in America today. It cost a lot of the states money, exploits more cases of possible racism, and mostly asks the question if it is morally right to kill a person despite the crime they have committed. It has affected many families across America as well as people that work within the prisons.
One of the main reasons why the death penalty is such a controversial act by the United States is that of the people that are placed on death row. These inmates are primarily African American and come from a poor economic background. In the book Who Owns Death by Robert Jay Lifton, the author writes, “A Prisoner’s fate is often determined mainly by the makeup of a jury and the competence of his attorney, not the brutality of his crime” (Lifton 47). This is an interesting assumption by the author. The author is mainly saying that how hard a lawyer works and the people that serve as the jury decide the fate of the convicted man. This is an important idea because this is saying that people decide the fate of a man rather then the crime deciding the fate. This is where the role of racism can come into play because if a jury sees an African American that comes from a poor background, they may be more likely to find him guilty rather then a white man from a middle class family.
Another reason why capital punishment is immoral is because it is inconsistence in all states. For example in Who Owns Death, Robert Jay Lifton writes, “Kill one man in Texas, and you loose your life; slaughter a family in Michigan, and you never face the execution chamber” (Lifton 4). This data reveals that the death penalty is inconsistent throughout the United States and that needs to change. If a man kills a human being in one state, and a different man kills a family in another state, they both should have the same punishment. However, as seen in the quote above, that is untrue. This is important because it is morally wrong for some states to be stricter then others. This is one country and all criminals should receive the same type of punishment for similar crimes.
The last reason why the death penalty is controversial in this country is because it cost a lot of money to keep inmates on death row. According to Stefanie Foucher, it costs about 125 million dollars a year in California to keep inmates on death row. This money could be used in other areas of the government such as improving education. She also said that most inmates on death row each sleep in their own sell rather then them sleeping with two to three other people like normal jail sells. This creates wasted space which cost money.
The government is causing this problem because they see the issues but fail to address them publicly. The government knows that the death penalty costs millions of dollars to run each year. They know that district judges have their personal opinions on the death penalty and a person’s conviction can be placed solely on the judge’s preference. According to Death Penalty Focus, one of the reasons why the government is not making any effort to change the death penalty is because there are much more concerns that the government is focusing on such as the economy and foreign affairs.
The Death Penalty can be seen as evil disguised as good. The government convinces the public that the criminals placed on death row are extremely dangerous and cannot be living on this planet any longer. Even though, many of them are dangerous, staying in a high guarded prison may be a better option then killing them. According to a survey conducted by CNN.com, most of the public is unaware of the effects that the death penalty plays in the government such as millions of dollars being spent to an activity that is considered by many to be immoral.
People outside of the government and people that are aware of what is happening in capital punishment are saying that the death penalty is immoral. Stefanie Foucher of Death Penalty Focus in San Francisco has traveled to universities in the Bay Area such as Stanford and Berkeley to voice her opinion on the death penalty and to make people more aware of what is happening in capital punishment. She receives a lot of praise for the work she has done such as teaching a class at UC Berkeley that was mainly focused on capital punishment. Sometimes politicians or government officials agree with many of Stefanie’s opinions and listen to her view and change of the death penalty.
High spending, racism, and morality are three key elements that prove why the death penalty is a practice that should be discontinued. The death penalty cost millions of dollars that could be spent in a more needed area of the US government. Racism is another key factor that plays into deciding whether a man should be convicted or not. Lastly, the death penalty is morally wrong because it is killing a human being.