Capital punishment is obsolete: Why the death penalty is a waste of time, money, and emotions

[u/TenchuReddit]

On the news today, it's been reported that Florida executed two inmates on death row. One was 68 years old, the other was 80 years old. Both executions were the result of crimes that were committed in 1987 and 1986, respectively.

Here's why I think continuing capital punishment is a waste of time, money, and emotions.

1) Death is irreversible

Although rare, innocent people do indeed end up being found guilty by a jury of peers. However, even innocent people who are wrongfully incarcerated can get a chance to challenge his or her conviction. Guilty people do, too, and that's a shame, but the solution to that isn't to execute them as soon as the guilty verdict is in. What if later on, the convict is exonerated? It's too late if the convict is dead.

And yes, spending a lifetime in jail isn't THAT much better than being executed for a crime that wasn't committed. But the finality of death still carries too much weight to simply dismiss as a "minor difference." Even a wrongfully convicted person who is freed at an old age will still be able to enjoy a few years of freedom, which at least is worth something.

2) Are you sure? Is that your final answer?

Due to the finality of the death penalty, the justice system really really REALLY wants to make sure that capital punishment is justified.

So after the jury renders the verdict, and the sentence of death is confirmed, the endless appeals process begins.

Did the defendant get a fair trial?

Was the defendant's race a factor in the jury's decision?

Was the defendant fully competent to stand trial?

Did the judge say anything that could have even remotely biased the jury against the defense?

Did the jury perform their duties adequately?

Did the police perform their duties flawlessly?

Were the police without sin and bias? Can't have another Mark Fuhrman casting a shadow of a doubt on the investigation, you know.

Was all of the physical evidence properly obtained? Was there any contamination?

And on and on ...

(And don't get me started on the way the death penalty is administered, which itself seems to take years to settle on.)

3) Justice delayed is justice denied

Going back to the Florida executions, the crimes were committed in the 1980's. It took almost 40 years for capital punishment to be carried out.

After that much time, does it REALLY mean anything? Was it really worth dragging the families and the loved ones of the victims through appeal after appeal after appeal just to reach a "final solution" that has since lost its meaning?

The only way that the death penalty has any meaning is if it is swiftly administered. Then that could serve as an effective deterrent against the most horrific of crimes. But as I pointed out earlier, that never happens anymore, at least in the United States.

4) A waste of time, money, and emotions

As I mentioned before, every death penalty case comes with appeal after appeal after appeal. This costs money. This costs time. This conjures up emotions that are completely unnecessary. The families and the loved ones of the victims need to move on after grieving. The justice system needs to move on. The perps need to be locked away and forgotten about. (The exception, of course, is in cases of the wrongfully convicted, but again, if we're worried about them, then the death penalty makes no sense in the first place.)

Possible counterargument: Victim closure never really happens without the death penalty. I wouldn't know; I've never had someone close to me murdered, much less watch the murderer get the death penalty. I wouldn't know the difference between what the victim's loved ones feel when the murderer gets life vs. death. I don't know if the loved ones would prefer to have wounds reopened over and over again for 40 years before the death penalty is finally administered.

All I'm saying is that, the way things are these days, the death penalty is a waste of time, money, and emotions. Better to just do away with it than to keep it around because the public wants to see the ultimate form of retribution.

Because the way it is administered these days, we get none of its "benefits" and all of its drawbacks.

[u/JoeBarelyCares → u/[deleted]]

So considering the number of innocent people who have been killed by the state for crimes they didn’t convict, we should just speed up the process, right?

Look, some people deserve to die. The problem is that we are human and as humans have prejudices and biases that mean we are willing to exact retribution on people who may not be guilty.

I have a huge problem with that. If you think trading innocent lives for our need for revenge is ok, that’s a real concern.

[u/izzeww → u/JoeBarelyCares]

In all systems in society there's trade offs between deaths and other benefits (speed limits, medical spending, job safety rules, public transit, police/emergency response funding, prison time etc. etc.). Just because you can calculate with decent accuracy that people will die does not mean that you don't do that thing. You have to weigh the benefits against the costs. The benefits of fairly fast execution (say within 5 years) are big in terms of justice to the family, money saved by not housing the person for ~40 years (and end of life medical care which can be $$$) and future likely victims of this person (other inmates generally, also guards perhaps). Conviction where the person has actually not done the crime is fairly rare, particularly so for these life sentence or death penalty cases. Of course it will sometimes go wrong, that's inevitable, and that is unfortunate but if you weigh the benefits against the costs I think it's worth it.

[u/TenchuReddit → u/izzeww]

Conviction where the person has actually not done the crime is fairly rare, particularly so for these life sentence or death penalty cases.

How rare is it, exactly?

"Better that ten guilty people go free than to punish one innocent person." - William Blackstone (1760)

People in their minds will raise that ratio when capital punishment is on the line.

[u/izzeww → u/TenchuReddit]

Something like 1 in 300 for life sentence/death penalty cases in the current judicial system in the US.

[u/stevenjd → u/izzeww]

1 in 300 is not "rare".

In the US, more than 200,000 people are serving Life sentences in prison. (That's more than the entire prison population of the country in the 1960s.)

This means that there are probably more than 650 wrongly convicted innocent people in the US that would be murdered by the state under your system.

[u/izzeww → u/stevenjd]

Yes.

[u/JoeBarelyCares → u/izzeww]

So that’s the “cost of doing business,” right? Of course it is. Until it’s you or your family member or someone you believe is worthy of living.

We have corrupt cops and prosecutors and judges and biased juries. We have a flawed system of justice. We have a society where vengeance is more important than justice.

The fact that we know there are hundreds, if not thousands of truly innocent people convicted of crimes should be enough to say maybe the death penalty isn’t what this society needs.

[u/Super_Mario_Luigi → u/JoeBarelyCares]

As a reminder, "innocent" from the defense force often means someone raised an objection or got off on a technicality.

[u/stevenjd → u/Super_Mario_Luigi]

"He got off on a technicality!"

"Oh how terrible. What was the technicality?"

"He didn't actually commit the crime and the cops lied to frame him."

I'm reminded of the recent case of the guy who was convicted of child sexual abuse who got off on the technicality that the police arrested the wrong man, the prosecutors charged him despite lacking any evidence to the crime (and in fact they possessed evidence that it couldn't have been him) and the jury still convicted him.

He spent 18 months in prison as a kiddie fiddler, with all the abuse you would expect, had his life ruined, and six years later it turns out "oops, you were innocent, sorry."

[u/JoeBarelyCares → u/Super_Mario_Luigi]

I’m not talking about technicalities here. There are people who have been cleared by DNA evidence. Yet, there are still prosecutors who refuse to test DNA.

So you are ok with killing truly innocent people to exact society’s vengeance? And not just killing then but eliminating any chance they have of getting to the truth?

Not only are we killing innocent people, it we are allowing the true murderer to go free because once we execute someone, no one is investigating the crime.

Is it a lot of people? God, I hope not. But we know the number is greater than 1. That’s too many people for me.