While the points made were accurate and well referenced, there was no strong argument as to whether we should increase or decrease the military spending.
I am responding to the blog post Military Spendings and Investments by Lilas Al-Hakim.
We do not need to kill people to teach that killing is wrong. Nietzsche wrote that “When fighting monsters you must take care not to become one yourself,” As citizens of America, we are the state and when the state kills, we, the citizens, are participants. On a fundamental level, if our criminal justice system is to improve, it should be designed not just to punish, but also to prevent crime and rehabilitate certain criminals. The death penalty is irreversible and rash judgments lead to innocent people paying for crimes that they did not commit. Following his execution, further evidence revealed that Willingham did not set the fire that caused their deaths, but it was already too late. For example, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three daughters. Between 20, nearly 150 people were removed from death row because while waiting to be executed, they were found to be innocent. Additionally, it’s reasonable that the likelihood of a sociopathic criminal to be deterred due to the remote chance of execution many years later is incredibly small, especially when considering that life imprisonment is a similarly devastating punishment.Īnother principle to consider is the irreversible nature of the death penalty. If capital punishment were an effective deterrent, one would expect the homicide rates to correspond, yet homicide counts in 2015 were nearly 70 percent higher in the South. There have been 1,184 executions in the southern United States in the past forty years compared to a mere four executions in the northeastern states. Perhaps the primary argument for maintaining the death penalty is that it acts as a deterrent against criminals however, there is not the slightest credible statistical evidence that capital punishment reduces the rate of homicide. It is estimated that total prosecution and defense costs to the state of Oregon equal $9 million per year. In 2000, a fiscal impact summary from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services stated that the Oregon Judicial Department alone would save $2.3 million annually if the death penalty were eliminated. All of the studies conducted on this matter have concluded that the death penalty system is far more expensive than a maximum life sentence in prison.
#MAC POSTVIEW TRIAL#
Even after the initial trial of the murderer, a second trial for capital punishment must then ensue which requires experienced prosecutors, state-funded defense attorneys, a long period of investigation, pre-trial hearings, jury selection, the prosecution itself, and initial appeals. Amongst prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, it is common knowledge that the costs of a capital case begin long before the execution and consequently consume several years of time and enormous amounts of money. One of the most common misconceptions among proponents of the death penalty is that it is more economically sound than imprisonment however, this is incorrect. It does not deter criminals from committing homicide, it is more expensive than a life sentence without parole, it publically desensitizes the morality of killing a human, it needlessly punishes the families of criminals, and it is irreversible if the suspect is later found to be innocent. There are several reasons why the death penalty should be abolished.
Alabama, the citizens of the United States should once again ask themselves if the death penalty is necessary. With the current publicity of the supreme court trial Madison v.
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