Capital Punishment is a Crime

On January 25, 2024, the state of Alabama executed Kenneth Smith using nitrogen hypoxia, a first in American history. Though state attorneys assured courts that the method induces “unconsciousness in seconds,” witnesses reported that Smith “shook and writhed” for at least two minutes before death. Mr. Smith was convicted in 1996. Though 11 out of 12 jurors voted to spare his life and to sentence him to life in prison, the judge in the case overruled their decision and condemned him to death. Despite the safeguards of due process and the checks and balances of the legal system, the ultimate decision of whether Kenneth Smith would live or die was made by only one man. This is only one example of the cruelty and unfairness capital punishment inflicts. Capital punishment is fundamentally wrong because it denies one’s inherent right to life, a right that should remain unwavering and unconditional.

Each and every method of execution is inherently inhumane and barbaric, subjecting victims to physical pain and psychological torment. Hanging may be easily botched, causing either a slow and agonizing death by strangulation or decapitation, depending on the length of the drop. A firing squad involves a hooded prisoner being strapped into a chair as five marksmen take aim and fire at their chest. I cannot convey my disgust at this injustice beyond protesting that as a human, the scene is viscerally wrong. The prisoner, blinded, sits and awaits their inevitable death as shots ring out against them.

Electrocution is equally revolting. The condemned prisoner is led—or dragged—into the death chamber and strapped into the chair, and electrodes are fastened to their head and legs. When the switch is flicked, the body strains, jolting as the voltage fluctuates. Often smoke rises from the head. There is the awful odor of burning flesh. No one knows how long electrocuted individuals retain consciousness, but these executions can take upwards of 15 minutes. The gas chamber attempts to improve upon electrocution by strapping the prisoner into a chair and suffocating them with a lethal cocktail of gases. It can also take nearly 20 minutes of suffering and suffocation before the victim is killed.

Lethal injection is a more recent invention. While its name evokes less gory imagery,  according to the U.S. Court of Appeals, there is still “substantial and uncontroverted evidence” that it  “poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation.”

No matter its implementation, capital punishment does not support our justice system’s self-professed principles, as it contradicts the very nature of rehabilitation, intended to restore a convict’s social or moral standing in society or their relations with others. The notion of an eye for an eye, or a life for a life, is an unconscionable one. America’s Constitution does not allow torturing the torturer or raping the rapist. By the same logic, taking the life of a murderer should not be allowed either. The permanent nature of capital punishment also betrays another core value of our justice system, due process under the law, by forever depriving an individual of the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might warrant the reversal of a conviction. The Marquis de Lafayette once demanded that “the infallibility of human judgment” be proven before anyone can be sentenced to death. There is always room for human error, and our justice system compensates for this by allowing appeals to be made and sentences overturned.

Even though some believe the death penalty is without moral faults in theory, an examination of how it is applied in practice reveals another level of wrongdoing. The death penalty is not applied equally based on justice. The process of imposing the death penalty is affected by the quality of the defense counsel, the county in which the crime was committed, and the race of the defendant or victim, as well as other inherently inequitable factors. Almost all defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney, exposing the poor and already marginalized to worse fates. According to research from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 35 percent of people executed in the last 40 years have been Black, despite Black Americans only constituting 13 percent of America’s population. The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. It is imposed disproportionately upon offenders who are people of color, and on those who are poor, uneducated, and concentrated in certain geographic regions.

Proponents of the death penalty argue that it deters potential felons from similar offenses, despite studies revealing otherwise. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), when police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they rated the death penalty as “least effective.” Human lives cannot be lost enacting a punishment that has been proven ineffective at preventing crime. Studies from both Amnesty International and the ACLU assert that there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long-term imprisonment. In fact, a 2019 Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) survey of the American public indicates that support for the death penalty drops even lower when respondents are given the option of imposing life without parole. Long terms of imprisonment would have the same deterring effect as the death penalty, as well as holding public support.

Another common argument for the penalty is that taxpayer money should not be going to feeding and housing murderers in prisons. The notion that it is cheaper to kill criminals rather than maintain them is not only false but also incredibly callous. This idea squanders the time and energy of courts, attorneys, and law enforcement personnel. A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs—including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs—are mostly borne by the taxpayer. The extra costs of separate death row housing and additional security in court and elsewhere also add to the cost. A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison. Furthermore, it goes against human nature to debate the convenience of capital punishment and attempt to economize our resources at the expense of human life. And even if it were moral to condemn another to death simply because we do not wish to pay for their life, capital punishment wastes limited resources.

Choosing to sentence someone to death demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. The death penalty’s effects on America exemplify the tragic inefficacy of violence, rather than reason, as the solution to difficult social problems. A government cannot simultaneously condemn murder and then use it as the ‘solution’ to murder. A society that respects life cannot deliberately kill human beings. I believe actively modeling violence as a reaction to violence will, again, only breed more violence.