Off With Their Heads!

Today, New Jersey joined 13 other states and the District of Columbia in outlawing the death penalty. It is the first state to outlaw the death penalty in 42 years. I find American politics to be so incredibly fun to watch, because only here can there be a political party that preaches the value of all life, yet supports the Government killing people. These two ideals directly conflict with each other, yet many people in America feel this way. America is one of the very few democratic industrialized countries that still have the death penalty. In fact, only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Congo execute more people than the United States. How troubling are these statistics?

Personally, I do not support the death penalty. This is not because I think it is inhumane or cruel and unusual punishment. I can completely understand why many people want to kill the person who killed their loved ones. An eye for an eye. The reason I don't support the death penalty is because when a jury gives a sentence of death, that decision is not made through a perfect process. You bring in twelve imperfect individuals to render a judgment through a process that is greatly flawed. As a lawyer, I feel the United States legal system is one of the best out there and perfection and fairness may be impossible to achieve any where, yet our system makes an attempt. But, I don't know how many times I have heard of people being let free, off of death row, because of new evidence that proved they were not the killer. How does this not scare everyone? It is a FACT, that there have been innocent people on death row. I would say there is a high probability that an innocent person has been put to death, through our system, and another innocent person will die in the future. Why do we keep the death penalty? We keep the death penalty for the victims' families and no one else.

It has been proven that the death penalty is not a deterrent. That is one of the reasons New Jersey recently outlawed it. So, if it doesn't deter people from killing, why do we have it? I would personally rather have 10 guilty people released from prison than have 1 innocent person executed by mistake. Yet, no guilty people need to be released. Instead, they can be left in prison to rot for the rest of their lives. No parole, no escape. It costs the government less to house someone for life, than someone on death row. So, again, why do we have the death penalty? It costs more and it doesn't stop people from killing. The answer is simple. People want retribution. The people affected by the killing, want the killer to die. To see that person alive, while their loved one is dead, is hard for anyone affected. I can completely understand this feeling. What Americans have to ask, is whether those peoples feelings count more than the innocent man or woman who will die for a crime they did not commit. Is and innocent LIFE more important than someones feelings?

Many people who preach the death penalty are Christians. They can easily point to text in the Bible that supports the death penalty. I have two responses for those people. 1. America is not like Iran and our laws are not based around religion. 2. The Bible also preaches forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't just mean forgiving someone for just stealing or lying. It means forgiving someone for doing one of the most horrible things anyone could imagine. If you truly can forgive, you do not need the death penalty to comfort you.

I fully understand I am preaching without having experienced a sick twisted person killing a loved one of mine. Maybe I would change my mind if something like this happened to me, but that doesn't mean I changed my mind for the right reasons. Right now, I am looking at the facts, without bias. The death penalty does not save money and does not save lives. It has the exact opposite effect, by taking innocent lives and costing more money than life in prison, without parole. Besides suggests that the death penalty is outdated and not fit for a democracy. With all of this said, I am not going to lose much sleep over the issue and probably because it doesn't affect my life in one way. Maybe everyone shares my urgency for reform and that's why the death penalty is still here.