Devon Bowers

Professor Dennis Crandall

Criminal Justice 1010

March 6, 2018
 Is it worth to keep the Death Penalty?

The death penalty has been an instrument in deterring criminals and others from

committing crime for a very long time and can be traced back as far as the 18 th century B.C. in

the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon (Death Penalty Information Center). From that time

period to today’s world, capital punishment has been used in countless countries and kingdoms

around the world. Capital punishment is used as a deterrent for others who might want to commit

crime, but the death penalty has had its advantages and disadvantages as a whole, from cost, to

social influences, and imperfect people.

The death penalty in America has been a subject of debate since the early to mid-19 th

century, capital punishment used to be a public event, but as time went on the death penalty was

softened. Some states limited capital punishment to just murder, treason, or the murder of a law

enforcement officer. Some states completely abolished capital punishment entirely while some

states held on to capital punishment sentencing practices (Death Penalty Information Center).

In one particular drawback of the death penalty, is using this level of punishment when

the person has committed a small crime. One case in the early 1820s was of a 16 year old boy

who had committed arson, he burned down a barn, and the fire didn’t kill anyone. Even when he

had confessed of the crime that he had done it, the boy was still sentenced to death by hanging. It

was the signature event for all of the abolitionists of the time to use in their argument against the

death penalty (Banner, 2002).

Soon towards the 1830s was the death penalty abolished in some states, and some states

only kept the punishment in extreme cases (Death Penalty Information Center). There are

criminals that don’t get executed but end up going to prison and either escape while serving time
or complete prison time to only then commit the same crime again. As was the case with Viva

Leroy Nash, who grew up in southern Utah, over the years he committed crime and spent most

of his time in prison. In 1977, he was sentenced to two life sentences for a robbery and a murder

he committed in Salt Lake City, he later escaped prison in 1982.

Three weeks later he attempted to rob a coin shop and shot the clerk three times, killing

him. He was later caught and sentenced to death. Nash lived in prison longer than anyone else

and the oldest person to be on death row, 80 years behind bars, and died in prison while on death

row at the age of 94 of natural causes in 2010 (Associated Press, 2010)(Capital Punishment).

Because the justice system isn’t perfect, some people will escape and possibly commit more

crimes of a similar nature. Not that all criminals who serve in prison will commit crimes after

serving time in prison, but there is likelihood.

A study that analyzed the cost of the death penalty versus life imprisonment claimed that

“in most states where the death penalty is an option, both prosecution and defense are allowed

significantly more preemptory challenges than are available in non-capital cases,” such as,

“costly expert witnesses, including forensic, medical and psychiatric experts, who are used more

extensively and frequently in capital trials” (Ebert 2007, P. 4). The Prosecution has more

challenges for capital cases than non-capital cases, since death is the punishment for the criminal,

the prosecution must have certain knowledge that this person deserves such punishment.

This same study goes on to say that “Conviction and the imposition of a sentence of death

is not error-proof,” Death is not irreversible, and great care should be taken in deciding whether

or not a person deserves to be executed. Another big issue with capital punishment is the amount

of money that is involved in each state and in each individual person. It seems that some states
determine that the only thing that is a problem about the death penalty is money, not whether

execution is right or wrong. In a legislative post audit that was made in December 2003 in the

state of Kansas, they reported that the death penalty to be more expensive during investigation,

trial, and appeal stages than actually executing someone. The cost for investigation, trial, appeal,

and carrying out the sentencing per person, for the death penalty amounted to $1,404,000. The

Cost for life imprisonment without parole amounted to $757,000 (Legislative Post Audit

Committee, 2003, P. 13). The actual cost of execution was lower than sentencing someone to life

imprisonment.

Whether or not the death penalty really deters people from committing murder isn’t

known entirely. There is little evidence of the death penalty really deterring people from

committing murder. A study done by Professor John Lamperti claims the possibility that the

death penalty could increase the rate of homicides because people might commit a “suicide by

homicide” situation, similar to suicide by cop (Lamperti). Lamperti quotes a Psychiatric

professor who cited a news source of a farmer in Oklahoma who shot a man at a truck stop

randomly and for no reason.

The farmer said he “didn’t want to live anymore,” this probability for someone to just

snap and start to kill people isn’t common, a lot of these are consisted of mass shootings. Many

of which are planned out ahead of time. Whether this incident involved a farmer and a trucker at

a truck stop is real or not, the credibility of the incident hasn’t been verified. While this particular

shooting based upon Lamperti’s source was a single homicide. Mass and random shootings do

happen, they are rare, and they aren’t unheard of.

 With mass shootings happening more often than ever before, I was all for the death

penalty for a while, but after some thought, in my own opinion, it may not matter if keeping or

abolishing the death penalty will have any effect on the population as a whole or if it will cause

other types of crime to go up or down. The evidence of which is hard to determine. I believe that

because the death penalty is such a drawn out and time consuming option that it has no effect on

anybody, including other criminals on the streets. If the death penalty was a swift sentence, then

we could possibly see the death penalty as a good deterrent.

I think that life imprisonment is a safer bet, it keeps criminals off the streets but life

imprisonment is a reversible sentence and the person in prison can be free again. Even with

criminals who face real sentences of life imprisonment, escaped convicts are extremely rare, and

if they do escape they are found within a short time frame. Though this is not always the case;

some people do escape and live their lives in secrecy (if they’re smart) for many years before

being caught. I believe that life imprisonment is the way to go, but at the same time I think that it

doesn’t matter if we have the death penalty or not. It may not make a real difference when it

comes to crime deterrence. I do know that the death penalty is used as a bargaining chip or plea

deals to get information out of the criminal (Douglass, 2015).

Whether Utah (or the United States) gets rid of the death penalty or not, the deterrence

level of the death penalty will largely remain the same. Some studies claimed that the death

penalty could be the reason for homicides in rare cases. The biggest issue of the death penalty is

the cost of execution versus the cost of life imprisonment. A lot of us believe that we will save

money by executing prisoners, when in fact we will save money by keeping them in prisons for

life. We could save money if states didn’t spend so much money on making sure each prisoner
on death row wasn’t innocent. Nobody wants to risk the innocent to be executed, which is why

so much money is dumped into death penalty trials.

Works Cited

Associated Press. (February 15, 2010). “Arizona inmate, Oldest Person on Death Row in the
U.S., Dies of Natural Causes.” Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/us/15inmate.html

Banner, Stuart. “The Death Penalty: An American History.” Harvard University Press. (2002)
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/blog_data/banner_review.pdf

Capital Punishment (n.d.). “The Pros and Cons of the death penalty in the U.S.A.” Retrieved
from http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/thoughtsUS.html

“Death Penalty Information Center,” (n.d.) “Nineteenth Century,” 1 st paragraph. Retrieved from
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty

Douglass, John G., (2015). “Death As a Bargaining Chip: Plea Bargaining and the Future of
Virginia’s Death Penalty. University of Richmond School of Law. Law Faculty
Publications. Retrieved from
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2090&context=law-faculty-
publications

Ebert, Michael E., (2007). “Weighing the costs of Capital Punishment v. Life in Prison without
Parole.” George Mason University. Retrieved from
https://journals.gmu.edu/newvoices/article/download/55/55
Lamperti, John, (n.d.). “Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? A brief look at the evidence.”
Dartmouth College. Retrieved from
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/JLpaper.pdf

Legislative Post Audit Committee. (December 2003). “Costs incurred for Death Penalty Cases:
A K-GOAL Audit of the Department of Corrections” Retrieved from
http://www.kslpa.org/assets/files/reports/04pa03a.pdf