ANTI-DEATH PENALTY
                                                  
On this website, informaiton on the death penalty will reveal its flaws and corruption that it
contributes to the legal system of the United States of America. The death penalty
is wrong and unjust and should not be allowed as an option for criminal offenders. This is
proven through statistics and numerous studies that provide facts and proves
that the death penalty is racially biased, many people are  wrongfully accused, it does not deter crime,
it is costly,  many of the lawyers defending the criminals are incompetent,
and there is very little international support.
-RACIAL BIAS

 
  
Persons Executed for Interracial Murders:
White Defendant/Black Victim - 12
Black Defendant/White Victim - 178

.It is much more likely for someone to receive the death penalty and be executed when the victim is white, as opposed to when a victim is of another descent.

.Studies have shown that for every 14 blacks for killing a white person, onlt 1 white is executed for killing a black person.

.Although in some cases blacks commit more murders than whites, studies still prove that the
amount of executions are still higher among blacks rather than whites because they are a minority. ( www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184#inmaterace )

"The imposition of the death penalty is racially biased: Nearly 90% of persons executed were convicted of killing whites, although people of color make up over half of all homicide victims in the United States." (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)

       -INNOCENCE

.Since 1973, 102 people have been released from death row because they were innocent and were falsely accused of committing the crime. .

.Researchers Radelet & Bedau found 23 cases since 1900 where innocent people were executed.

.Retiring Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan said "There are several cases where I had grave doubts as to the guilt of a particular person." Kogan was a homicide detective and prosecutor rising to Chief Justice.

.The amount of innocent defendants released from death row has been increasing over the years. Between 1973 and 1993, there was about 2.5 defendants released. Since then, the average has increased to 4.6 per year.

.In a1987 study, 350 people convicted of capital crimes were innocent. Some prisoners escaped, but 23 were actually executed.
."Capital punishment is societies final assertion that it will not forgive." (Martin Luther King Jr.)


A man on death row gives his wife a last kiss before
 going back to his cell to await his execution date after his court
case was dismissed as he was charged for a  murderous crime that he didn't
commit, yet due to his lawyers incompetence and
insufficient evidence, he was convicted as guily.
    -DETERRENCE
.The death penalty has never proven to deter violent crimes more effectively than other punishments.

.There is no evidence that that the death penalty reduces the murder rate. (http://www.dpio.org/Issues/Deterrence.html)

.A survey by the UN on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates concluded, "Research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment and such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still
gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis..."

    -COSTS

."it costs more to execute a person than to keep them in prison for life. A 1993 California study argues that each death penalty case costs atleast 1.25 million dollars more than a regular murder case and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole." (deathpenalty.org)

.To manage the high cost of death penalty cases, expendituries on highways and police are reduced and taxes are increased.

.A study by Indiana's Criminal Law Study Commission found that the total costs of the death
penalty exceeds the complete costs of life without parole sentences by about 38%. (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108&scid=7)

.The high costs within the process of determining someones life is resulted from factors including:
                    -a more extensive jury selection proceduure
                    -a four fold increase in the number of mmotions filed
                    -a longer, dual trial process
                    -more investigators and expert testimonyy
                    -more lawyers specializing in death penaalty litigation and automatic,
                     mandatory appeals  (http://208.55.30.156/facts/other/costly.shtml)
 
 

-LEGAL INCOMPETENCE

.Many people put on trial for death row have lawyers that are appointed by the state or court. Many of these lawyers are incompentent of building a strong case and running a death-row trial.

.In some trials, insufficient evidence is placed before the court in determining the sentence of the charged individual. Therefore numerous people are charged and placed on death row without the proper evidence that clearly points them out as the criminal- possible resulting in numerous innocent people being placed on death row. (www.oocities.org/bgjane_54/anidp2.html)

. In other cases, judges or juries may make mistakes in reviewing the evidence or not clearly understanding the justifications behind some evidence which makes and insufficient decision in determing the rest of someone's life.

.Since 1977 alone, more than 70 condemned prisoners have been released due to credible claims of innocence. And, of the 500 executions since 1997, innocence and wrongful convictions have required the release of one person for every seven executed.

."Almost all people accused of death-eligible crimes are impoverished and must rely on court-appointed lawyers to defend them at trial?here is an ever-present risk that minority defendants may be represented by lawyers who are not only incompetent, but also openly bigoted." - Killing with Prejudice: Race and the Death Penalty in the USA Amnesty International Report, May 20, 1999
 
 




  --NO SUPPORT

 .In many cases, the United States has numerous other countries that strongly disagree with the US's decision to place the death row sentence in courtroom's across the nation.

.Governments all over the world are doing away with the death penalty. While the world has moved away from the death penalty, recognizing that there is no worthwhile social goal that requires a government to commit state-sanctioned murder, the US continues to accelerate the pace of executions.

.Each year since the 1976, two more nations have added their names to the list of countries that have abolished the death penalty.

.Today, the United States, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia account for over 80% of the executions recorded by Amnesty International.

.Nelson Mandela described state killing as "barbaric".

.Russian President Putin, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and many others have opposed the death penalty, basing their stance on human rights values.

.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 in response to the state brutality and terror occuring during World War II -- recognizes each person's right to life and states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

.In Amnesty International's view, the death penalty violates these rights.

(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=8&did=478)
(www.yahoo.com/search?death+penalty+no+support)
 
 



NO DEATH PENALTY!
In conclusion......
."Twenty years have passed since this Court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all, and, despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this daunting challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake." - Justice Harry A. Blackmun, February 22, 1994
.The death penalty is not only unjust, but it is in-humane. Granted, the people placed on death row have taken another life, but executing them will not allow that person to return. Revenge is not the other answer.
.Rather that they spend the rest of their life serving their time in jail, in which they would have to live the rest of their lives behind bars with a constant reminder of what they had done. But, executing them does not solve anything but resulting in yet another lost life.
.Execution is nothing but another form of murder.


The aftermath of the execution of Allan Lee "Tiny" Davis in the State of Florida electric chair July 8, 1999.
 
 

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