Why don't prisoners who are serving life sentences just be sentenced to death? THIS IS A HONEST QUESTION?

Jenn

There's a lot to putting someone to death, and the politics/process behind it is very long and complicated. If you want a short simple answer, it would be that putting someone to death generally costs the government more than housing and feeding them for their entire life. It also takes a very VERY long time to put someone to death after appeals and whatnot. Those appeals also become very costly.

â€œThe estimated costs for the death penalty in New York since 1995 was $160 million, or approximately $23 million for each person sentenced to death.â€ , whereas most non-death penalty cases cost a median of $740,000, through the end of incarceration.

The moral part to the question has man factors which influence it.

Firstly, once you put someone to death, they will never come back, and there is always a small chance that they may in fact be innocent. Yeah it may sound ridiculous to you, but there have been many cases where a person was either on death row and found innocent, or put to death and then found innocent years later.

Secondly, the death penalty is racist and biased against the poor. The race of the defendant plays a huge role in whether or not the person receives the death sentence, and racism is also seen when you take the race of the victim in to account.

A 2003 study conducted by an associated press writer Stephen Manning found,
â€œEight of the 13 men on death row today in Maryland are blackâ€, and

â€œBlack offenders who kill white victims are more likely to receive the death penalty in Marylandâ€.

â€œthose who murdered whites were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder blacks.â€

â€œProsecutors filed death notices, indicating their intent to seek the death penalty, in almost half of the homicides where a black defendant killed a white victim, but only in about a quarter of all other homicides.

The primary reason for this is because they are at a higher possibility of being charged by the state's attorney with a capital offense due to socio-economic conditions which are more prevalent in blacks and other minorities.

approximately 90 percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were triedâ€

i would write more, but I think this is too long lol.

MKultra

A pretty good question.

The death penalty is seen as a specific and extraordinary deterant to people committing especially heinous crimes. It's highly political and controversial.

There's a big difference - you are killing someone rather than punishing/incarcerating them. Law abiding people do not want to be responsible for killing people.

US life sentences and even sentences of 100's of years are not followed through unless it's a publicly sensitive case - people are released far sooner.

If life sentencers were to be executed you would have extermination camps on a level not seen since Nazi Germany. Do YOU trust your government to have easier capability to execute citizens?

Maybe the biggest question is WHY does it cost the taxpayer such an absurd amount for each prisoner. It costs far less to care for an elderly person in a US retirement home, or support an unemployed US worker...

We hear prisons are overcrowded? We also hear prisoners have personal games consoles, satellite TV and are rioting about their rights...

When did prison stop being a punishment and prevention and start becoming an uncontrolled free for all?

Garden Hoe

One reason many do not get the death sentence is because many have mental illnesses. Since they are not completely healthy, they can not always see the reality of their actions.Some have severe forms of autism, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc and may not know right from wrong.

Sweet Becca

top 5 countries with death pentalty:

china, iran, US, iraq, sudan. (makes up96% of all world executions)

when we are grouped with those countries, what does that say about us?

you know how many people were wrongly executed?

you know how many millions it costs to carry one out?

yes, some prosecutors and courts dont care about tax payer dollars and want to appear 'tough' on crime, but know this: when the US is grouped with countries like IRAN and CHINA, thats fcked up

Hawk

Besides the moral argument, it actually costs MORE money for the state to kill someone, because of the costs of appeal and the need to have a more through trial to make sure you get things right. A death penalty case costs 3 times as much to investigate then another homicide case where the death penalty isn't sought. The trial costs 16 times more. The appeals cost 21 times more. Between 1982 and 1997, 1.6 Billion dollars was spent on capital cases (which are only a small portion of the total homicide cases). One study found that each death penalty case cost the state of North Carolina $2.16 million per execution more then a life imprisonment sentance.

Speedemon

Your argument is a good one, and many share it. However others feel that the death penalty is the worst sentence you can face and so if a crime isn't bad enough, they don't do it. They like to disregard the economy and everything else in order to harbor moral values that mankind has made up to make him feel better about his actions.

Heretix

Yes, not all places have death penalties, yes and what about the wrongly accused. Besides a life sentence is only 25 years, not "until you die." Who gets killed, they guy who stole food to feed his kids, drug additcs, or the drug dealers, crooked cops, crooked politicians, or the crooks who screwed up the world's economy like AIG and Maddoff? Wrongly accused, not to mention abuse of the system, when you implement something like that you can kill off your political enemies by putting them in jail for "life." That's what dictators do in some places. If you are a drug dealer, you can snitch on your enemies and get them killed off so you can take over his territory. If you don't like your neighbor, your mother-in-law, your teacher, etc.

You don't really believe that the justice system is really perfect justice without flaws do you?!?!

DebbieP

because not every state has the death penalty
because of automatic appeals, it costs more to execute someone in this country than to just keep them in jail
I used to be a supporter of capital punishment, but now that I know how expensive it really is, I think they should just keep them in jail for life. The best alternative would be that once someone is sentenced to death, the punishment should be carried out in weeks or months, not years or decades after the crime.

PianoPlayer*_*smarty!

YOu know, i totally beleive in the death sentence, and im not a criminal. I agree with your point of veiw. But think about the people who are wrongfully accused, and about religion. God says (in most religions anyways) to not kill people. Also, some states and nationalities do have the death sentence

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