Sam Howard

Professor Izrailevsky
Philosophy 1120
November 18, 2014
Death Penalty
I presented on the Death Penalty in America. When asked what my opinion was,
I may have exaggerated my answer a bit. I am still for the death penalty, but I have
changed some opinions of it over all. I think its a hard thing to ask someone to perform
an execution, and I could certainly never participate in one myself. It is a thing that is
much different in theory than in practice. I believe the only way one could ever acquire
any kind of closure is through forgiveness, not that I think I could ever do such a thing. It
would be incredibly difficult to do, I would be consumed with rage/revenge.
One of the biggest problems to me, is the cost of the death penalty. Here in Utah
we pay over 1.6 million dollars in each death penalty case, which is far above and
beyond the cost of putting them in prison for life. The main cause of cost is all the legal
fees through trials and appeals. I can understand why appeals exist, but they raise the
cost immensely and cause the average time spent on death row to be over 20 years.
The idea behind appeals is to prevent innocent men and women from being put to
death, but all it really does is make the death penalty nearly impossible to achieve. I
cannot for the life of me figure out the sympathy these murderers are getting. It seems
incredibly disrespectful to those that have been murdered as well as their families. I
applaud those who chose to forgive those that have murdered loved ones, but I think its
their right to enforce the death penalty. There has been a lot of bad publicity lately about

botched executions lately, which is a joke in my mind. I feel that they could never suffer
enough for committing intentional murder. I dont condone purposely torturing, that is
simply inhumane, but a murderer deserves no sympathy when they have to suffer the
consequences of their actions for an extra 20 minutes or even several hours.
There have been1,392 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in
1976. The death penalty was abolished for a few years in 1972. After the death penalty
was reinstated, the first execution, after a 10 year span of no executions, took place in
Draper, Utah. Gary Gilmore was executed by the firing squad on January 17, 1977. 22
men were executed after 1976 for crimes committed before the age of 18. All but one
were 17, and the other one was 16. Two cases that changed the age limit for death
penalty were Thompson vs. Oklahoma in 1988, and Roper vs. Simmons in 2005. The
case Thompson vs. Oklahoma, Set the minimum age for which a crime can be
punishable by death to 16. Thompson participated in a brutal murder when he was only
15. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to death. The other case, Roper vs.
Simmons raised the age to 18. In 1993 Christopher Simmons killed a girl when he was
17. He had a detailed plan which he followed through. He threw her off a bridge after
robbing her. Simmons was sentenced to death but got off the hook in 2005 by arguing
that his 8th amendment rights were violated because he was only a minor. Prior to 2005,
Roper vs. Simmons, of the 19 of the 38 states allowed death penalty to those younger
than 18. 5 of those states had the age set at 17 years old, 14 states had the age set at
16 years old, and the remaining 19 states had an age of 18 years old.

Poverty has always been associated with numerous social problems, from crime,
to drug use, to abortions and children out of wedlock, and many other problems. I was a
little surprised to see that so many death row inmates had a high school diploma, not
that that means much now days. I was also surprised to see that the majority of people
executed were white men, which blows a lot of ignorant comments out of the water.
There is still a trend with education and poverty. Now days nearly everyone goes to
college at least to some extent. Only 9% of death row inmates have any form of college
education. It goes to show that good education, support, and help with goal setting can
help to reduce many major problems. A big determinant in the wellbeing of society is the
stability of families. You see a jump in education, reduction in crime, and less abortions
in stable family environments.

Since 1983 over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been
executed. In 2002 the case, Atkins vs. Virginia, required an IQ test over 70 to be
eligible to receive the death penalty. Their reasoning was on the grounds of the 8 th
amendment, cruel and unusual punishment. An IQ lower than 70 is considered mentally
retarded. Just recently in 2014 a case, Florida vs. Hall, added some additional rules to
the use of IQ testing. If they score between 70-75, lawyers must be allowed additional
proof of incompetence. It added a little gray area. This came about after a man who
raped and killed a pregnant woman scored an IQ of 71, only 1 over the limit. As a
reference, average IQ ranges from 70-130. Those with Down syndrome who suffer mild
intellectual disability, range from 50-70. The problems that arise with this exception, as
well as the insane, is you have people looking for a way out resulting in a lot of faking.
The IQ numbers dont always tell the whole story, they try to keep an eye out for those
abusing the system. There have been individuals with IQ scores lower than 70 that have
still received the death penalty when it was determined determine they were purposely
performing poorly on the IQ test. The question remains, what you do with these
dangerous mentally retarded individuals. Statistically speaking, those who have killed
before will kill again, and most hospitals dont have the security necessary for such
individuals. Which gives good cause to death penalty or life in prison with no chance of
parole.
It is estimated that 5-10% of the inmates on death row suffer mental illness. A
major concern similar to that of IQ testing, is people faking conditions to get out of the
death penalty. Mentally retarded or insane, you still have a dangerous killer who needs
more security than a hospital has to offer. Gary Alvord was admitted to a state mental

hospital at age 13 in 1960. On a release in 1967 at age 20, he kidnapped and raped a
10 year old girl. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. After his final escape, he
settled in with a girlfriend and later killed 3 women, a grandmother, mother and
granddaughter in 1973. He also raped the granddaughter before killing her. 2 death
warrants were signed but avoided because of mental illness. Gary remained on death
row for 40 years, which is the longest amount of time spent on death row. If he were to
receive the death penalty after raping that 10 year old girl, those 3 women would have
been saved. I happen to think that rape should 100% be grounds for death penalty. I
view it as worse than murder. You can kill someone in an instant, in the heat of the
moment. To rape someone however, you have to follow through and have a plan or at
least thought about it. When rape involves a child, it makes it 100 times worse in my
mind. Even Christ said And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe
in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast
into the sea. Sick or not, killers need to dealt with in a manner that eliminates danger to
society, whether it be by execution or otherwise.
There have been 142 exonerations after execution so far. Innocent people being
sentenced to death is one of the biggest problems people have with the death penalty.
One problem with all these exonerations is that people are looking through old cases
back when evidence and cases were not recorded as well as they are today. There are
people even today that everyone knows is a killer but cant be proved because of
expensive lawyers who know how to work the system. It is my opinion that many of the
exonerations take place due to loop holes and weak cases, not because they were
innocent. There surely have been innocent people to spend time in prison and receive

the death penalty, and that would be horrible and unimaginable. These exonerations
have been used against the death penalty by adding available appeals to the inmates,
making it a long, expensive, and difficult process.
No society can live without punishment. Death penalty serves as a deterrent to
murder. Without any form of justice, there would be no incentive to be a good person. It
is hard to say how much of a deterrent death penalty is considering most murders take
place in the heat of the moment, or by incompetent or uneducated individuals. Laws and
death penalty certainly make a difference in normal, intelligent peoples decision
making. The benefits and negatives are easy to see. By eliminating killers it makes us
all safer, as odds are they will kill again. To actually execute a death row inmate takes
several years and millions of dollars due to their ridiculous number of appeals. I can
understand the purpose of having appeals in preserving innocent life, but it is currently
just there as a road block. There should only be one or two appeals, if that. It should be
far less expensive to execute someone than support them in every way for the rest of
their life. Its only a matter of time before the death penalty becomes abolished, in order
to follow the world trends. Political correctness is like a disease that slowly spreads, it is
little more than peer pressure. Charlton Heston said Political correctness is tyranny
with manners. I think it could be a cyclical thing and we will reinstate it when we realize
we need it again. Maybe the bermensch will help us out there.