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Analysis of Death penalty.


Should more countries reinstated or abolished it?
Martynas Vaikutis, Justas Zviceviius III year bachelor studies
ISM University of management and economics
International Business Law

Supervisor:
Mitja Kova

Kaunas, 2015

Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................... 3
What is Death penalty? ............................................................................. 4
Historical facts ........................................................................................... 6
Peoples opinion about death penalty ....................................................... 7
Statistical data of death penalty .............................................................. 10
Costs of execution .................................................................................... 13
Conclusion ................................................................................................ 15
Reference: ................................................................................................. 16

Kaunas, 2015

Introduction

None of the legal system manages to prevent crimes from happening. Harsh crimes take
place in both systems: in authorized execution and imprisonment for life. However, death is the
most powerful impulse of the spirit, so despite being hardly disputed that execution is immoral,
very harsh mean of punishment and it should be banned, death penalty is believed to have more
power to criminals decision of not committing a crime, because of the natural instinct of
survival.
In this paper we will analyze death penalty. We will present historical facts about
execution, also we will try to find advantages and disadvantages of it by collecting data: society
opinion about capital punishment, statistically compare crime ratios in countries where executing
a person is legalized and not, provide some conclusions from studies that were done by well
known professors and finally we will present data from economic perspective by analysing costs
of imprisonment and providing death penalty.
We aim to find out whether execution should be legalized or banned, whether it is an
efficient mean of prevention from crimes, whether it is morally correct and accepted by people
and whether it is economically beneficial for a country to adapt it.
Finally, we will conclude our paper after taking into consideration all the factors analyzed
regarded with death penalty.

Kaunas, 2015

What is Death penalty?

Death penalty or capital punishment is punishment by death. It is usually given by the


court of law after an offender is sentenced for a very serious criminal offense. This is usually
done to ensure that criminal cannot commit similar, very serious future crimes. It also works as
prevention for other future offenders. Most of the world countries had used this form of
punishment for harsh crimes in the past. However, nowadays it is very controversial topic and it
causes many disputes whether it is normal or not. Some people think that it is right to have a
death penalty in their country, while others believe that it must be banned. Part of people believe
that this sanction is good, because it scares potential criminals from doing it what may cause the
same ending for themselves, while others strongly argue and state that there is a high chance of
killing innocent people or that it is immoral and inhumane.
About one third of the world countries have laws which allow capital punishment. The
biggest countries which accept it are: China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Iran and United States.
Talking in numbers, 60% of the worlds population still live in those regions where it is legal and
widely used. In addition, 36 countries actively practice death penalty, 109 countries have
abolished it de jure, but 6 of them left special exceptions for exclusive conditions and 50 have
forbidden it de facto and have not used it for last ten years. Almost all countries banned capital
punishment for people under the age of 18. Furthermore death penalty for this age category
people is prohibited under international law.

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Crimes for which death penalty is reserved should be very serious. Moreover, those
crimes need to be very widely escalated, have big culture and society attention. Execution is
given for crimes such as murder, espionage or treason. In Middle East it could be given for
sexual crimes such as: incest, rape or sodomy. What is more, certain administrations could give it
even for religious crimes, human or drug trafficking. In militaries all around the world any crime
committed by a soldier such as insubordination are punishable by the execution as well. There
are many different execution methods. These are used nowadays: electric chair, lethal injection,
firing squad, hanging, strangulation, stoning.
Capital punishment is decided among country or state itself. In European Union, in
Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union forbids the use of death
penalty. Moreover, the Council of Europe and all 47 members of it also prohibit the use of
execution. On the other hand, in United States of America 32 states it is legal sentence. Each
state has their own method of execution and crimes for which it is ordered vary as well.

Kaunas, 2015

Historical facts

Death penalty is recorded since the historical files are found. There are ancient
documents which indicate that in the past capital punishment was seen as price which convicts
have to pay for their made crimes rather than as a punishment itself. Because of this original
felon did not have to be the one who is responsible for made crime. By the way, it is way
different in todays world. What is more, primitive death penalty description is even mentioned
in the Code of Hammurabi (c.1750 BC). Moreover, it was used from the fall of Rome to the
modern era throughout all Western Europe. Death sentence was a punishment for many
perpetrators under English common law and it was legally used in all of the American colonies
until the Declaration of Independence.
In the Medieval Europe all executions were very cruel and inhumane. Burning, flying
alive or quartering was the most popular. Since the 18th century everything started to change.
The guillotine machine was invented in France and with this the era of more humane execution
methods began. Today most usually capital punishment methods are lethal injection (mostly in
western world) and firing squad (mostly in eastern world).
In the end of 19th century countries in Europe started to prohibit capital punishments.
Unexpectedly, the World Wars began and most of them started practice it again. With exception
of Belarus where last death penalty was made in 2014 all other countries have canceled it. The
last two countries which agreed on abolishment were Russia and Kazakhstan.
In the United States of America first recorded execution was made in 1608. During the
years states started to forbid this type of punishment. First state which suspended it was
Michigan. In 2013 Maryland left states union which accept it and became 18th state to leave.

Kaunas, 2015

Peoples opinion about death penalty

Death penalty is highly disputed issue nowadays. Those who support capital punishment
have reasonable arguments why it deters crimes and why people committed certain crimes do
now have right to live. On the other hand, those who oppose execution, strongly believe that no
government or individual has a right to decide upon others right to live. They also believe that
living with ones crime is far much severe punishment than just dying for it. Also, the risk of
executing innocent person is far too high. A lot of protests take place near the jails and court
houses and this topic is very heated. However the survey conducted in 2006, indicated that 52%
of worlds population supported death penalty, while the number in U.S. was 68%. Although the
number of people supporting the death penalty has been slightly decreasing in U.S., it has
stabilized at 63% in 2014.
According to the 2014 poll held in Great Britain, 45% of habitants would like to bring
death penalty back, while 38% are in opposition, also, having 17% still undecided. People from
18 to 24 years were mostly against the reinstatement, while older people were in favour.
It was never clear whether the punishment is right. In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the
Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment, arguing that execution was cruel and unusual
punishment, but in 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, it changed its position by allowing 5 executions
under certain carefully specified circumstances.
Also, several of the executing states are currently considering a moratorium on capital
punishment; while a few non-executing states are debating whether to reinstate capital
punishment.

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People supporting death penalty identify many advantages. Firstly, it deters other people
from doing a crime. People are afraid of death, especially when it is decided by court. This is
applied to all criminals who are mentally healthy and consciously commit a crime. It is found
that due to deterrence, on average, 7 people prevent from being murdered, because offenders do
not take actions. However, his cannot be applied to all cases.
Secondly, according to the professor J. Budziszewski Society is justly ordered when
each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes
from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved
benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the
wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused
with revenge, which is guided by a different motive.1 In other words, this helps to protect
society from moral chaos which could occur due to the considerably unequal actions taken by the
government in respect of the victim, who had his life and liberties taken away.
On the other hand, people, opposing death penalty, focus on disadvantages of having
death penalty. They claim that with death penalty society would just travel back to the
uncivilized past with all the barbaric practices. According to the opposition, these kinds of
punishments are too cruel and unusual. Also, it violates the constitutional guarantee of equal
protection. It is usually applied randomly and disproportionately upon offenders who are people
of colour, who are uneducated and relatively poor and extremely on those, who committed a
crime against white. Another big reason is economical issue of increased costs for government
which you will find separately analysed in further paragraph. In addition, since the reinstatement
of the death penalty, there were some mistakes with wrongful sentencing. The ratio has reached 1
to 10, meaning one out of ten people sentenced for execution had been innocent.

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In conclusion, there are many different opinions regarding the death penalty. Some
people tend to believe it restores moral balance in the society and protects other people by having
a deterrent effect for potential criminals. However, it is very harshly argued by the opposition.
They tend to believe differently and believe that no one has a right to decide upon others
destiny. Though one is a harsh criminal, saying he suffers more than enough when living with
ones sins in agony. Also, it saves money in government budged, which later can be allocated to
education, science and medical care. There is no united opinion, since it always comes to moral
norms.

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Statistical data of death penalty

When we are talking about numbers, they are horrifying. 2 217 000 of people are
imprisonment in the United States, 1 600 000 in China and approximately 700 000 in Europe,
while over 95% of executions now occur in Asia. These numbers are huge. Can capital
punishment legalization change it? To be more precisely only 5 percent of the worlds population
lives in the United States, but almost one-fourth of the worlds prisoners are imprisoned there.
As we know, today in 32 states it is accepted to use capital punishment. Moreover, in the year
2012, 43 death penalties took place, 39 executions in 2013 and 35 in the year 2014. We see that
in the last three years 117 people were executed. We can claim that the numbers of death
penalties are decreasing not because people make less harsh crimes, but because for the past 8
years less and less people have been involved in crimes and fewer of them have been sentenced
to a prison. Numbers show us that in 2008 in the United States 2 307 504 people were kept in
prisons and after six years - 90 504 prisoners less.2 The question Why the numbers are
decreasing? can come up. Maybe it is because of US government new policies has been
introduced, or that people are less likely to do the crimes. However, could it be that death penalty
finally became deterrent for people and thats why there are less linked of them with the crimes.
A famous Professor Ernest van den Haag of Jurisprudence at Fordham University has
closely studied the question of deterrence for a people behaviour many years and he wrote:
"Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital
punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than
anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts.
Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most. Hence, the threat of the death penalty may

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deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty
is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a
guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence. Perhaps they will not be
deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else." 3 All in all, if we believe
what the professor said, we can state that there is a big impact of death penalties escalation in the
news, social media and environment. It is positive for people to have in mind what can happen in
order to assure that they will never do that.
What is more, many years psychologist together with criminologists gathered ant studied
murder rates to know if they are correlated with the possibility of being executed. When finally
in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich started analysis and came to the results which showed that 7 lives of people
are spared because possible offender was deterred from committing murder. During the years
after this studies many other scientist followed-up and agreed with Isaac Ehrlich. To sum up all
the statistics we see that the death penalty legalization is like prevention from higher number of
crimes.
On the other hand, there are negative effects of statistics about death penalty. First of all,
many innocent people are sentenced for an execution. Since 1973, over 150 people have been
released from death punishment, because of proven innocence. Moreover, the statistics shows
that at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed in the United States. The
biggest unanswered question is How common are these miscarriages of justice? If that number
of people have been released, how many of them were executed while they did nothing wrong?
Unfortunately, there is not any systematic way invented which could determine accuracy of a
criminal conviction.

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On the other hand, people who works in courts states that it is very little chance of punishing
innocent people. Quoting Judge Learned Hand in 1923: Our (criminal) procedure has always
been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream. Or more recent
statement by the Justice Antonin Scalia in 2007 she said: That American criminal convictions
have an error rate of (0).027 percent - or, to put it another way, a success rate of 99.973
percent.3 So according the judges it is no reason to believe that there is a chance of these
miscarriages. But the real numbers are different and there is always a chance of mistake even in a
court, because firstly we all are humans. In conclusion, we see that wrong decisions exist and
when a peoples life is on the edge, the judgment must be made very carefully.

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Costs of execution

We have chosen United States for presenting the costs of capital punishment. U.S. is one
of the leading countries in the world with executions per year. Also, it is a democratic country,
which we believe will reflect the costs more accurately than China or Iraq, which are also Top 5
countries with executions in this list.
At first sight it may look that executing a person should save a lot of money within the
budged of the state or country. However, this thought seems to be a very mistaken. According to
the studies made analysing costs of death sentences in United States, imprisoning may be up to
10 times cheaper. "It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," 4 though
most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as
"The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
Capital punishment becomes so expensive due to the long period of wait until the
criminal is authorized for execution. Every state that has death penalty also has an intricate
system for appeals. Due process claims, equal protections for different races and cruel and
unusual punishment prohibitions of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are just
couple of examples of appeals that reach the court. Due to the appeals, the national average time
between conviction and execution is just under nine years.
"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system,"

said McCartin, who

retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.


It is calculated that prosecuting death penalty costs between $50 and $90 million dollars
more than life sentencing per year. It is due to the prosecution and appealing processes, which
require much more hours of labour of the court staff, assigned public defenders and additional

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attorneys, who are required to have specific knowledge, experience and are death penalty
certified. Also, security is another part of increased costs. Despite the fact that security have to
be strengthen in the courtroom, death sentenced inmates have to be kept separately from others
in prison. They are taken care of individually and having everything delivered by the guards. It
costs approximately $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row.
In Maryland, Urban Institute made a research which indicated that taxpayers allotted
more $37 million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-instated in 1973. The
study explored 162 capital punishment cases and found that prosecution costs were increased by
186 millions.
According to the cost assessment made in 2011 by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Prof. Paula
Mitchell, the state of California has totalled over $4 billion since the re-instatement of death
penalty in 1978. Expenditures were divided into Pre-Trial and Trial costs of $1,94 billion, costs
of incarceration $1 billion and appeals - $1,7 billion. Authors concluded that convicts
remaining for death row would save up to $5 billion within the next 20 years, if they were
commuted to life without parole, in other words sentenced for life.
All in all, capital punishment does not seem to be beneficial from economical
perspective. It significantly increases government spending much more than simple
imprisonment and it requires more resources including labour hours and more qualified court
staff and attorneys. What is more, more allocation of money on the capital punishment would
require cut off from another fields like education, medicine and infrastructure.

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Conclusion
Many years death penalty has been known as a mean of punishment in many countries.
Despite being very cruel it still has been implemented in many legal systems. However, during
the years the number of active countries has decreased including the whole continent of Europe.
As the aim of our paper is to figure out whether it is an effective mean of punishment
we have analyzed Europe and United States of America situation. We have observed society
opinion about execution, statistical data regarded with imprisonment and economical factors
which are fundamental.
We have picked out two different opinions. One is focused on safety, having in mind
supporters, while other is focused on moral norms, having in mind opposition. However, they
are both more or less agreeing on economical loss due to increased costs.
In our opinion, countries should have free right to choose whether to implement it or
not. We have indentified crucial advantage of death penalty working as a deterrent. On the
other hand, huge part of society sees it inhumane and morally wrong. Countries considering the
implementation of capital punishment should organize open public voting which would show
habitants opinion which side they are supporting. Finally, economic factor should be taken into
consideration very seriously. We would recommend it only for economically stable and wealthy
countries.
All in all, we support the initiation of death penalty as long as it is accepted by society
and carefully monitored by government.

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Reference:

1. http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000
J. Budziszewski, PhD; "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice," OrthodoxyToday.org
2004
2. http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america
Data of imprisonment persons in the Unites states of America
3. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2431520
Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death Samuel
R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward Kennedy, 2014
4. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm
The Associated Press; 2009

Sources used in the paper:


1. http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/argument1a.htm
2. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm
3. http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31614
4. https://www.aclu.org/case-against-death-penalty?redirect=capital-punishment/caseagainst-death-penalty
5. http://rt.com/uk/179964-support-death-penalty-britain/
6. http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-death-penalty.htm
7. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
8. http://www.prisonstudies.org/

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