It doesn't matter that perhaps some innocent people have been put to death. It doesn't matter that in many death penalty cases, defendants don't have adequate legal representation. It doesn't matter that the death penalty raises some sticky ethical and moral issues, mostly how demonstrating that killing is wrong by killing people.
What will end the death penalty in this country is cost.
A study by the Death Penalty Information Center concludes that many states simply can't afford the death penalty anymore, that the additional cost of pursuing the ultimate penalty takes limited resources away from law enforcement and crime prevention programs.
Now, in some cases, the death penalty can seem to be the only option. But the argument used for its prosecution is specious, that it serves to deter violent crime. It doesn't. And it's too expensive.
The moral and legal questions, though, may lose out to the fact that it cost too much money to kill people.
That's what we call priorities.
Here's a story about the study.
Leave a comment