Most death penalty cases involve the execution of murderers although capital punishment can also be applied for treason, espionage, and other crimes. Proponents of the death penalty say it is an important tool for preserving law and order, deters crime, and costs less than life imprisonment.

The most common and most cogent argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system.

ACLU OBJECTIONS TO THE DEATH PENALTY

• Capital punishment is cruel and unusual.
• Capital punishment denies due process of law.
• The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
• The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control.
• Capital punishment wastes limited resources.

It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The death penalty is discriminatory. It is often used against the most vulnerable in society, including the poor, ethnic and religious minorities, and people with mental disabilities. Some governments use it to silence their opponents.

Capital punishment benefits society because it may deter violent crime. If the losses society imposes on criminals are less than those the criminals imposed on their innocent victims, society would be favoring criminals, allowing them to get away with bearing fewer costs than their victims had to bear.

The death penalty deters violent crime and makes society safer. Evidence from around the world has shown that the death penalty has no unique deterrent effect on crime.

List of the Disadvantages of the Death Penalty

• It is the ultimate denial of human rights when implemented.
• The death penalty can execute someone who is possible innocent.
• The cost to prosecute the death penalty is much higher than other cases.
• There may not be any deterrence to crime with the death penalty in place.

Today, about 3,350 people are on “death row.” Virtually all are poor, a significant number are mentally disabled, more than 40 percent are African American, and a disproportionate number are Native American, Latino, and Asian.

Capital punishment does not discourage crime and, as studies have shown, may increase crime in our country. Many of these criminals commit violent crimes because these individuals aren’t able to function properly in society and do not understand the consequences of their actions.

When there are executions, violent crime decreases. But there have also been claims that executions “brutalize” society because government agencies diminish respect for life when the death penalty is applied. With brutalization comes an increase in violent crime, and especially homicides.

Families who have a loved one on death row, or who have experienced the execution of a loved one, suffer a variety of adverse mental health effects, including depression, anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a new report by the Texas After Violence Project (TAVP).

There are many ways in which the death penalty harms families. For the murder victims’ family members, the death penalty establishes a hierarchy of victims where some lives are valued more than others. It turns family members against each other. It creates a class of “good” victims and “bad” victims.

According to some psychiatrists, the results of being confined to death row for an extended period of time, including the effects of knowing one will die and the living conditions, can fuel delusions and suicidal tendencies in an individual and can cause insanity in a form that is dangerous.

In the United States, most states give the meal a day or two before execution and use the euphemism “special meal”. Alcohol or tobacco are usually, but not always, denied. In Louisiana, the prison warden traditionally joins the condemned prisoner for the last meal.

death row inmates are allowed up to three non-contact visits per week that are limited to one hour each while life without parole inmates may qualify for contact visits and are usually allowed at least two visits per week of at least one hour.

In April 2011, New York adopted legislation to allow family visits for married partners. In January 2014, the head of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, Chris Epps, terminated the state conjugal program. The four states that currently allow conjugal visits are California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington.

Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon, or commutation of sentence; pardon or commutation of sentence may be granted in all cases of capital punishment.

In most cases, a witness room is located adjacent to an execution chamber, where witnesses may watch the execution through glass windows. All except for one of the states which allow capital punishment are equipped with a death chamber, but many states rarely put them to use.

A prison cemetery is a graveyard reserved for the dead bodies of prisoners. Generally, the remains of inmates who are not claimed by family or friends are interred in prison cemeteries and include convicts executed for capital crimes.

He ate his final meal at 9:30 am local time; he requested roast beef, bacon, french fries and soda. He was pronounced dead at 6:55 pm and had made no last statement.

Mecklenburg Six: How death row inmates busted out of prison that was considered ‘escape-proof’ Nevertheless, on May 31, 1984, with little more than a stretcher, a blanket, and a portable TV, they pulled off the largest escape of Death Row inmates in U.S. history. Brothers James and Linwood Briley were the ringleaders.

Since 1977, the states of Texas (464), Virginia (108) and Oklahoma (94) have executed the most death row inmates. As of 2010, California (683), Florida (390), Texas (330) and Pennsylvania (218) housed more than half of all inmates pending on death row.

The brothers were executed in the electric chair at the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond; Linwood on October 12, 1984, and James on April 18, 1985. Linwood was survived by one son, Norman Laquan Ampy, who later served time in prison for bank robbery and died in 2015.