by Mario Hernandez
Daily Lobo columnist
Of all industrialized nations, the United States is alone in a few categories. One of these categories is capital punishment. We are the only modernized and civilized country on the planet that still executes people.
Why is the U.S. still implementing capital punishment? Any way you look at it, the death penalty is wrong. It punishes the innocent along with the guilty; it is racially and economically compromising; it is hypocritical and morally wrong; and it costs you and me money.
According to the Bureau of Justice, 65 people in 11 states and the federal system were executed in 2003 - 24 in Texas; 14 in Oklahoma; seven in North Carolina; three each in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Ohio; two each in Indiana, Missouri and Virginia; and one each in Arkansas and the federal system.
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The self-proclaimed Bible Belt states are the biggest distributors of the death penalty, yet these are the states in which the dominant religion is Christianity. You might find it remarkable that Jesus - the most divine figure in Christianity - is against the death penalty, while the states in which Christianity is the strongest execute the most people. Most major religions in the world are against killing other human beings, yet we seem to believe that it is all right in the U.S.
"Since 1976, over 100 people have been released from death row based on newly discovered evidence of their innocence, almost 13 percent of the number executed," wrote Michael Coles in The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy. If only one out of every 1,000 people executed is innocent, that is still enough to justify an end to this antiquated practice. A sane and humane person would never trade the deaths of 999 guilty people for the death of one innocent person - it just doesn't make sense. When innocence cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt, no penalty whatsoever should be handed out, yet we continue to put innocent men and women to death.
When it comes to the distribution of victims of capital punishment, there are some startling statistics. About 90 percent of all people put on death row cannot afford an attorney at the time of trial. This means that the overwhelming majority of people up for capital punishment are too poor to afford quality representation. How fair is it to put someone up for the harshest punishment our country can legally give without even giving him or her the best defense possible? In this way, capital punishment is economically unfair. In other cases, it is racist.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "74 percent of those prosecuted for federal capital offenses are people of color. And of 21 federal prisoners currently facing death sentences, 17 - or 81 percent - are members of racial and ethnic minorities." Former Attorney General Janet Reno even ordered a study to find out whether race played a role in the inequitable distribution of the death penalty. When even the government admits that there might be a failing on the part of the justice system, isn't it time we put this questionable practice to rest?
Capital punishment not only hits the heart - it hits the wallet, too. Capital punishment is costing the American taxpayers. Studies show that it costs more to keep an inmate on death row and to put him or her to death than it does to keep him or her in jail for life. Cases that begin as capital trials - where the punishment being sought is the death penalty - are much more expensive than normal murder trials. The process is longer, tying up our courts for more time, which in turn costs us more money in taxes. In a recent study, Duke University researchers showed in North Carolina, capital cases cost an average of $2.16 million more per case.
Capital punishment isn't just hypocritical and immoral, it isn't smart economically, either. It is time that we caught up with the rest of the civilized world when it comes to punishing our citizens.
