5 minute action
Use these points to educate family, friends and community members or as background for your letter-to-the-editor, episode screening, or media alert.
- The death penalty does not function as an effective deterrent. States that have abolished the death penalty show no significant change in either crime or murder rates.
- The death penalty continues to be applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner. Defendants of color make up the majority of federal death row cases and executions, and are far more likely to be convicted if the victim is white.
- The death penalty is not cost effective. Executions cost the taxpayer far more than incarcerating a person for life.
- The U.S. is glaringly out of step with the other western democracies, all of whom have abandoned capital punishment as a barbaric relic of the past.
Support from the experts:
-
Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. 1994
"Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent." -
Death Penalty Information Center
At least 123 people have been exonerated from death row since 1972. -
S. Gross, "The Risks of Death: Why Erroneous Convictions are Common in Capital Cases," 1996
"During the jury selection process, any person opposed to capital punishment is dismissed by the prosecutors. Not only do these "death-qualified" juries exclude an extremely large proportion of the population, but they are also more likely to convict..."
