Death Penalty
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Death Penalty Cost
"Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present system ($137 million per year), the present system after implementation of the reforms ... ($232.7 million per year) ... and a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty ($11.5 million)." Recent Cost Studies A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000)
Execution of Juveniles in the U.S. and other Countries
Age at which Suspects are Tried as Adults in U.S. States The Execution of Juveniles in the the United States in the Modern Era The Execution of Juveniles in Other Countries Since 1990 AGE AT WHICH ALL SUSPECTS ARE TRIED AS ADULTS (The death penalty is forbidden in all states for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime following the Supreme Court's ruling in Roper v. Simmons (2005)) (source: Pamela Ferdinand, "Seventeen an Awkward Age, N.H. Juvenile Justice Finds," Washington Post, Mar. 27, 2002, citing the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs)
Exodus 21 NIV - “These are the laws you are to set
21 “These are the laws you are to set before them: Hebrew Servants 2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. 5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl.
Although isolated passages of religious scripture have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral. Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty The following religious organizations work against the death penalty from a perspective of faith. Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Catholic and Interfaith groups are all involved in the movement toward a moratorium on executions.
Death Penalty : Religious Perspectives on the Death Penalty
The international financial crisis of 2008-09 led to the first downturn in global output since 1946 and presented the world with a major new challenge: determining what mix of fiscal and monetary policies to follow to restore growth and jobs, while keeping inflation and debt under control. Financial stabilization and stimulus programs that started in 2009-11, combined with lower tax revenues in 2009-10, required most countries to run large budget deficits. Treasuries issued new public debt - totaling $7.6 trillion since 2008 - to pay for the additional expenditures. To keep interest rates low, most central banks monetized that debt, injecting large sums of money into their economies - between December 2008 and December 2012 the global money supply increased by more than 35%. Governments now are faced with the difficult task of spurring current growth and employment without saddling their economies with so much debt that they sacrifice long-term growth and financial stability.
The World Factbook
For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. ALBERT CAMUS, Resistance, Rebellion and Death I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives.
Quotes on the Death Penalty
Death Penalty and Innocence
Since 1973, over 130 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. In 2003 alone, 10 wrongfully convicted defendants were released from death row. "I cannot support a system which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life... Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate." --Governor George Ryan of Illinois, January 2000, in declaring a moratorium on executions in his state, after the 13th Illinois death row inmate had been released from prison due to wrongful conviction.
Facts on Post-Conviction DNA Exonerations
[Print Version] There have been 303 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. • The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 36 states ; since 2000, there have been 236 exonerations. • 18 of the 303 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row . Another 16 were charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death.Evolution of DNA Evidence for Crime Solving - A Judicial and Legislative History | Forensic Magazine
The extensive scrutiny that has been placed on DNA evidence over the years is due not only to the relative newness of the technique in the judicial system, but also to the sheer power of DNA to discriminate between individuals and hence to convict or exonerate. In recent years, legislative issues have become the focus, stemming from the increased use of DNA databanking and the movement to allow post-conviction DNA testing. Early Days DNA profiling was originally developed as a method of determining paternity, in which samples taken under clinical conditions were examined for genetic evidence that could link parent to child. It first made its way into the courts in 1986, when police in England asked molecular biologist Alec Jeffreys, who had begun investigating the use of DNA for forensics, to use DNA to verify the confession of a 17 year-old boy in two rape-murders in the English Midlands.
Timeline Eighteenth Century B.C. - first established death penalty laws. Eleventh Century A.D. - William the Conqueror will not allow persons to be hanged except in cases of murder. 1608 - Captain George Kendall becomes the first recorded execution in the new colonies. 1632 - Jane Champion becomes the first woman executed in the new colonies.
Part I: History of the Death Penalty
February 26, 2003 The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently awaiting execution. A moratorium of the death penalty is necessary to address the blatant prejudice in our application of the death penalty.
Race and the Death Penalty
So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy. -- ACLU Founder Roger Baldwin The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.
About the ACLU
How does the United States measure poverty? The United States determines the official poverty rate using poverty thresholds that are issued each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds represent the annual amount of cash income minimally required to support families of various sizes.