What is the issue with death penalties in the US?

Answer 1

Enforcing the death penalty isn't cheap. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, "the average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought."

Answer 2

The death penalty raises a number of moral issues, not the least of which is that it lowers those claiming to seek justice to the same level as those they kill. We should ask what those who advocate the death penalty are trying to achieve. Certainly not a safer society, since jurisdictions that still use the death penalty do not have lower murder rates than jurisdictions that do not. If they are seeking blind revenge, then this demeans them and demeans society.

Another important moral issue is the risk that the prisoner could later be found to have been innocent of the crime. Some victims of this barbaric method of punishment have been found entirely innocent on subsequent investigation, but even if he or she had been guilty of a lesser crime, such as being an accomplice, there is no compensation that can be given for a faulty, careless or incompetent judicial process. At least, life imprisonment can be overturned if appropriate.

Answer 3

A legal issue that has often been raised in the US concerns a clause of the US Constitution which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". Some people think that the death penalty is cruel and unusual, and some people don't.

Another View: It would be more correct to ask "What is the controversy surrounding the death penalty?"

Because (in the US) there currently is no legal issueabout it. 35 states, the federal government and the US Military still adhere to the imposition of the death penalty and 15 states do not.

Answer 4

A certain percentage of the population wants it - a certain percentage of the population does not. It's as simple as that.

Answer 5

Most succinctly, it is in the hypocrisy of the state sanctioning that which is prohibited to individuals--that is, the taking of a human life.

Answer 6

depends on year and time. most commonly it was prison conditions and executions.