Savannah Lindley

Elaine Decker
Mrs. Henry
Service Learning, Period 4
9 March 2015
Death Penalty Debate
Opening Statement:
These are the words of Shareef Cousin, interviewed by CNN: There was a
videotape of me in 1995 playing basketball just before the time of a murder in New
Orleans French Quarter. There was even a clock showing the time on the videotape. My
basketball coach was driving me and my teammates home at the time of the crime. My
airtight alibi didnt matter. The eyewitness to the murder, who was on a first date with the
victim, told the police she was not wearing her contact lenses or glasses and could only
see shapescritical information that the prosecution withheld from my attorneys. She
was pressured to change her story. At my trial, she identified me as the killer and told the
jury, I will never forget that face. The United States has, on average, five exonerations
per year--a total of one-hundred and forty-four death row exonerations since 1973. The
average amount of years between their sentences and their exonerations are 10.1 years.
Lets put it this way, these people were being sentenced to death when they were innocent
and, if evidence hadnt turned up, would have been put to death and the mistake would be
irreversible. According to Death Penalty Focus: eyewitness error, government
misconduct, junk science, snitch testimony, and false confessions are the primary cause
of wrongful convictions.
The innocent are not the only ones affected by the death penaltythe families of
the murder victims are affected as well. When someone is put on death row, those
families constantly have their old wounds reopened due to endless headlines and trials.
Some families have even come together to create organizations that focus on ending the
death penalty such as Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, Murder Victims
Families for Human Rights, and Journey for HopeFrom Violence to Healing. When
someone is put on the death penalty, the legal consequences are the primary focus while
the consequences put on humans are ignored and the death penalty ends up only creating
more victims. According to the DPIC, a man named Ronald Carlson witnessed the
execution of his sisters killer in 1989 and stated he felt horror and emptiness. Families
of murder victims in Maryland protested against the death penalty and testified before the
Maryland Senate Judiciary Committee in 2008. The mother of a murder victim expressed
the same feelings towards the execution of the killer for over three decades, after her
daughter was murdered in 1980. Countless books have been written in dedication to the
emotional hardship and long, wearing process of the death penalty, including Living with
the Death Penaltya collection of stories from all those involved in the death penalty
process including the families of murder victims and correctional staff.
Beyond the emotional consequences of the death penalty, the monetary burden is
astronomical. Taxpayers in California alone pay $90,000 more for each person on death
row each year compared to those in regular confinement. If California replaced the death
penalty with life without parole, $1 billion could be saved every five yearswith 670
people on death row, thats $63.3 million annually. But, if these numbers dont convince
you, just remember, The death penalty makes a murderer out of all of us.

Closing Statement:
The great leader, Gandhi, once said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world
blind. The eye for an eye way of thinking does not end violence, but instead prolongs
it. Getting revenge will not fix or erase the mistakes that have already been made. Think
about the Israeli-Palestine conflictA conflict, which has been going on since the ArabIsraeli War, over the Palestine land. The land was administered by the United Nations
Part of the land was to go to Arab and the other part was to go to Israeli. Arab was not
happy with this decision thus the Arab-Israeli War started. This war led to the Six-Day
war brought on by the Israeli, which then lead to the 1973 war and the cycle continued.
The conflict has been going on for sixty years and their eye for an eye method has yet
to accomplish anything. In order to move forward as a society, we must learn to avoid
retribution and, instead, use more sufficient methods.
The death penalty simply doesnt solve anything. Families would rather know
their loved ones killer is behind bars serving his or her time than they would like to be
continuously reminded of the horrendous crime that happened to their family and have to
deal with the weight that death row puts on their shoulders. It makes no sense to support
and fight for the death penalty in order to bring justice to the families when the families
are the ones in pain because of the death penalty. A majority of families dont want the
death penaltyso, if they dont want it and they arent willing to waste tax dollars on it,
then why should we?
California taxpayers spend $63.3 million more a year for those on death row than
they would if life without parole was used instead. If California alone could save that
much money, imagine how much the whole nation could save. Then, the money saved
from life without parole, could be used for other important things such as: education,
roads, police officers and safety programs, after-school programs, drug and alcohol
treatment, child abuse prevention programs, mental health services, and services for
crime victims and their families. The point of the death penalty is to rid the streets of a
criminalhowever, life without parole does the same thing. The only differences
between the two options are the cost and the time served. So now I ask you, why do we
kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?