In the history of the world, the punishment for murder, or homicide, has generally been the death penalty. This seems to be the most logical punishment. If someone intentionally kills an innocent human being, why should he be able to live? Or should he? Should he be forced to suffer for the remainder of his life for this terrible crime? Thereare many arguments and opinions on this topic; many reasons why we should sentence murderers to death, but many reasons we should not. One main reason we should not sentence these people to death is the cost. It simply costs too much to put people on death row. A gentleman in Texas quoted estimates in two counties near his home. They both estimated the cost of a capital trial to be $400,000 - $600,000 verses the cost of a non-capital trial, about $75,000. Then, 80% of these trials result in appeals, costing the tax-payers more for simply the cost of housing another criminal. At this point, the appeals court will invalidate about 30% of all death sentences, leaving us with only a 50% chance this criminal will actually be executed. (www.personalumich.com) The total cost we end up with is around $580,000 per execution. This is a substantially larger amount than we would pay for a criminal sentenced to life in prison without parole. We can achieve the same goal with each sentence: That this person will not murder anyone again. With the life sentence, we are able to make these people suffer for the remainder of his life, for the crime he committed. With the death sentence, the criminal gets off pretty easy; he dies and doesnt have the guilt on his conscience anymore. In Florida, a study was done showing each execution averaged $2 million, in North Carolina the average cost is $2.16 million above the cost for a non-death penalty trial with the imprisonment for life sentence. (Duke University, May 1993/ www.essential.ura.ldpic) The cost in California is $90 million annually. The State of Florida has sp...
