It seems like 2016 so far has been a year that we considered an idea or plan morally correct or incorrect. Instead of trying to communicate and try to find solutions for both sides of an argument, we the people in the United States divide each other more and more every day. I clearly stand the position that capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is unjustifiable in the United States. This is because racial and economic discrimination applies. The death penalty involves doctors who are sworn to preserve life in the act of killing. Lastly because states and taxpayers spend millions of dollars each year.
In 1972, the Supreme Court announced that "the imposition in caring out of the death penalty...constitutes cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the 8th and 14th amendment in the case of Furman vs Georgia. However four years later, the Supreme Court ruled that "the punishment of the death penalty does not invariably violate the constitution. The Supreme Court also stated that "objective standards to guide, regularize and make rationally reviewable the process for imposing the sentence death in the case of Greg versus Georgia. Racial discrimination plays a huge role and why the death penalty is unjustifiable. According to the American Civil Liberties Union comparing black-and-white offenders over the past century, the former were often executesd for what were considered less-than-capital offenses for whites, such as rape and burglary. (Between 1930 and 1976, 455 men were executed for rape of whom 405 — 90 percent — were black)." In other words African-American men were more likely to receive the death penalty than White- Americans in America. The American Civil Liberties Union also states that "further studies like that commissioned by the Governor of Maryland found that black offenders who kill white victims are at a greater risk of a death sentence then others primarily because they are so substantially more likely to be charged by the states attorney love with a capital offense."
If all our lives we have been told that doctors are supposed to cure and save our lives then why are they taking away lies in the death penalty? The death penalty goes against medical ethics. According to the American Medical Association, "the following would be considered unethical participation by physician in a legally are authorized execution; any action on the part of the physician which would cause the death of the condemned and an action which could automatically cause an execution to be carried out on a condemned prisoner."
As if the United States government couldn't have surprised us more with an increasing debt, in the amount of money we the people spend every year on the death penalty is shocking. According to the Death Penalty Focus, California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978 (about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out)...the study authors predict that the cost of the death penalty will reach $9 billion by 2030. The study also noted that if the state were to end the death penalty, $9 million would be saved. More over Boulder County's defense attorney Stan Garnett stated that, "Prosecuting a death penalty case through a verdict in a trial court can cost the prosecution well over $1 million." Also a cost estimate from 1973 to 2011 showed that the cost to US taxpayers for 8,300 death sentences has been $25 billion.
To sum up, serving a life sentence is the same as a death penalty because they both end up the same way. However the act of legally killing a prisoner in the justice system changes a country.
