The constitutionality of the death penalty is being brought back to light due to a recent case in Oklahoma, and for good reason.
If you have read the news over the past two weeks, you may have come across an article from Tulsa World about death row inmate, Richard Glossip. Glossip was sentenced to death in 2004 in Oklahoma after being accused of hiring a man named Justin Sneed to kill his boss.
The victim, Barry Van Treese, was beaten to death by a baseball bat. The murderer, Sneed, was sentenced to life in prison in exchange for his testament against Glossip. On the other hand, Glossip, who wasn”t present at
Jessica Gee
the time of the murder, was given the death penalty.
Recently, complications with the ingredients for the lethal injection halted Glossip”s execution. This wasn”t the first time Glossip”s execution date has been postponed and was the second time his case was brought to the Supreme Court.
There are many arguments made in the media about how Glossip may have been innocent, which Glossip upholds. The only evidence providing that Glossip was guilty was Sneed”s testimony.
Allowing a possibly innocent man to be thrown into the gallows by the word of a murderer just goes to show that the American capital punishment system is broken.
The United States is one of the top five countries in the world that still sentences people to death, along with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to Pew Research Center. Most other developed countries such as Canada, Spain, France and the United Kingdom have abolished capital punishment, according to an article by Amnesty International.
Living in a country where the majority of states still uphold a law that is so barbaric is disappointing.
In Glossip”s case, let”s say that he and Sneed were both completely guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Lowering ourselves to their level by executing them doesn”t justify the punishment.
It is difficult to not tie emotional arguments into this discussion, yet they are hard to avoid. Many death penalty advocates use the argument, “What if it was your family that was murdered?”
I could never understand the sorrow of a family who has dealt with the loss of a loved one in this way. However, I do believe that forgiveness is more important than revenge, especially on an institutional level.
For the families, executing the criminal won”t bring the victim back. It won”t reverse the crime and it won”t make the event any less devastating. So the real question is whether or not the benefits of killing an inmate outweigh the costs, and from a logistic standpoint, they don”t.
The fiscal costs of using a lethal injection outweigh that of a criminal spending life in prison. A university in Seattle analyzed the costs of executions in Washington and found that each case that sought the death penalty cost about $1 million more than similar cases that didn”t utilize the death penalty. This trend is frequent throughout states that still practice capital punishment.
Taxpayer”s dollars could be used for more positive purposes, such as investment in rehabilitative programs.
Perhaps if using the death penalty resulted in lives being saved or if it cost less financially it could be justified. But it doesn”t, which leads me to believe that capital punishment is mostly sought after because people want revenge. Allowing the government to institutionalize retribution is unsettling.
In the event of murder or heinous crimes, there are no true winners.
One of my favorite quotes about the death penalty by Holly Near may be overused, but it is still extremely relevant and important to consider: “Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?”
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jaycgeek