6 October 2014
Ed Quillen wrote an article titled, "The Death Penalty's Costs." This is the first article I chose to look at for my research on the Death Penalty. There are many opposing view points on this topic and Ed addresses one that I particularly wanted to focus on, the cost. He discusses how it costs a lot of public money to prosecute a death-penalty case, starting in district court and working through the required reviews and inevitable appeals. And often, tax money finances both sides of this expensive course when defendants are represented by public defenders. Ed mentions the State Representative of Colorado, a Louisville Democrat, Paul Weissman, and his arguments upon the costs of the death penalty. Weissman argues that there are at least 1,000 unsolved murders in Colorado alone, and that the state should take the money that has been going to death-penalty cases, and use it to fund a cold-case squad. This money adds up to about $2 million a year. The article does not only give the estimated costs in one state alone, but it also gives us a reasonable explanation on how if keeping the death-penalty might actually save money. If the defense attorney convinces the client to take life in prison without parole instead of the death-penalty, which means they spend the expense of trying the case and ensuing decades of reviews and appeals. If there were no death penalty on the books, then obviously this sort of money-saving plea bargain would not occur.
After reading this article it not only confirmed my knowledge on how expensive the death penalty is, but it also gave me a viewpoint on the cost that I had not thought of before. I have heard much talk when the dispute on whether or not to eliminate or keep the death penalty of how expensive it is. From reading this article, Ed gave me another viewpoint on if this money were to be saved with the elimination of the death penalty then there would be millions of dollars that the government could use on other things. Money is very well needed in America today, with the trillions of dollars we are in debt right now. I never really thought about the use for the money saved. That could really benefit the economy. He also gave me a side I had not heard and plan to study more on. The idea that keeping the death penalty might actually save the government money in the long run. If the client is issued with life in prison without parole then a large sum of money is continuing to go to that case regardless of his sentence. If the death penalty were issued then his case would not be as important and only a select few would still be focusing on his case after death. The comparison of the costs is something I need to do more research on and if one is particularly more expensive. I never saw the death penalty as saving money, maybe because I always heard how expensive it was to dispute the drugs and order all the materials needed to prosecute someone. It knew the process was not easy but the dollar amount was never accurately known to me. This article gave me a new mindset in wanting to explore more about previous cases and if the cost would actual benefit by keeping life in prison or issuing the death penalty. You're doing well here, Julia. I just want to encourage you -- in the spirit of critical thinking -- to interrogate the validity of the question itself. How useful is it to argue the death penalty in terms of cost alone? Does this turn a human being into a number? Does it put a "life"-bounty on a criminal's head? I like the way you're thinking about this article. But don't be afraid to question the validity of an article's methodology as well. That's an important step in the critical process.
Like I perviously mentioned, I have a few questions after reading this article. I want to research further into the exact amounts it costs to execute the death penalty and the exact costs it is to issue life in prison. Are they similar? Is one dramatically different? And why might one be so much more expensive? I want to look up previous cases and see the process of execution and what drugs, nursing, and materials are needed. I really have never thought about the materials or types of drugs that were used, I always just thought about the generalization on the process. This will allow me to further my studies and study expert advice from hopefully, someone who has personally witnessed an execution. I may be reconsidering the costs and how my original opinion might be as accurate as I thought, or it could be. I am not quite sure yet. My next step is to continue researching the costs and answer the questions I have gathered from my article.
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