“Is putting someone to death “Necessary and Proper?” Recently a man by the name of Russell Bucklew was sentenced to death for murder and rape charges. During court, his attorney argued that Bucklew's rare disease and the lethal injection would react causing severe pain. The court ended up ruling 5-4 in favor of execution. What lesson are they trying to prove? That it’s okay to put someone through excruciating pain if they have done wrong? How does killing someone prove killing someone is wrong! The current 30 states that have the death penalty should abolish it. There are many instances where innocent people are sentenced to death, in fact, it has been over 156 people. Many people also believe that there is color discrimination involved in cases determining who goes to death row. On top of those reasons, the death penalty is not cheap, costing around $1.26 million. Is there a more effective option? What difference has the death penalty made if researchers say it has no effect on the decrease of murders?

The job of a jury is one of the hardest. They have the lives of accused people in their hands most of the time not knowing “innocent or guilty,” just using simple judgment. No one knows how many people have been falsely executed or how many will be, but according to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 10 people have been executed despite serious doubt about there guilt. If there is any doubt then why should they be executed anyway? What about the cases from the 1970s when DNA testing wasn't available? They could have made many mistakes.  Once one is executed there is no going back even if a mistake is made. “A recent study by Columbia University law school found that two-thirds of all capital trials contained serious errors.” After the cases where retried over 80% of the defendants were taken off of death row. Should there be more retrials?      

Discrimination should never be apart of a case determining life or death. A racial bias occurs in death penalty cases in both state and federal levels which is cruel and unacceptable. A University of North Carolina study shows that blacks are 3.5 times more likely to be charged with death than whites. Why can’t all races be treated equally in court? It seems as if the court does not care about those who are being sentenced-they didn't in Bucklew's case. Discrimination takes place in a lot of places where it shouldn’t and it’s costing more than just lives.

The death penalty is not cheap. $250 million is a lot of money just to be spent on killing people and there are a lot of people who agree with that statement. James Abbott, a police officer from New Jersey, states that “Give a law enforcement professional like me $250 million, and I’ll show you how to reduce crime. The death penalty isn’t anywhere on my list.” With the use of a firing squad, it cost $25,000, plus all the other execution options the price adds up. A more effective option would be to keep them in jail longer. To stay in cell cost $31,000 which is a lot more cost efficient than the death penalty.

Luckily some of the forms of execution are now abolished like crucifixion and guillotine, but other forms such as hanging, electric chair, stoning, and lethal injection still exist till this day. There are many instances where the execution did not go as planned which many refer to them as “botched executions”. During Angel Diaz’s execution, they took 51 minutes to try to find a vein for IV access. Things just kept going downhill after that and the execution took a total of 1 hour and 57 minutes for them to finally pronounce him dead. Another instance happened to a man by the name of Joseph Woods, eyewitnesses claim that he did not go through any pain but by the way, the report put it he was breathing really heavily and gasping for air. His fight continued on for 2 hours until he finally passed. The states adopted lethal injection because it was supposed to be a more “Peaceful” way to die. In their words “No pain, No spasms, No smells, or sounds-just sleep than death.” But the way these cases were presented these two men were definitely in pain. Although they did something wrong, why should they have to go through that much pain? Abolishing the death penalty all together will save everyone for the potential of a horrific “botched execution”.

The death penalty is not “Necessary and proper.” Discrimination should not be a factor that is incorporated in cases determining life, especially because the wrong person could be executed in the end. There are many other ways that people could be punished besides death. The end of the death penalty would be the end of expensive executions and the end of  “botched executions.” It would also end wrongful court ruling like Bucklews. Most importantly it would save the 2,621 inmates who as of March 19, 2019, are fighting for their lives on death row.