The death penalty is an ineffective, expensive, inefficient, discriminatory, and morally corrupt penalty that places the United States and the company of such distinguished nations as China, Iran, and North Korea. It distinguishes the United States from virtually the entire Western world, with the sole exception of Belarus.
The death penalty is ineffective because it does not serve as a deterrent. Statistics compiled by Amnesty International show that states with the death penalty have higher murder rates than states without it. However, a few examples can show this much more vividly than some dry statistics compiled by an advocacy organization. Does anyone seriously believe that the death penalty deterred Tim McVeigh from committing his atrocity in Oklahoma City? Quite the contrary: he expected execution and considered himself a martyr to his vile cause. Charles Manson committed the Tate-LaBianca murders while California had the death penalty. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because it was declared unconstitutional after his conviction. The fact that it was in effect at the time of the murderers deterred neither him nor his equally deranged followers. His case shows a further in adequacy of the death penalty as deterrent. Had he been executed he would have gained notoriety much the same as Bonnie and Clyde; however, life in prison has made him into something of a buffoon in the eyes of the public.
Perhaps the argument could be made that the death penalty is in fact a deterrent because it has "prevented" many murders. This argument is specious. You can ask as many non-murderers as you wish why they have not murdered anybody, and the answer you will receive will be something to the effect that it is wrong or immoral, or that they have not had a reason to kill anybody. You will not find that they say they do not commit murder because of the death penalty. If you ask people on death row whether the death penalty was a factor in their decision, the answer (assuming you are not laughed out of the room) will be "No," or they did not expect to be caught.
The death penalty is expensive and inefficient. After a death sentence is handed down, there are years, often decades, of appeals. Tying up the courts and the time of numerous attorneys is obviously expensive, and this expense is borne by the taxpayers. And this does not include the cost of incarceration. Death penalty prisoners cannot do any work or anything of economic value: there are no offsets to the cost of imprisoning them. This expensive burden therefore does not protect us in the way we have a right to expect.
The system cannot even deliver an execution when the convict requests it. Jeffrey Dahmer, the necrophiliac and cannibal, expressed a wish to be executed, but received instead a sentence of life in prison. He did not last very long, simply antagonizing enough fellow prisoners that it was only a matter of time until someone murdered him. He got his request, albeit extra-judicially.
Discrimination is a hallmark of the death penalty. Again per amnesty international statistics, the death penalty in the United States is much more likely to be carried out if the victim is white, or if the accused cannot afford the best available counsel. Leopold and Loeb, for example were spared the death penalty because of the excellent defense by Clarence Darrow. Interestingly enough, Loeb later expressed remorse for the crime, something that would not have happened had he been executed. O.J. Simpson beat the rap altogether because of Johnnie Cochran and his high-powered defense team. Most inhabitants of death row do not have the resources to retain such legal luminaries. Money talks.
The death penalty is corrosive to our country's moral fabric. Prosecutorial misconduct is not unheard of in these high-stakes prosecutions. Again, Amnesty International has several examples. Even in the absence of misconduct, dealings in the community often run so high that a fair verdict is impossible. The death penalty distorts scripture as well. There is a notion that the death penalty is "biblical" because the death penalty is mentioned in the Bible. However, Judaism attenuated the death penalty in Talmudic times, making it so difficult to impose the death penalty that it fell into disuse.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the death penalty and its application is our apparent inability to see the condemned as human. They are considered "other," different races, different socioeconomic status, different cultures and different morality. Granted that many of these criminals are sociopaths and represent a danger to society; even so, they are human, and deserve to be treated as such. The death penalty denies their humanity, and in so doing, diminishes our own.
A society is measured by how it treats its weakest members. In this regard, ours does not measure up.