Alright, so we've all heard about the moral reasons against the death penalty, right? To bring up how it is a crime against humanity and all that would be me flogging the dead horse.

Let's take this from a legal perspective, shall we?

Before I began studying law in college, I was pro-capital punishment, and for good reason. I mean, any one who commits such heinous crimes such as serial killers should be put to death. I do not argue that some people just deserve the death penalty. The fact of the matter is that the government just doesn't do a good job at anything: including the death penalty.

For instance, did you know that in Texas currently, a person can be sentenced to death based on the prediction of a psychologist whether the person in question is capable or likely to commit future crimes? Thats right, a psychologist, paid by the state of course, can get up on the stand and testify, after a short evaluation with someone who is eligible for the death sentence, as to whether or not a person will commit crime in the future!

Oh no wait, it does get better. Not only is it a guess from the psychologist, but studies have shown that they are wrong in their predictions 2/3 times.

Ironically, when this point was brought up in court, one of the justices dissented saying "[Its not like the psychologists are wrong all of the time, only most of the time]."

In the landmark case Furman v. Georgia(1972) the court ruled that the current death penalty laws were arbitrary and that it would be prohibited until lawmakers could design new, just laws. Of course, the Supreme court was vague and set no standards for these new laws, which in turn created nothing more than confusion for the states in our union who administered the death penalty.

Did you also know that after the death penalty was reinstated by the case Gregg v. Georgia, that over 40 people known to have had mental retardation have been executed in the United States?

The point is, why worry about the costs and the price of humanity when you would trust a government to entertain the idea of administering death when it couldn't possibly be administered fairly and justly. Our government cant do anything right, why leave something as precious as human life within their hands? By giving the government the power to execute, we are dooming not only the innocent, but ourselves as well.

Learn more about this author, Whitney Blankenship.
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