Gabriela Munoz

Econ

Period: 2

DEATH PENALTY

TYPES OF DEATH PENALTIES• Lethal Injection

• Electrocution

• Gas Chamber

• Firing Squad

• Hanging

WHAT IS IT?• The death penalty is the sentence of execution for murder and some other capital crime

• In California totaled over $4 billion since 1978

• $1.94 billion for pre-trial and trial cost

• $925 million for automatic appeals and state Habeas Corpus Petitions

• $775 million for Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals

• $1 billion Cost of Incarceration

LETHAL INJECTION• Lethal Injection is the practice of injecting a person with fatal dose of drugs.

• Three-drug protocol

• Sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, anesthetics to put the inmate to sleep. Then injected with pancuronium bromide which paralyzes the entire muscle system and stops the inmates breathing. Potassium chloride stops his heart.

• Went from 83.35 to 1,286.86 each.

ELECTROCUTION• Electrocution started in 1888 in New York where they executed William Kemmler 2 years

later in 1890.

• $70 million per execution.

Electrocutions gone wrong

• Sakko and Vanzetti were charged with a murder that they didn’t commit. They were both executed on July 14 th, 1921,

GAS CHAMBER• Gas chamber was first used in 1924 for the use of cyanide gas in Nevada.

• Also used in the concentration camps during World War II to execute the Jews.

• The inmate dies from hypoxia, the cutting-off of oxygen to the brain. At postmortem, an exhaust fan sucks the poison air out of the chamber, and the corpse is sprayed with ammonia to neutralize any remaining traces of cyanide.

• Gas chamber has been outlawed.

• To built the Gas chamber cost at $3,570 in 1937.

FIRING SQUAD• Prisoner is bound and shot through the heart by multiple marksmen, death appears to be

quick, if they don’t miss.

• Only Utah used this method and it was abounded in favor of the lethal injection on March 15, 2004.

• If on death row prisoners have an option for the firing squad.

• Method used in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and other countries.

• Much cheaper than the death penalty

HANGING• Hanging was the primary method of execution in the United States.

• Hanging is only available as an option to condemned inmates in Washington State.

• Noose is placed behind the prisoners left ear so as to snap the neck upon dropping when the trap door opens.

• It doesn’t tell me the price.

IF I WERE IN CHARGE?• I would take away the death penalty.

• Much cheaper and life in prison with no chance of parole is worse than the death penalty.

IS IT WORTH IT?• Economically the death penalty isn’t worth it because it’s a lot of money just to execute

one person.

• The prisoner can be on death row for a while and that’s million of dollars down the drain just waiting for this execution day.

• Cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them.

• It takes about 4.2 million for each execution.

DEATH PENALTIES GONE WRONG• Carlos DeLuna

• Texas Conviction: 1983 Executed: 1989

• Was executed in 1989 for stabbing to death a gas station clerk in Corpus Chrisit six years earlier.

• Lena Barker

• Was the only women executed in the state during the 20 th century.

• Executed for the murder of Ernest Knight a white man who hired her.

• Barker was tried, convicted and sentenced to die in one day by an all-white, all-male jury.

• She calmed it was self-defense.

DEATH PENALTY STATISTICS• In the US about 13,000 people have been legally executed since colonial times.

• As of 2002 only 12 states and the District of Columbia did not have the death penalty.

• People in high homicide states demanding the death penalty as a perceived deterrent.

WHY GET RID OF IT?• Innocence and the death penalty

• There have been 18 cases where it was later found that they were innocent because of DNA testing.

• The death penalty can prolong suffering for Victims’ families.

• Traumatizing experience for families.

• Racial Disparities

• Race of the victim and the race of the defendant in capital countries are major facts in determining who is sentenced to die in this country.

COST & SAVES• California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with

permanent imprisonment.

• California would save a lot of money taking away the death penalty.

• California has spent $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978.

• Spend 184 million on the death penalty per year because of the additional cost of capital trials, enhanced security on death row, and legal representation.

WORKS CITED• http://

www.forwardprogressives.com/wyoming-lawmaker-proposes-using-firing-squad-to-execute-death-row-inmates

• http://www.religioustolerance.org/executp.htm

• http://definitions.uslegal.com/l/lethal-injection/

• http://standdown.typepad.com/weblog/2012/02/the-cost-of-lethal-injection-drugs.html

• http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

• http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm

• http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut3.htm

• http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42