Abolition of the Death Penalty

Jeremy Brooks Suzanne Gerbasi Coms 101-37 10/30/12 Persuasive Speech Topic Abolition of the oddment Penalty General Purpose To Persuade Specific purpose To persuade my audience that we should abolish the expiration penalization in calcium. Central Idea The death punishment should be abolished because of the inefficiency of the legal system, its high economic cost, and its moral implications. I. Introduction When I joined the current debate team in high school, I knew I would have to learn to respect and accept points of view different than my own.Arguing both sides of a hot topic taught me to value the merit of my oppositions points. With much research and an open-mind, I even came to vary my opinions on many issuesincluding my support of Californias death punishment. After getting down to organization tacks and really looking at the facts, I concluded that the negatives far outweigh any positives of the death penalty. Along with the extremely high costs, it uses up countless ho urs of motor inn time and often discriminates against certain groups of passel.While other countries have moved forward and outlawed this practice, we remain clinging to an idea that is no longer practical or good in todays world. California needs to abolish the death penalty and save our time, tax dollars, and innocent peoples lives. You would think that safekeeping person alive for the rest of their life would be a greater financial burden then simply condemning them to their death, right? Wrong. In this counter-intuitive situation, kill a person is a much more complicated process than it seems.When you add up the costs of pre-trial legalities, the actual trials themselves, appeal court topics, and the necessary enslavement of convicts in maximum-security prisons, the total has robbed Californians of an exorbitant amount of money. Exactly how much is that? Well, a study by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Prof. Paula Mitchellconcluded that the death penalty in California has cost u s more than $4 billion since 1978. Furthermore, according to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, the death penalty policy is presently costing our state at least $137 million each year.Now compare this to the cost of a life without parole system-which would only cost the state $11. 5 million a year. Do the math a switch to this kind of system would save more than $125 million dollars annually- that isnt mere poke change. Now lets take a look at how well the death penalty works in practice. To give you a tantrum of how inefficient Californias death penalty system is, according to the Death Penalty Information Center- 86% of inmates die from other causes before they deal be executed.This is because inmates spend their time appealing, finding expert witnesses, and looking for loopholes in the system to drag out the court process. This takes up the valuable time of our control resources of qualified judges and lawyers. By switching to a system that giv es convicted felons life without parole, we would bring inmates to a similar standard of other prisoners convicted of serious felonies. This would restore valuable court time to judges and lawyers while still making sure that the lawbreakers are given the punishment they deserve.So what happens when it actually comes to executing people? The death penalty has proven to be unfairly biased in many ways by the human rights organization Amnesty internationalist. First of all, it is racially biased. Amnesty Internationals research has found that, Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (77%) have been executed for killing white victims, even though African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims. Secondly, the death penalty doesnt take mental illness into account. Therefore, dozens of prisoners have been executed despite their disabilities.Third, most people sentenced to death cannot afford to hire their own attorney. This means the state has to provi de them with an unmotivated lawyer who will not likely present his best case possible. In addition, political factors, chance, and location can all decide whether a person lives or dies. Do we really want to make such an of the essence(p) decision- condemning a person to death- when such arbitrary conditions are present? Take into account that I have not even mentioned up to at once the many times we have gotten it wrong and executed or had to release innocent victims.Amnesty reports that more than 140 people have been cleared from crimes after being sentenced to die. I certainly dont want that hanging over my conscience. To be fair, since I have said why we should abolish the death penalty I suppose it is fair to give the two main arguments in favor of the death penalty a chance. One main reason I hear people say they support the death penalty is because it is a deterrent that scares people into cooperating. However, at that place is no evidence to suggest that this is true. In fact, there is evidence to support that opposite.FBI data shows that the states without a death penalty have lower homicide rates on average. Also, most homicides happen on a whim- importee the killer probably isnt clearly thinking through the consequences of his or her actions at the time of the crime. The other argument I hear is that it is cheaper to kill someone than take care of him or her until they die. Based on the data I provided earlier we know this is false. With a strong case for the abolition of the death penalty in California, it is time to let you know what you can do to make this happen.Besides educating your friends, protesting the death penalty, and joining nonprofit organizations like Amnesty International, the most effective whole step you can take today to stop the death penalty is mark a yes on your ballot next to Proposition 34. Prop 34 would change our flawed policy to the life without parole option I mentioned. This would save valuable court time, taxpayers dollars, and ensure that we arent being racially biased or murdering innocent people. Any way you look at it, the death penalty needs to die.