Office for Justice and Peace
Myths and Facts about California's Death Penalty
Death Penalty Focus of California
74 New Montgomery Street, Suite 250
San Francisco, CA 94105-3411
Myth: Execution is cheaper than imprisonment.
FACT:
- It costs more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life.
- A New York study revealed it cost $2.8 million to try an indigent capital defendant through the first stage of appeals ? more than twice the cost of life imprisonment. The study concluded that it would cost about $850,000 to keep an inmate in prison for 40 years.
- In 1988, the Sacramento Bee reported that California spends at least $1 million to prosecute each death penalty case at both the trial and appellate levels. One case has already cost more than $5 million.
- The Sacramento Bee concluded that taxpayers could save $90 million per year if the death penalty were abolished: "It now costs the state much more to attempt to execute someone than to lock the person up for life without parole." Can California, which faces massive budget cuts in education, social services and other desperately needed programs, afford to waste mil-lions of dollars on state killing?
Myth: The death penalty is just punishment for murder.
FACT:
- Killing murderers to demonstrate that killing is wrong makes no sense ? it is false logic.
- The death penalty is not a just punishment for murder. We do not burn the homes of arsonists or sexually abuse rapists. A murderer should be punished ? but not by execution.
Myth: The death penalty deters crime.
FACT:
- Scientific studies have failed to conclusively prove that executions deter other people from committing crime. According to Dr. Ernst van den Haag, a well-known scholar in favor of the death penalty, "? one cannot claim ? that it has been proved statistically ? that the death penalty does deter more than alternative penalties.".
- Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall has said, "The Death Penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment."
- People often kill when under great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol ? times when they are not thinking about the consequences. A person who plans a crime does not expect to get caught.
Myth: To be safe, we must execute murderers.
FACT:
- We all want to be safe from crime, but executions won?t shield society from the fear of random violence that fuels the death penalty debate. Killing human beings won?t make us safer ? it brutalizes everyone when the state kills in our name. Frequently, violent crime increases right after a highly publicized execution.
- As Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist Andrei Sakharov once said, "Savagery bets only savagery."
Myth: No alternative exists to the death penalty.
FACT:
- California judges have the option of sentencing convicted capital murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since 1978, more than 1,700 people have received this alternative sentence which includes no appeals process. The public can be assured that those who commit atrocious murders and receive this sentence will never be free again. A recent Field Poll showed support for the death penalty plummeted when alternative sentencing is available. Just 29 percent favored death over life without parole plus requiring the defendant to work in prison and give part of his/her earnings as restitution to the families of his/her victims.
- Executions do nothing to treat the causes of violent crime. By spending limited tax dollars on the death penalty, we are actually making our lives less safe by neglecting services that can stop crime before it starts: education, health care, law enforcement, proper child rearing and drug/alcohol abuse prevention. State killing is an empty ritual with no proven benefits.
- Too many politicians support the death penalty in order to appear "tough on crime." This lethal window dressing merely hides their inability to address complex social issues that might prevent crime.
Myth: The death penalty is fair.
FACT:
- Local politics, money, race and where a crime is committed can play a more decisive part in sending a defendant to the death chamber than the circumstances of the crime, according to Amnesty International. The death penalty is a lethal lottery: just 1 out of every 100 people arrested for murder is actually executed.
- The death penalty is not reserved for only the "worst" crimes. Often, one defendant receives a death sentence while another who has committed a far more heinous act receives a sentence of life in prison.
- In this century, at least 400 completely innocent people in the U.S. have been convicted and imprisoned for capital crimes they did not commit: 23 of them were executed.
- The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified.
Myth: Race has nothing to do with capital punishment.
FACT:
- Racism is an important factor in determining who is sentenced to die. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court case of McCleskey v. Kemp established that in Georgia someone who kills a white person is four times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who kills a black person.
- Only 31 out of the more than 15,000 recorded executions in this country have been of white defendants convicted of killing black victims.
Myth: The death penalty offers justice to victims' families.
FACT:
- Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma and loss which no one should minimize. But executions do not help these people heal their wounds.
- Execution of the murderer offers, at best, a feeling of "getting even." However, the extended process prior to executions prolongs the agony of the family. Often, considerable media attention is directed to the criminal, leaving the victim?s family feeling betrayed and neglected.
- Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the funds now being used for the costly process of executions were diverted to provide them with counseling and other help.
Myth: Other countries use the death penalty.
FACT:
- The vast majority of countries in Western Europe and North and South America ? more than 80 nations worldwide ? have abandoned capital punishment. According to Amnesty International, they include: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, El Salvador, France, Ger-many, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Vatican City and Venezuela.
- The United States is now in company with countries such as Iran, Iraq and China as one of the major users of capital punishment.
Myth: The Bible supports the death penalty.
FACT:
- Although isolated passages of the Bible have been invoked in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral. They include: American Baptist Churches USA, American Jewish Congress, California Catholic Conference, California Church Council, Christian Reformed Church, Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church in America, Mennonite General Conference, National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, Northern California Ecumenical Council, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church of America, Southern California Ecumenical Council, Unitarian/Universalist Association, United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.
- Literal interpretations of selected passages from the Bible, often quoted out of context, corrupt the compassionate spirit of Judaism and Christianity ? a spirit that focuses on redemption and urges
