According to the U.S. Department of Justice: "The death penalty can only be imposed on defendants convicted of capital offenses — such as murder, treason, genocide, or the killing or kidnapping of a Congressman, the President, or a Supreme Court justice. Unlike other punishments, a jury must decide whether to impose the death penalty."
In theory, I believe the death penalty is appropriate when it comes to murder and treason. In practice, I do not believe the death penalty can be applied fairly.
My opposition to the death penalty began in 2000, when Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, instituted a moratorium on the death penalty.
This motivated me to ask my older brother and sister-in-law about the death penalty. They met as young prosecutors in the Bronx County District Attorney Office.
They were both firmly against the death penalty. They did not think the death penalty could be applied fairly.
More than twenty years later, I don't believe we will ever find a way to apply it fairly.
Even with the best of intentions, human beings will always make some mistakes. Even the most talented lawyers occasionally make mistakes.
Since 1973, 193 people have been exonerated from death row in the United States.
If someone receives a life sentence, in theory, we can undo that mistake. If an innocent person is executed, there is no way to undo the damage.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1977 to 2021, 1,540 people were executed in the United States.
In 2022, there were only 20 death sentences and 18 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since the death penalty was restored in the '70s, the number of annual executions peaked in 1999 with 98 executions.
As our country has become more politically polarized in the last few decades, I cannot ignore the possibility that a malicious, and partisan, prosecutor could knowingly execute an innocent person in future. Although President Donald Trump is not currently facing the death penalty, there is no telling what the future will bring.
According to Pew, in 2021, 60% of Americans supported the death penalty. In the same poll Republicans, and independents who lean Republican, (77%) supported the death penalty far more than the Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democrats (46%).
If Republicans worked with the Democrats to abolish the death penalty, they could make headway with minority voters. In the same 2021 Pew poll, 85% of African Americans and 61% of Hispanics agreed with the statement that, "Black people are more likely than White people to be sentenced to the death penalty for committing similar crimes."
For the record, I agree with this view. We cannot ignore racial disparities in our legal system.
According to the United States Sentencing Commission, from 1998 to 2016, Black men received longer sentences than white men who committed the same crime. On average, Black men served in prison for nearly 20% longer than white men, who committed the same crimes, from 2007 to 2016.
In 2023, 23 states have abolished the death penalty. The governors of California, Pennsylvania, and Oregon have imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.
I do not believe that the costs of keeping the death penalty outweigh the benefits of abolishing it.
Furthermore, I do not want the United States to be in the same league with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and other human rights abusers. It is time to abolish the death penalty in the United States.
In 1977, only 16 countries abolished the death penalty. By 2022, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty.
According to Amnesty International, at least 883 executions took place in 2022. The real number is much higher.
China and North Korea do not provide public data on executions, but Amnesty International has estimated that China executes thousands of people every year.
Although Vladimir Putin's Russia has an official moratorium on the death penalty, many of Putin's critics have been killed over the years. In August 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, co-founder of the Wagner Group, Dmitry Utkin, and other Wagner Group members were killed in a plane crash.
Nobody knows if Putin gave the order, but this plane crashed exactly two months after the Wagner Group led an unsuccessful rebellion against Putin.
The United States can send a message to every dictator in the world that no government should have the power to execute its citizens. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Robert Zapesochny is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on foreign affairs, national security and presidential history. He has been published in numerous outlets, including The American Spectator, the Washington Times, and The American Conservative. When he's not writing, Robert works for a medical research company in New York. Read Robert Zapesochny's Reports — More Here.
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