Capital punishment is a dangerous and inefficient solution to a non-existent problem. As a country, we have the resources to imprison criminals who have committed horrible crimes for life without possibility of parole. We also have the resources to confine them in such a way they can do no further damage. Why, then, do we insist on death as a suitable punishment?
No matter how carefully we use our judicial system, no matter how many appeals we allow, wrongful conviction will always be a possibility. Nationally, 139 people have been freed from death row after they were found to be innocent. As long as the death penalty is in place, we will risk executing innocent people. It is a simple fact of life and human error.
The argument I most often hear for keeping the death penalty is it is cheaper than housing criminals in jail for the rest of their lives. In the past, this may have been true. However, under the current system, criminals on death row typically cost taxpayers much more than prisoners spending life without parole. This is because capital punishment cases require more expensive trials and more appeals with a public defender in order to cut down on wrongful convictions.
In 2011, a study of the death penalty in California reported the cost of housing a death-row inmate was $1,000,000 per year more than the cost of housing criminals with life sentences without parole. The idea that killing our criminals is less expensive than feeding them is simply untrue.
Beyond the impracticality of the death penalty, I have never understood why it should be seen as a just punishment at all. Life after death is debated in pretty much every religion, but as far as I can tell, no matter your religious affiliations, you believe after we die we either (1) go somewhere bad or somewhere good; (2) come back to this earth or (3) just fade out into oblivion. Let’s take these one at a time. For Christians, after death, a soul either goes to heaven or to hell. Sending a soul to a place of peace and plenty can hardly be seen as punishment. And Christians must have compassion, a trait that would never allow them to send a fellow soul to hell on purpose, nevermind that as believers saving people from hell is their job.
Practitioners of Judaism and Islam have similar views on life after death and similar mandates of compassion which should prevent them from sentencing a soul to eternal damnation. The next group of belief is after death all people cease to exist.
Sounds permanent, but again, I fail to see how that is retribution for a crime like murder. To me, being forced to live in a prison, and be stripped of all freedoms and thinking about your crimes, would be better punishment. Finally, practitioners of Buddhism and Hinduism believe in reincarnation. At first glance, this is the first belief in which I would be okay with sentencing someone to death. Karma brings the guilty back as a lesser creature: built in punishment, and we don’t have to do anything!
However, those of these faiths believe strongly in non-violence and compassion and believe even the guilty should be able to live out their current lives to the end.
Three different beliefs on life after death, none of which logically support the death penalty as a morally just punishment (which is not to say that they don’t do it anyway in many cases).
All this brings into question what exactly should be the “capital” punishment. What is the worst fate you can think of? To me, the worst punishment you could possibly give me is to take away every freedom I have.
To be confined in a room by myself, to be told when I could do the most basic human functions, would be a fate worse than death. Of course, the problem with punishing humans is no two humans will have the exact same fears. Still, I think in a country built on the idea of freedom in all pursuits, stripping our worst criminals of those rights is only poetic justice.
The main logical problem with capital punishment is the question of  what exactly makes it okay for us to murder someone, when that’s often exactly what we are punishing them for? Taking a human life is always wrong. No matter how sanitary the needles for execution are, or how far removed the executors are from the gritty facts of reality, those who sentence people to death are still taking a life. The life of a person who under a life sentence might still be able to repent and do some small amount of good.
What it really comes down to is whether or not you believe people who have done horrible things are still people.
We often strip those who commit violent crimes of their humanity, probably out of fear we could be capable of such atrocities. But criminals are still people, and no one ever gave us the right to play God with their lives.
As long as we have the resources to house criminals and keep them from hurting more people, we are morally obligated to use a punishment that is just and adjustable in case new evidence can exonerate them. Maximum security prisons can offer a fate much worse than death in retribution for society’s worst crimes. Eliminating the death penalty can save money, provide a quick fix for the justice system and help a lot of us sleep at night.