P.O. Box 5
Afton, NY 13730
607.639.8200

     The United States is the only Western industrialized nation that allows state-sponsored murder. More than half of all nations in the world have abolished the death penalty by either law or practice. The Death penalty allows the state to kill with premeditation and ceremony in the name of the law and of its people.

    The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, which is constitutionally banned by the 8th Amendment. When what is routine punishment to humans is done to animals, it is considered criminal. All current forms of execution involve some form of extreme physical pain and suffering. Even if a procedure of execution could be found that would not involve physical pain and suffering, there is no possible way to prevent the psychological finality and anxiety, which is similar to what is felt during a heart attack, that person goes through.

    Unlike criminal punishment, capital punishment is final and irrevocable. Since 1990 there have been at least 4 innocent people a year convicted of murder. The number of people put to death is IMPOSSIBLE to calculate. The judicial system is not perfect. Several factors, such as overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, faulty police work, coerced confession, the defendants previous criminal record, inept defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence and community pressure for a conviction explain how the system cannot guarantee there will never be a mistake. Several years after the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette said "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me". If an automobile manufacturer operated with similar failures rates, it would be run out of business.

    Retribution for the victim and their family should not be an excuse to allow the death penalty. One evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of Senator Robert Kennedy whom was assassinated said this in regard to the matter, "I was eight when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder?But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn?t want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and preying, "Please, God. Please don;t take his life too." I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family-another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief".

     Polls may show that approximately 70% of the American people favor the death penalty. These polls are misleading and do not expose the entire truth. The truth is that American support drops to 49% if the alternative of a life sentence with no opportunity of parole.

    The death penalty is also not a viable form of crime prevention. Policy chiefs were asked to rank the factors that reduce crime. The factors mentioned were curbing drug abuse, use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control. The death penalty was ranked the least effective. Also, most offenders plan out their crime and concentrate on escaping detection and arrest. The threat of putting to death will not discourage a person whom thinks their plan is perfectly organized and that they will not get caught. Reinstating the death penalty in Oklahoma has caused to murder rate to increase by one murder a month.

    The death penalty weakens socially based inhibitions against the use of lethal force to settle disputes. The standards of a mature society should provide a more measured response.