Death Penalty

Fernando Guerrero Salazar
English 116
Professor Scanlan
October 5, 2011
Death Penalty Debate
In the article “How do you establish the price of justice?” written by Bonnie M Dumanis, she startshis article referring a brutal crime occurred in 2002 where David Westerfield was killer of a little kid named Danielle Van Dam who was only seven years old. Author tries to give us some kind ofexplanation that the only way that Danielle and her family will have justice is punishing Westerfield with the death penalty. Because of Westerfield actions, he deserved the capital punishment. Dumanisargues the cost argument that opponents to death penalty used frequently to qualify it costly for taxpayers. She provides the following information “The Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justicereleased the most comprehensive study on the death penalty in California history. It notes the cost for federal representation of a condemned prisoner in California is five times greater than thenational average – $372,000 in contrast to $65,000.” But she argues it providing information regarding how “a recent Field Poll revealed that 67 percent of California voters support capital death.” This istrue while voters support capital punishments is a feeling that criminal people deserved it for them and some retribution to victim and family is granted.



In the article “We can nolonger afford the death penalty” by Catherine Thiemann, she mentions that “If death penalty by actually deterred crime those cost might be worthwhile.” Respected criminal justice experts do not believethat death penalty act as deterrent. Thiemann includes in her article some statistics that support experts’ opinion such as:
“The United States is the only western democracy that retains Capitalpunishment, yet we have the highest homicide rate in the industrialized world.”
“In 2007, the murder rate in death penalty states (5.5 murders per 100,000 people) was nearly twice that of states without...