The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty In Texas

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Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, is a legal penalty in the United States that, currently, is permissible in thirty-one states. Texas, one of those thirty-one states, has seen a widespread of debate regarding the constitutionality of the punishment. Yet, despite the punishment being unconstitutional to the United States and Texas constitution, in my opinion, capital punishment has its advantages and disadvantages to both plaintiff and defendant within a case. In this essay the history of the death penalty in Texas will be first discussed with the changes it has seen over the course of 93 years. Next, the case would be made regarding why I believe the death penalty is unconstitutional to both the United States and Texas …show more content…
For the defendant, or the one accused, the most obvious disadvantage is that he will be killed. Another disadvantage, is that it is continuing the circle of death. For example, if a defendant is executed for murdering a peace officer while on duty then we are just continuing Hammurabi’s code: an eye for an eye – a life for a life. In the end this resolves nothing and results with two deaths. Additionally, another disadvantage of the death penalty is that there have been several cases where individuals have been executed who were innocent. For example, in the case of Carlos De Luna, he was executed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. De Luna was accused for stabbing Wanda Lopez to death despite having no drop of blood on him and even identifying the person who he had seen at the crime. Policemen had an eyewitness confirm that it was De Luna who had committed the crime after telling him De Luna was the murderer. The real culprit, a man named Carlos Hernandez, had a similar appearance to De Luna and had admitted to the crime. Yet, De Luna was still executed despite being innocent. It is cases like these were many errors were made that led to the wrong person being robbed of life. Like, Adam Benforado states in his book about the failing criminal justice system, Unfair, “even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would, still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatments.” Moreover, disregarding morality, a case can be made that the death penalty costs more than what it is worth, “Each death penalty case in Texas costs taxpayers about $2.3 million. That is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40
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