TALKING POINTS:
THE DEATH PENALTY AS A CONSUMER FRAUD ISSUE

The death penalty is a fraud on consumers that does none of the things it is claimed to do.

First, It does not solve our murders by convicting the guilty – as we know, plenty of innocents are condemned to death –understandably, because once a heinous murder takes place, one which is likely to call for the death penalty, police and prosecutors are under terrific pressure to find someone, and they do, and it is not always the person who did it.

Second, It does not sentence to death the worst of the worst. Only 1-2% of convicted murderers are sentenced to death in Illinois. The other 98% are sentenced to terms of years. The other 98% consists of murderers whose crimes are at least as heinous as those committed by the 2% on death row. It depends not on how bad the crime is but on the county in which the crime is committed, the judge, the lawyer, the race, class and mental state of the defendant, and the race of the victim.

Third, it is outrageously costly. Sentencing someone to death and executing him or her is at least 3 times as expensive as sentencing a murderer to life without parole, calculating 40 years as the average time a lifer will survive in prison. This is because the sentencing hearing itself becomes a separate and lengthy trial, requiring experts on both sides. The appeal briefs are 9 times as long as the appeal briefs in a regular murder case and require 9 times as much legal time to work on the appeals. And the Supreme Court, which hears all capital cases, but almost no non-capital murder cases, must spend a huge amount of time researching, hearing, deciding and writing opinions in these cases. And the worst part of the expense is that about half of all death penalty cases are reversed on appeal. So that is really wasted expense, even if you believe in the death penalty.

Fourth, it does not deter crime in general or murder in particular. All studies confirm that. Our neighbors who do not have the death penalty – Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan, have lower crime rates than Illinois. Most people who commit murder do not go out intending to kill, and those who do always figure they will not be caught.
Fifth, we do not need the death penalty to keep us safe. Sentences of life without parole and super-max prisons insure that people who are dangerous will not be a threat to anyone, in prison or out.

Fifth, it does not provide closure to victims’ family members. How can you ever have closure for the death of a loved one. On the contrary, it encourages them to spend their whole being to seeing the state kill the killers, in the belief that the execution, if and when it comes, will somehow make them feel better. What kind of system does that to people? In fact, the 98% of victims’ family members whose perpetrators receive lesser sentences, are able to get the court proceedings behind them in a short time and go on with their lives. They are more fortunate than those whose lives become focused on looking forward to the death of another human life.

Finally, it focuses on the end of the cycle of violence instead of the beginning, looking to punishment rather than prevention, thereby exacerbating the violence in our society that it is designed to quell, and taking funds from such programs as educational enrichment, nutrition programs, juvenile programs, correctional education, and community policing,

Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Illinois Coalition to Abolish The Death Penalty
Executive Director Jane Bohman
332 S. Michigan Ave., Ste. 500
Chicago, IL 60604

Phone: 312-673-3816
Fax: 312-427-6130

www.icadp.org