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Practical Arguments Against the Use of the Death Penalty
Juan Melendez18 years on death row in Florida
Kirk Bloodsworth9 years on death row in Maryland
Photos provided by Scott Langley
WHY end the death penalty?There is a high risk of executing innocent people.
Image from www.NAACP.org
Other well-publicized cases include Cameron "Todd" Willingham from Texas and Carlos De Luna, also from Texas.
WHY end the death penalty?In fact, innocent people may have already been executed.
Graphic from Death Penalty Information Center
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is expensive.
WHY end the death penalty?Our communities could be better protected by using our resources for effective crime-fighting measures.
Graphic from Death Penalty Information Center
From 1990 - 2009, death penalty states consistently had HIGHER murder rates than
states without the death penalty.
Murder Rates in Death Penalty States and Non-Death Penalty States
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is not a deterrent.
Image from Death Penalty Information Center
"People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty ... I have yet to see a death case among the dozens
coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial."
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2001)
WHY end the death penalty?Death sentences are reserved for the poor.
Shujaa Graham spent 4 years on California's death row for a crime he did not commit. He was raised on a plantation in the segregated South in the
1950s.
Photo provided by Scott Langley
Graphic from Death Penalty Information Center
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is disproportionately given to those convicted of killing white victims.
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is like a lottery of geography.
Graphic from Death Penalty Information Center
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is a bad policy for murder victims’ family members.
1/2013
WHY end the death penalty?The death penalty is a bad policy for murder victims’ family members.
Photo provided by Scott Langley
1/2013
