Death penalty politics

I'm opposed to the death penalty. I believe it is immoral to kill an unarmed person who poses no threat.

It looks like GOP presidential candidates are going to try to distract from the political mess created by the Dobbs decision by braying about how pro-death they can be. Setting aside the issue of morality, the death penalty wastes taxpayer money and has no deterrent effect.

" Studies from across the country have shown that the death penalty is highly expensive for taxpayers, even compared to prison sentences of life without parole. There are additional expenses even before an execution, related to legal costs, pretrial costs, jury selection, trial, incarceration and appeals. As to the actual execution, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that the Federal Bureau of Prisons spent close to $1 million on each execution carried out in the summer of 2020 ― more than it costs to incarcerate a federal prisoner for 25 years.

"Further, data shows that the death penalty does not have any true deterrent effect, which was Pence’s cited reason for supporting it. In 2021, the Sun Sentinel reported that “annual murder rates are consistently higher overall in the death penalty states than in the 22 without capital punishment.” According to the Gun Violence Archive, in the more than 100 mass shootings that took place in the first 10 weeks of this year, 82% of the resulting fatalities were in death penalty states.

"Ultimately, pro-death policies do little more than impose further trauma on victims and the people involved in the criminal justice system ― all of whom must participate in the drawn-out process created by a death sentence that often does not result in an execution."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/death-penalty-capital-punishment-2024_n_64f887bde4b0e9b3e9e97b6e