The state of New Hampshire, along with much of the country, continues to live in the past.  Rather than make the decision to join the ever-growing campaign for human rights, state lawmakers failed to repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire by one vote.

After the House lawmakers passed the bill by an overwhelming majority, New Hampshire’s governor Maggie Hassan said she would sign the bill if it passed through the Senate according to an April 17 Washington Post article.

Unfortunately, the Senate vote ended in a 12-12 tie and theissue will be tabled for another time.

In reality, the vote had very little practical application.  New Hampshire hasn’t had an execution since 1936 and it only has one prisoner currently on death row.  Regardless, the failure of the Senate to effectively repeal the death penalty displays a way of thinking that’s almost archaic.

After several decades of public support for the death penalty, the general consensus has shifted heavily toward the opposite view.  A 2010 study run by Lake Research Partners showed that a clear majority of voters would pick some alternative to the death penalty in murder cases.  It’s an outdated practice that has no place in an age where civil rights are becoming more and more important.

The real issue here is that any argument put forward for the continuation of the death penalty has little to no empirical support.

One popular argument is that executing a convicted murderer is less costly than keeping them in prison for life.  The opposite seems to be true for most states.

A 2011 study from California added up the cost of every death penalty case in the state since 1978.  The study considered these factors: pre-trial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals and costs of incarceration on death row.  All told, these costs added up to more than $4 billion in California alone.

This is hardly the only study that shows figures like this.  Faced with these numbers, it seems hard to believe that the death penalty would ever incur a significantly lower cost than incarceration.

Another argument in support of the death penalty claims that it acts as a deterrent against murder and other violent crimes.  Again, studies suggest the exact opposite.  A survey of the country’s top criminologists revealed that 88 percent of them say the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder.

In addition to the fact that any supporting argument has stout evidence against it, the ethical issues are obvious.  It seems wrong to label the U.S.as a champion of human rights when it remains legal to execute death row inmates.

As if that isn’t bad enough, many death penalty cases display blatant racial biases. According to a 2014 study from the University of Washington, jurors in the state are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant.

Lastly, when people are being exonerated from death row at increasing rates, it’s wrong to condemn a person to death when there remains a chance they might be innocent.

New Hampshire was very close to seeing the light last week and may still get there.  However, the fact that they will be just the 19th state to see reason and repeal the death penalty is alarming.

The bottom line is that the death penalty is cruel and offers no benefit to the country or its citizens.  As such, it’s high time that the rest of the country joins the 21st century where people’s lives matter.

Published on April 22, 2014 at 1:00 am