# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Euthanasia is the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering.

In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it, but there are cases called euthanasia where a person can't make such a request.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC - Ethics: Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person for the benefit of that person. In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it, but there are cases called euthanasia where a person can’t make such a request.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The existence of the death penalty in any society raises one underlying question: have we established our justice systems out of a desire for rehabilitation, or out of a desire for retribution?

The lister has set out to examine both sides of the debate over the ethics and legality of capital punishment, especially in the US, and chooses neither side in any of the following entries. They are not presented in any meaningful order.

What is the purpose of punishment? We take our lead from one major source, our parents-and they no doubt took their lead from their own parents. When your young child emulates what he just saw in a Rambo movie, you give him a stern lecture about what is real and what is not, what is acceptable in real life and what is not. When your child tries some crazy acrobatic move off a piece of furniture and hurts himself, you might spank him to be sure that he remembers never to do it again.

So when the child grows up, breaks into a home, and steals electronics, he gets caught and goes to prison. His time in prison is meant to deprive him of the freedom to go where he wants anywhere in the world, and to do what he wants when he wants. This is the punishment, and most people do learn from it. In general, no one wants to go back. But if that child grows up and murders someone for their wallet or just for fun, and they are in turn put to death, they are taught precisely nothing, because they are no longer alive to learn from it. We cannot rehabilitate a person by killing him or her.

Nevertheless, if would-be criminals know undoubtedly that they will be put to death should they murder with premeditation, very many of them are much less inclined to commit murder. Whether or not would-be criminals are wary of committing the worst crime is an important-and probably impossible-question to answer. Murder still happens very frequently. So some criminals disregard this warning for various reasons. But the fact does remain that many criminals who ride the fence on committing murder ultimately decide to spare the victim's life.

In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes. If the criminal knows that the justice system will not stop at putting him to death, then the system appears more draconian to him. Hence, he is less inclined to break and enter. He may have no intention of killing anyone in the process of robbing them, but is much more apprehensive about the possibility if he knows he will be executed. Thus, there is a better chance that he will not break and enter in the first place.

If the foreknowledge of any punishment is meant to dissuade the criminal from committing the crime, why do people still murder others? The US had a 2012 murder rate of 4.8 victims per 100,000-meaning that nearly 15,000 people were victims of homicide that year. Capital punishment does not appear to be doing its job; it doesn't seem to be changing every criminal's mind about killing innocent people. If it does not dissuade, then it serves no purpose. The warning of life in prison without parole must equally dissuade criminals.

There are many victims of a single murder. The criminal gets caught, tried, and convicted, and it is understood that the punishment will be severe. But the person he has killed no longer has a part to play in this. Unfortunately, the murderer has deprived his family and friends of a loved one. Their grief begins with the murder. It may not end with the murderer's execution, but the execution does engender a feeling of relief at no longer having to think about the ordeal-a feeling which often fails to arise while the murderer still lives on.

A system in place for the purpose of granting justice cannot do so for the surviving victims, unless the murderer himself is put to death.

It is strange that a nation would denounce the practice of murder by committing the very same act. By doing so, we're essentially championing the right to life by taking it from others. True-as a whole, we are not murderers, and understandably refuse to be placed in the same category as someone like Ted Bundy. But to many opponents of the death penalty, even Ted Bundy should have been given life without parole. The fact that he murdered at least thirty people-for the mere reason that he enjoyed doing it-has no bearing on the hypocrisy, the flagrant dishonesty, of the declaration that such a person deserves to be killed because he had no right to kill.

If the goal of any punishment, as stated above, is to teach us those things we should not do, then the justice system should more adequately teach the criminality of killing by refusing to partake in it.

If you read about Bundy's life in prison, waiting nine years for his execution, you will see that the man exhausted every single legal point he and his lawyers could think of, all in an attempt to spare him execution. He "defended" himself in prison interviews by blaming pornography for causing his uncontrollable teenage libido, and for causing him to think of women as objects and not humans. He attempted to have his death sentence commuted to life without parole by explaining that it was all pornography's fault, and that had it never existed, he would have been a good person.

When that didn't work, he pretended to come clean and tell police where the bodies of unfound victims were, so that their families could have closure. He never once admitted that he was a bad person, and just before his execution, he claimed that he hadn't done anything wrong. It was obvious that he feared being put to death. He did his best to avert it.

This means that he did not fear life in prison-at least not as much as he feared capital punishment. He had many opportunities to kill himself in his cell, but he did not. He might have done it a month before his execution, when all hope for clemency was gone-but he was afraid of death. How many would-be murderers have turned away at the last second purely out of fear of the executioner's needle?

In the end, though, death is always at least a little painful. Perhaps the only truly peaceful way to go is while asleep-but no one has ever come back to say that this didn't hurt. If your heart stops while you sleep, it is certainly possible that your brain will recognize a problem and wake you up at the very moment when it is too late. So what we cannot help but let Nature do, we ought not to force on others for any reason. If we do so, it might be fair to say that we law-abiding people, who embody the justice system, are guilty of equal cruelty towards criminals who commit murder. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for one, dictates that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

In the US, there are five legal methods of execution: lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, hanging, and gassing. These are all intended to be as painless as possible, but they all run the risk of accidents. John Wayne Gacy, who was not afraid of death, was executed via lethal injection-the most efficient, risk-free method. Yet his death did not go as planned.

The sodium thiopental entered his bloodstream successfully and put him to sleep. The pancuronium bromide was then administered successfully to paralyze his diaphragm. This would cause asphyxiation if the next chemical, potassium chloride, were not immediately administered to stop the heart. But the potassium chloride had congealed in its tube before Gacy was brought into the room. He was unconscious and unable to breathe for several minutes while the last drug's tube was changed. His death took eighteen minutes, instead of the usual seven. And whether or not he was in great pain is impossible to determine.

It's true that cruelty should not be legally tolerated-and the five methods listed above are very efficient in killing the condemned before he or she is able to feel it. Granted, we are not able to ask the dead whether or not they felt their necks snap, or the chemicals burn inside them-but modern American executions very rarely go awry. It does happen, but the reported accidents since 1976 number about ten nationwide, out of 1,328.

When the condemned is fastened into the electric chair, one of the conductors is strapped securely around the head with the bare metal flush against the shaved and wet scalp. This permits the electricity to be conducted directly into the brain, shutting it off more quickly than the brain can register pain.

Hanging causes death by snapping the neck of the condemned around the second vertebrae-instantly shutting off the brain's ability to communicate with the rest of the body, and causing the heart to stop within seconds.

The firing squad involves five men shooting the heart of the condemned with high-powered rifles. The heart is completely destroyed and unconsciousness follows within seconds.

The gas chamber is now no longer forced on the condemned, because it frequently appeared to cause more pain than was expected or acceptable. The gas is usually hydrogen cyanide, which inhibits mitochondrial respiration in every cell of the entire body, theoretically shutting off the brain like a light switch. But it requires that the condemned breathe deeply.

Consider a pedophile who kills an infant girl by raping her. There is an unwritten "code of honor" in prisons that virtually requires inmates to kill such offenders. Probably half of America's prisoners were in some way abused as children, and harbor a seething hatred for those who abuse children. The murdering pedophile is given the death penalty, but will probably spend ten years beforehand in prison. He will most likely be housed in solitary confinement for his own protection, but there are frequently holes in such protection, and the inmates may find their way to him. And if this happens, pedophiles are often gang-raped, castrated, beaten to death, stabbed, and sometimes even beheaded before guards-who may deliberately ignore the scene-can save them.

Most prisoners consider each other to be in the same predicament, and treat each other quite well in general. But they are still in prison, and despair about their lack of freedom. What is life like for Zacarias Moussaoui, the member of the September 11 hijacking teams who got caught a month before the attack? A single juror saved him from death. He has, since 2006, been incarcerated for twenty-three hours per day in a tiny concrete cell, with one hour of daily exercise in an empty concrete swimming pool; he has no access to other inmates, and only rare contact with guards, who say nothing to him; he can see nothing of the outside world except a tiny sliver of sky-and his will be his life. Capital punishment is an unnecessary threat.

The justice system basically attempts to mete out punishment that fits the crime. Severe crimes result in imprisonment. "Petty larceny" is not treated with the severity that is meted to "grand theft auto," and the latter, consequently, receives more time in prison. So if severe-but non-lethal-violence toward another is found deserving of life without parole, then why should premeditated homicide be given the very same punishment? This fact might induce a would-be criminal to go ahead and kill the victim he has already mugged and crippled. Why would it matter, after all? His sentence could not get any worse.

If murder is the willful deprivation of a victim's right to life, then the justice system's willful deprivation of the criminal's right to the same is-even if overly severe-a punishment which fits the most severe crime that can be committed. Without capital punishment, it could be argued that the justice system makes no provision in response to the crime of murder, and thus provides no justice for the victim.

FlameHorse is an absolute pacifist who loves animals, but eats burgers. He will never write a list about Ted Nugent.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Arguments For And Against The Death Penalty - Listverse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The existence of the death penalty in any society raises one underlying question: have we established our justice systems out of a desire for rehabilitation, or out of a desire for retribution? The lister has set out to examine both sides of the debate over the ethics and legality of capital punishment, especially in the US, and chooses neither side in any of the following entries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished? - Infographic on Death Penalty - Facts & Infographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished? - Find In-depth Review And Infographic on Death Penalty, Corporal Punishment, Capital Punishment, Executions, State Executions, Abolitionist Nations, States Retaining Capital Punishment, Capital Punishment in the US, Facts & Stats.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal?

"The right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The exercise of this right is as central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity as rights safeguarded by this Court's decisions relating to marriage, family relationships, procreation, contraception, child rearing and the refusal or termination of life-saving medical treatment."

"Do we want doctors deciding who lives and who dies? No, we do not want that. This is a slope, a real slope where we are going to become God. We do not have that power. The Declaration of Independence says that we should have the right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing in it says we have the right to pursue death, nothing."

Tom Coburn, MD
US Senator (R-OK)
Consideration of House Resolution 2260, Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, gpo.gov
Oct. 27, 1999

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments - Euthanasia - ProCon.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal? Legalization Legalization: Medical Perspectives Legalization: Lawmakers' Views Vulnerable Groups Hippocratic Oath Legal Right Slippery Slope Palliative Care Physician Obligation Financial Motivations 1. Legalization "The right to die should be a matter of personal choice. We are able to choose all kinds of things in life from who we [...]Read More...

# data[].attributes.body
I don't think religion should be involved in this

I have strong feelings about this issue. My mom personally has told me before. If there was ever a case where she's in a hospital, and she's suffering. She would prefer to be relieved of it and ended. She's seen the way my grandparents have suffered, and she doesn't want the same fate as them. Fighting everyday for a breath.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
PRO (yes)

Pro

Robert B. Evnen, JD, Attorney and Co-founder of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, stated the following in his July 11, 2015 article "Local View: Thoughts about the Death Penalty: Correcting the Record," available at journalstar.com:

"Much of the cost, indeed, much of the criticism of the death penalty, is attributed to 'decades of appeals.' It is unsurprising that the loudest complaints about death penalty delays come from death penalty opponents who have created them...

Claimed 'cost studies,' often performed by or at the behest of death penalty opponents, are frequently so incomplete as to be false and misleading. For example, they don't take into account the increase in the cost of life without parole cases if there were no death penalty. Criminal defendants who are facing the death penalty - which today must be pleaded by prosecutors up front - often want to make a deal by pleading guilty to first degree murder in exchange for a sentencing recommendation of life without parole. The existence of the death penalty as a possible sentence leads to guilty pleas that save the money spent on trials and limit the opportunity for appeals."
July 11, 2015 - Robert B. Evnen, JD

Pro

Dudley Sharp, Death Penalty Resources Director of Justice For All (JFA), in an Oct. 1, 1997 Justice for All presentation titled "Death Penalty and Sentencing Information," wrote:

"Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ('LWOP') at a cost of $1 million for 50 years. Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million - $3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases."
Oct. 1, 1997 - Dudley Sharp

Pro

Chris Clem, JD, Attorney at Samples, Jennings, Ray & Clem, PLLC, in a Jan. 31, 2002 statement in response to a press release about the cost of capital cases as reported by the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, stated:

"Executions do not have to cost that much. We could hang them and re-use the rope. No cost! Or we could use firing squads and ask for volunteer firing squad members who would provide their own guns and ammunition. Again, no cost."
Jan. 31, 2002 - Chris Clem, JD

Pro

Gary D. Beatty, JD, a Florida Assistant State Attorney, in his Dec. 1, 1997 article, "The Next Time Someone Says the Death Penalty Costs More Than Life in Prison, Show Them This Article," available at www.fed-soc.org, stated:

"If the mutiple layers of appeal are pursued in an ethical, and fiscally responsible manner, execution is less costly than warehousing a murderer for life."
Dec. 1, 1997 - Gary D. Beatty, JD

Pro

Edwin H. Sutherland, PhD, late President of the American Sociological Society, and Donald R. Cressey, PhD, late Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the 1974 revised edition of their book titled Criminology, wrote:

"It is not cheaper to keep a criminal confined, because most of the time he will appeal just as much causing as many costs as a convict under death sentence. Being alive and having nothing better to do, he will spend his time in prison conceiving of ever-new habeas corpus petitions, which being unlimited, in effect cannot be rejected as res judicata. The cost is higher."
1974 - Edwin H. Sutherland, PhD Donald R. Cressey, PhD

CON (no)

Con

Richard C. Dieter, MS, JD, former Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, stated the following in his Mar. 13, 2013 "Testimony Submitted to the Nebraska Legislature," available at deathpenaltyinfo.org:

"One of the most common misperceptions about the death penalty is the notion that the death penalty saves money because executed defendants no longer have to be cared for at the state's expense. If the costs of the death penalty were to be measured at the time of an execution, that might indeed be true. But as every prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge knows, the costs of a capital case begin long before the sentence is carried out. Experienced prosecutors and defense attorneys must be assigned and begin a long period of investigation and pre-trial hearings. Jury selection, the trial itself, and initial appeals will consume years of time and enormous amounts of money before an execution is on the horizon...

[A]ll of the studies conclude that the death penalty system is far more expensive than an alternative system in which the maximum sentence is life in prison."
Mar. 13, 2013 - Richard C. Dieter, MS, JD

Con

Charles M. Harris, JD, Senior Judge of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Florida, published the following in an opinion piece for The Gainesville Sun, on Apr. 18, 2012, available at gainesville.com:

"[D]eath by execution is excessively expensive. Most people who support the death penalty believe it is more cost effective than life in prison. Perhaps at one time, when executions were swift and sure, this may have been the case. It is not now. Most people knowledgeable about the subject will agree that the delay now built into the system, more trial preparation, much longer time to get to trial, much longer jury selections and trials, much more complicated and far more frequent appeals, and continuous motions, have increased the cost of capital punishment so that it is now many times the cost of keeping a prisoner in prison for life."
Apr. 18, 2012 - Charles M. Harris, JD

Con

Jon B. Gould, PhD, Professor of Justice, Law, and Society at American University, and Lisa Greenman, JD, Attorney for the Maryland Public Defender Organization, submitted the following in the "Report to the Committe on Defender Services Judicial Conference of the United States Update on the Cost and Quality of Defense Representation in Federal Death Penalty Cases" in Sep. 2010, available at www.uscourts.gov:

"The median amount of $353,185 for authorized cases [of the federal death penalty]... indicates that cases in which a capital prosecution was authorized cost almost eight times as much as those death-eligible cases that were not authorized... there is no mistaking the vast increase in cost when the Department of Justice decides to authorize a capital prosecution."
Sep. 2010 - Lisa Greenman, JD Jon B. Gould, JD, PhD

Con

Death Penalty Focus, an anti-capital punishment advocacy organization, wrote in the article "Myth 1: A Death Sentence Costs Less Than a Life Sentence," available at deathpenalty.org (accessed Jan. 24, 2017):

"It seems like common sense that it's cheaper to execute someone than to house, feed and take care of them for the rest of their natural life. But there are a lot of unavoidable costs that make a death sentence far more expensive than a sentence of life without parole.

Most of these costs result from the unique status of the death penalty within the US justice system. Because it's the only truly irreversible form of punishment, the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases, including several levels of mandatory review after a death sentence is issued. The appeals process takes decades to complete.

Studies of the California death penalty system, the largest in the US, have revealed that a death sentence costs at least 18 times as much as a sentence of life without parole would cost."
Jan. 24, 2017 - Death Penalty Focus

Con

John Roman, PhD, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and Executive Director of the District of Columbia Crime Policy Institute, et al., wrote the following in their Dec. 15, 2009 study "Reassessing the Cost of the Death Penalty Using Quasi-Experimental Methods: Evidence from Maryland," published in American Law and Economics Association:

"Fourteen studies have estimated the costs of capital punishment, including one study of the federal death penalty and 13 state- or county-level studies. Each study concludes that the presence of capital punishment results in additional costs. However, there is substantial variation in the cost estimates. Among the five studies that compare the cost of a death sentence with the cost of a capital-eligible case in which no death notice is filed, the average (additional) cost per case is $650,000, but the estimates range from about $100,000 to more than $1.7 million...

Cases receiving a death notice are approximately $517,000 more costly during the trial phase, $147,000 more costly during the penalty phase, and $201,000 more costly during the appellate phase than a capital eligible case where no death notice was filed.... On average, a death notice adds about $1,000,000 in costs over the duration of a case."
Dec. 15, 2009 - John Roman, PhD

Con

Eight members of the 23-member California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice study titled "Report and Recommendations on the Administration of the Death Penalty in California," signed a June 30, 2008 supplement indicating their personal objections to the death penalty. Those eight members were Diane Bellas, JD, Alameda County Public Defender; Rabbi Allen I. Freehling, Executive Director at the City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission; Michael Hersek, JD, California State Public Defender; Bill Ong Hing, JD Professor at UC Davis School of Law; Michael P. Judge, JD, Los Angeles County Public Defender; Michael Laurence, JD, Executive Director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center; John Moulds, JD, US Magistrate Judge of the US District Court - Eastern District of California; and Douglas Ring, Businessman Founder of The Ring Group. The supplement stated in part:

"The resources that go into a death penalty case are enormous. The pursuit of execution adds millions at each phase of the process, from trial, to appeal, and habeas proceedings. For example, a death penalty trial costs counties at least $1.1 million more than a conventional murder trial. The state spends at least an additional $117 million a year on capital punishment, about half of it on prison expenses that exceed the usual costs of housing inmates and the rest on arguing and judging death penalty appeals.

The costs mount because death penalty trials and appeals take far longer than others, involve more lawyers, investigators and expert witnesses, and displace other cases from courtrooms. In contrast, adopting a maximum penalty of life without possibility of parole (for which there is growing sentiment) would incur only a fraction of the death penalty costs, including prison expenses."
June 30, 2008 - Supplement to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice

Con

Arthur L. Alarcon, LLB, Senior Judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Paula M. Mitchell, JD, Adjunct Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, wrote the following in the June 2011 article "Executing the Will of the Voters?: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle," published in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review:

"Our research has revealed that $4 billion of state and federal taxpayer money has been expended administering the death penalty in California since 1978, with a cost in 2009 of approximately $184 million above what taxpayers would have spent without the death penalty... These totals do not include the additional funds the state is poised to spend to maintain the current broken system...

In cases in which a defendant faces a maximum penalty of life without the possibility of parole, rather than the death penalty, there is no penalty phase trial at all. Thus, the government would not incur these costly expenditures if the death penalty were abolished...

The costs associated with death penalty trials that took place between 1983 and 2006 averaged about $1 million more per trial than the costs of average non-death penalty homicide trials. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that there are several significant, easily identifiable costs incurred in every death penalty trial that are not incurred in non-death penalty homicide."
June 2011 - Paula M. Mitchell, JD Arthur L. Alarcon, LLB

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does the Death Penalty Cost Less Than Life in Prison without Parole? - Death Penalty - ProCon.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Robert B. Evnen, JD, Attorney and Co-founder of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, stated the following in his July 11, 2015 article "Local View: Thoughts about the Death Penalty: Correcting the Record," available at journalstar.com: "Much of the cost, indeed, much of the criticism of the death penalty, is attributed to 'decades of appeals.'

# data[].attributes.headline
Lethal Injections vs. Life in Prison Cost

# data[].attributes.subject
Lethal Injections vs. Life in Prison Cost

# data[].attributes.body
According to many of the atricles I read. At one time, exectutions were cheaper and sure. But these days a death penalty case costs tax payers about 2.3 million.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:

Money.

Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.

So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.

"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.

Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?

'Waste of time and money'
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection - the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.

"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.

"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."

In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too great and produced no result, lawmakers said. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963. Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person.

Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, at least eight have considered legislation this year to end it - Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas - an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.

"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favors abolition of capital punishment.

DNA evidence
The most recent arguments against it centered on the ever-increasing number of convicts cleared by DNA evidence.

Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Gov. George H. Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony. Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."

He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect.

Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts.

Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence - DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.

After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.

In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death - an additional expense that totals more than $63.3 million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald M. George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews, and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.

"Failures in the administration of California's death penalty law create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law," concluded the 117-page report.

Some prominent Californians have asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to get rid of executions. Especially now, as service cuts and tax increases are pegged to fill a $42 billion budget hole. But it appears that the Republican governor will not abandon capital punishment anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the nationwide number of death sentences handed down has declined over the past decade, from 284 in 1999 to 111 in 2008. Reasons differ significantly, depending on who's providing them: Pro-death penalty activists say it's because crime rates have declined and execution is a strong deterrent; abolitionists say it's because jurors and judges are reluctant to risk taking a life when future scientific tests could prove the accused not guilty.

Executions, too, are dropping. There were 98 in 1999; 37 in 2008.

Still, the costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.

In Kansas, Republican state Sen. Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200 million. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 percent more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.

In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson recently said his longtime support of capital punishment was wavering - and belt-tightening was one the reasons. As the state tries to plug a $450 million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House as a cost-saving measure. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.

In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2 million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186 million to prosecution costs. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, is pushing a bill to repeal it.

'Calculate the cost'
There are many, of course, who refuse to change their minds, believing execution is the ultimate wage of the ultimate sin. They also say that death penalty cases don't have to be so expensive.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-capital-punishment group, said, "Having an effective appeals process might very well cost less."

States "calculate the cost as if these people are going to spend their whole lives on death row. We should be revamping the appeals process so that these cases move more quickly," Scheidegger said.

But court systems and their costs vary greatly among states, as does the time it takes to exhaust appeals. It's doubtful that change could come quickly enough to generate savings during this roiling recession.

"It's all about money," said McCartin, the former California judge. "The reasons I changed my mind were between that and how the victims' families just get raped during appeals."

But if convicted killers get life imprisonment instead of death, is that letting them off easy?

Not a chance, says 52-year-old Gordon "Randy" Steidl. He lived on death row and then in the general prison population, after his sentence was commuted to life. He preferred his former accommodations.

Steidl was released in 2004 after being exonerated of the 1986 stabbing deaths of a newlywed couple in Paris, Ill. He had an alibi for the night of the murders, corroborated by others. But he was convicted on eyewitness testimony provided by the town drunk and the town drug addict. Both later recanted.

The state of Illinois spent $3.5 million trying to execute him, "only to end up giving me a life sentence," Steidl said. "And then 5 1/2 years after that, I was exonerated."

He spent 12 years in a tiny cell on death row. Then he was thrown into "gen pop," with its snarling mass of an open cellblock, where the prospect of being stabbed, raped or worse loomed constantly, alongside deafening noise and psychotic cell mates.

"If you really want to kill someone, give them life without parole," Steidl said in an even voice. He speaks of his troubled past as if it was trapped under glass or locked behind bars - visible but no longer able to torture him.

"It's worse than dying."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong: Money.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Death sentences are sharply down in North Carolina and the combination of cost concerns and more effective representation have made them progressively rare. In an interview with The Hickory Daily Record, David Learner, District Attorney for the 25th prosecutorial district encompassing Catawba, Caldwell, and Burke counties, who has personally tried two death-eligible cases, says "It's extraordinarily difficult to get a death verdict. ... [Y]ou come to realize it's very difficult for a jury seated in that box to say 'yes, you need to kill that man.'" Murder cases in which the death penalty may be sought are defended by five regional capital defender offices, which have a record of effectively investigating cases and negotiating non-capital outcomes. According to statistics maintained by the North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (NCIDS), from 2007 to 2015, nearly 60% of capital prosecutions ended with non-capital convictions for second-degree murder or less, and only 2.2 percent of all capital cases in the state resulted in death sentences. In Wake County, juries have returned life verdicts in eight consecutive capital sentencing trials. When a case is charged, Assistant Capital Defender Victoria James told the paper, "you know what happened, but you don't know why it happened.... And that's where you get into the client's mental health, provocation, and many times, those are the kind of cases you hope to be able to resolve without going to trial." With representation by the regional capital defenders, there have been only 5 death sentences in the state over the past five years, down from 140 death sentences imposed 20 years ago in the five years spanning 1992-1996. No one has been executed in the state since 2006 and most of the 262 prisoners who the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) says have been removed from death row have been resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after their convictions or death sentences were overturned. Although 98% of North Carolina cases that start out as capital do not end up with a death sentence, pursuing the death penalty has had significant financial consequences. NCIDS reports that, in fiscal years 2007 to 2015, the average costs were 4.4 times higher in a capital case ($93,231 per case) than when prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty ($21,022 per case). A Duke University study in 2009 concluded that repeal of the death penalty would have produced approximately $10.8 million in annual savings from reduced expenditures on murder cases. Between 2008 and 2013, the percentage of cases in which prosecutors have sought the death penalty has fallen from 28.1% to 11%, and budget cuts to the North Carolina Attorney General's office have shifted to local district attorneys the cost of criminal appeals that used to be handled by state prosecutors. "This thing about, 'we need to execute him,' the actual mechanics of the court system, it's not happening," Learner said. "Realizing the reality of the death penalty in North Carolina through the court system, it's really about worthless." Looking to the future, he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if North Carolina eventually had a moratorium or completely dismantled the death penalty."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Death sentences are sharply down in North Carolina and the combination of cost concerns and more effective representation have made them progressively rare. In an interview with The Hickory Daily Record, David Learner, District Attorney for the 25th prosecutorial district encompassing Catawba, Caldwell, and Burke counties, who has personally tried two death-eligible cases, says "It's extraordinarily difficult to get a death verdict.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
More than 1,000 persons have been sent to North Carolina's death row since the state assumed responsibility for executing criminals in 1910.

The prison system houses male death row inmates at Central Prison and female death row inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Both prisons are located in Raleigh.

At Central Prison, the men are housed in cellblocks of Unit III. Two correctional officers in a control center watch the inmates at all times. Each cell block is divided into eight pods with 24 single cells - 12 cells on each level. The cells open into a dayroom area that has a television at one end, stainless steel tables in the middle and showers at the other end. Each cell has a bed, a lavatory, commode, and a wall-mounted writing table.

Inmates on death row spend nearly all their time in either their cells or the adjacent dayroom. They may stay in their dayroom from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. While in the dayroom, they may watch television.

Death row inmates may be assigned incentive wage jobs in the canteen or clothes house, or may work as barbers or janitors within their housing areas. They are required to keep their cells and dayrooms clean. Inmates are allowed at least one hour per day for exercise and showers. Two days a week, officers escort death row inmates in groups from each cellblock pod to outdoor exercise areas, weather permitting, where the inmates can play basketball, walk or jog. Officers also escort the death row inmates by cellblock to the dining halls for each meal.

Death row inmates may receive one visit a week with a maximum of two visitors. In the visiting booths, visitors may see and talk with inmates, but physical contact is not possible. Inmates may participate in a one-hour Christian worship service each Sunday, or Islamic worship services for one hour each Friday. A Bible study class is also conducted by the prison's chaplain for 90 minutes each Tuesday morning.

If a death row inmate violates prison regulations, he may be placed in a segregation cellblock outside of the death row area. He must eat his meals in his cell and is separated from other death row inmates for his daily hour of exercise and shower.

Conditions are similar for female inmates on death row. The women are housed in a cellblock of the maximum security building at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Each of the single cells has a bed, lavatory and commode. The seven cells are side by side down a corridor. At the front of the cellblock is a dayroom with a television, table and chairs. This is where the women eat their meals. This room also serves as the visiting area, and all visits are supervised by correctional staff. As a group, the women inmates are given at least an hour daily for exercise and showers. Volunteers provide Sunday worship services on death row. Chaplains are available for counseling.

When a death row inmate exhausts all appeals, the attorney general directs the secretary of the Department of Public Safety to set an execution date. That inmate - male or female - is moved into the death watch area of Central Prison three to seven days prior to the execution date. The death watch area is adjacent to the execution chamber and is located in the prison's custody control building. The inmate moves all personal belongings from the death row cell to one of the four cells in the death watch area.

Each cell has a bed, lavatory, commode and a wall-mounted writing table. The cells are side by side and open into a dayroom where there is a table, a television and shower. With the exception of 15 minutes allowed for a shower, the inmate spends the entire day in the cell. A sergeant and a correctional officer are stationed just outside the cell in the dayroom 24 hours a day.

The inmate may receive visits from his attorney, chaplains, psychologists and others authorized by prison administrators and may receive non-contact family visits in the prison's regular visiting area. Contact visits may be allowed at the warden's discretion in the days immediately preceding execution. An inmate on death watch is not allowed contact with other inmates. The inmate remains in the death watch area until receiving a stay or until escorted to the execution chamber. Executions are carried out in accordance with the state's execution protocol.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than 1,000 persons have been sent to North Carolina's death row since the state assumed responsibility for executing criminals in 1910.The prison system houses male death row inmates at Central Prison and female death row inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Both prisons are located in Raleigh.

# data[].attributes.body
Brittany Maynard took her life because she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, so she decided instead of suffering, she would take her own life. Robin Williams was fighting years of depression. and he was also diagnosed with early stages of dementia. And he decided to end his life by hanging(Asphyxia) himself.

Based on my research, euthanasia should be legal, if someone is suffering and rather die in peace, then that is their right. But it should not be allowed for those people with illnesses such as depression

# data[].attributes.body
I think the death penalty should be legal. People are paying taxes for them to be incarcerated in a jail. But should only be used when they know for sure the person is guilty. this also solves the overcrowding in jails.