Errikka Sanchez
Professor Monica Mejia
Composition II 1302-19
April 5, 2017
Life or Death?
The death penalty also known as capital punishment is the result of committing a capital crime in which a lethal injection is administered intravenously thus ending in the death of the prisoner. When compared to life in prison the death penalty is the most efficient and justifiable form of punishment for extreme crimes. One may have many different feelings and opinions about the cost of putting an inmate on death row versus the cost of housing an inmate for a life in prison sentence. The death penalty should continue to be implemented for severe crimes, however, there needs to be changes to the death penalty program which includes special amenities such as prolonging their sentences.
It was around 10:30pm on June 3, 1999 when Stephanie Neiman was dropping off her friend Summer Hair at the home of Bobby Bornt. As the girls where arriving, Clayton Lockett and three other men where inside vandalizing the house. Summer Hair was the first to walk in while Bornt was already tied and beaten before the girl’s arrival, she was hit in the face and ordered to call Neiman from the truck. Stephanie Neiman then walked in only to be beaten harshly after refusing to give up her keys to the group of men. The three victims were forced inside the room of Bornt’s nine-month old son while the group of men continued to vandalize the home, only pausing to pull Summer Hair from the room to gang rape her. Afterwards the men decided to load all victims into two different trucks (one of them belonging Neiman) and drive them out of the city into a rural area where Lockett had originally planned to kill all the victims. Lockett made Bornt and Hair promise that they would keep everything he did a secret from the police, but when Neiman refused to promise her secrecy he grabbed her from the truck and made her stand by the grave in which one of the men was digging for her. She stood there for an entire twenty minutes until she was shot once with a shot gun and then again once more upon Lockett’s return after the shotgun had jammed. As she lay there in the shallow grave, Lockett recalled that she was still breathing, with no remorse he stated “I could hear her breathing and crying and everything”, she was buried alive. Lockett was charged with first degree murder, first degree rape, four counts of First Degree Kidnapping and other various charges. The judge sentenced him to death row and after fifteen years of living with three meals a day, a place to sleep, and full medical care, which was all provided from the tax payer pockets from the citizens of Oklahoma. Lockett was finally sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection on April 30th, 2014. However, when the injection was given, a vein had blown and Lockett began to grunt, writhe, and groan. After about forty-five minutes, Lockett had suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead.
It was in the1970’s that the case of Gregg v. Georgia really brought the supreme court to think about the death penalty and whether it was infringing upon the rights of the U.S. citizens. Most of the arguments were about how it was morally wrong to decide if someone should live or die. However, through much argument and litigation the court decided that there need to be stricter guidelines and regulations when deciding to sentence and inmate to death.
Death, this is a word that humankind has come to both fear and respect. One can die from a million different causes or one can choose to cause the death of another person. Crimes that are punishable by death are first degree murder, kidnapping and ransom, rape resulting in death, treason, conspiracy against government parties, and a few others which result in the death of the victim. When approaching the topic of the death penalty, there will most likely be a person who associates the punishment with murder. However, if that person would do a complete and sound research on the death penalty and the crimes in which these people have committed they would find that it would be the most efficient punishment when compared to a sentence of life-in-prison.
In some of the latest and updated information, there was a fact sheet which gave the latest rates and statistics on prisoners serving life sentences. Per information from The Sentencing Project Research and Advocacy for Reform (latest update in 2017) “One in nine people in prison is now serving a life sentence and nearly a third of lifers have been sentenced to life without parole.” That adds up to about 49,000 inmates! With that, one should take into consideration that each life sentenced inmate can cost up to over $100,000 per year. Although costs can vary from state to state, (California and New York being the some of the costlier states). The cost of the death penalty can add up to a total of $1.2 million per death row inmate per case run through entirely. This is a result of the amount of years that can add up on a death row case due to the special amenities that inmates are granted such as the right to appeal their sentence. These death row inmates along with inmates serving life in prison sentences are treated humanely with a warm bed, three meals a day, air conditioning and opportunities for small jobs. In some special cases, they fight with an appeal arguing that they deserve a second chance to rehabilitate themselves, when the people they killed, tortured or committed a heinous crime against never had that grace given to them.