Dear Donald J. Trump,

I believe your views on the death penalty should be reconsidered. Out of 1,437 executions, 1,262 of them have been carried out by lethal injections. These lethal injections consist of a three part “Drug Cocktail” that paralyze your muscles and then stop your heart. These doses have been miscalculated many times, including the cases of Clayton Lockett and Dennis McGuire. Both men were given doses that prevented them from falling asleep and forced them to live through 25-45 minutes of horrifying pain while dying. Clayton's last words, “This s*** is f***ing with my head.”

In many death row cases inmates have been unjustly found guilty. Over 150 men and women have been released, sometimes even minutes from execution, because they have been found innocent. These types of cases are the ones that we have to try to prevent, and creating more death row inmates will only make it more probable.

You claim you want to reduce US debt, but enforcing capital punishment will only further it. In fact, in the state of Maryland, it costs $3 million dollars to carry out a case resulting in the death penalty (including the “drug cocktails”). And this isn’t just Maryland. Texas has to spend $2.3 million dollars, which is three times the cost of incarcerating an inmate at the most extreme level of security for 40 years.

A more ethical and financially safe alternative to capital punishment is life without parole, which doesn’t require the costly and lethal injections, costs less, and doesn’t lead to hundreds of fatalities.