Dear Mister / Madam President :

Good day  !  

I am writing about the death penalty.  I believe that the death penalty should be strengthened and here's how/why. People get killed then proven innocent and race problems and cost problems.

1. People get killed then proven innocent.  There have been over 153 people have been exonerated since 1973. Some were convicted based on forced confessions given under duress. Many were the victims of prosecutorial misconduct. On average, it took more than 11 years after these 153 people were sentenced to death before they were exonerated. 10 of the exonerations since 2013 occurred 30 or more years after the wrongful conviction. All 26 states states have at least one death row exonerated. That means over 26 people have been killed and they did nothing about it. That's more than half of all the states, and three of these states no longer have the death penalty on their books.Several high profile law enforcement officials, judges, and justices have recently been quoted as saying that there certainly have been innocent individuals who have been executed.

2. Race problems:  Since 1976,   293 black defendants were killed for executing a white person. While only 31 white defendants were killed for killing a black person. Jurors in Washington state are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant in a similar case. If you are white you have a 3.5 higher chance of getting the death penalty than any other race. Racism needs to stop especially in the death penalty.

3. Cost problems:  Studies on the cost of the death penalty have consistently shown that the death penalty is far more expensive than a system using life sentences as the most severe punishment.California, which has the largest death row in the country, has spent over $4 billion on the death penalty since 1978, while carrying out just 13 executions.The average cost for just the defense at trial in a federal death penalty case is about 8 times that of a non-capital murder case.

Because of these reasons,  the death penalty should be reviewed and strengthened. People get killed but then proven innocent, race problems and cost problems. If the death penalty was strengthened feel like it would help the community.

Sincerely

- Gregory

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Sources: 

Fifty Facts on the Death Penalty

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org