In respect to race, studies have shown time and time again that the death penalty is far more where a white person is murdered than where a black person is murdered. Especially if it was a black person who murdered a white person. (national) The death penalty seems to be racially discordant because it seems to count white lives as more valuable than black lives. Since 1976 when it was reinstated, 158 black defendants have been executed for the murder of a white victim, while only eleven white defendants have been executed for the life taken of a black victim. A racial discrepancy have existed all throughout the history of capitol punishment and although racism is no longer acceptable in our society it does still exist and in all probability still plays a role in trials. It is unjust that someone in one state receives the death penalty, but someone who commits an analogous crime in another state they are given a life sentence. Until race and other arbitrary factors, like economics and geography, can be eliminated as a determinant of who lives and who dies, the death penalty needs to be abolished. .
It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capitol punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, as though life imprisonment were undoubtedly more expensive than executions. Although in truth statistics show that capitol trials and executions are far more expensive than life without parole. As Supreme Court Justice Blackmun puts it " The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment". (Bedau) Various state governments estimate that a single death penalty case, from the point of arrest to execution, ranges from one million to three million dollars per case. (national) Many people believe the Death penalty is a cheap and speedy way to dispose of our criminals, but when it comes down to it there are always more details in a capitol trial. A murder trial habitually takes far far longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not.