The biggest argument against this method of punishment and its effectiveness of preventing murders is the fact that we cannot get inside the head of a murderer. We will never know what and how they were able to bring themselves to end another human beings life.
When sentenced to death and executed there is no coming back from that. For those who were wrongfully convicted can never get a retrial due to the obvious fact that they are no longer alive. As stated by Amnesty International, a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights, in an article published by them pertaining to the wrongful convictions of people, "Since 1973, over 130 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions". An example that hits closer to home is the case of Anthony Graves which took place here in Texas. "Graves was convicted in 1994 of assisting Robert Carter in multiple murders in 1992" according to the article. It was not until 2006 when he case was brought back up due to tampering of evidence. In 2010 Graves was released from death row as an innocent man. There are many reasons that someone could be found guilty when they are truly innocent. Police and prosecutorial misconduct along with Community and political pressure to solve a case are a couple examples off of the list of faults. A huge underlying issue that is too often overseen is the racial discrimination in the court room of minorities.
M. Cholbi states that "Empirical studies dating back to the 1940s indicate that, all other things being equal, racial minorities, particularly African-Americans, are disproportionately more likely to receive the death penalty for murder than are convicted whites", in his article "Race, Capital Punishment, and the Cost of Murder". Cholbi does not blame the judicial system but politics; he says that "once the racial injustice in question is understood not as a judicial wrong done to particular minority defendants, but as a political wrong inflicted on African-Americans as a class".
