Consider these facts:
The Death Penalty is Irreversible
- Over 150 death row inmates have been released from American prisons since 1973 because they were found to be innocent.
- The death penalty system is based on the efforts and decisions of people who may be prejudiced, incompetent, lazy, mistaken or dishonest. When a person’s life depends on fallible people including judges, prosecutors, juries, defense attorneys, witnesses and police, we are always at risk of executing an innocent person, and that is a risk we should not take.
The Death Penalty is Arbitrary and Unfair
- The death penalty is like a lottery in which race and gender, politics, prosecurtors’ decisions, geography and money often play a more decisive part in who receives a death sentence than the circumstances of the crime itself.
- The death penalty is unfair because it discriminates against those who are poor. Of those sentenced to death in the U.S. 95% could not afford their own attorneys.
The Death Penalty is Racially Discriminatory
- The death penalty is racially biased. Nevada’s juries, judges and attorneys are overwhelmingly white. However, as of 2020 almost 40% of Nevada’s death row population is African American, although only 9% of Nevada’s general population is African American.
- Nationally, the U.S. General Accounting Office has found “a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing and imposition of the death penalty.”
The Death Penalty is Not a Deterrent
- No data has conclusively demonstrated that the threat of the death penalty deters murders. Since 1990, murder rates overall have gone down while the number of executions has risen, but the average murder rate in states with the death penalty is actually HIGHER than in those without the death penalty.
- FBI data shows that 10 states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average.
The Death Penalty Violates Fundamental Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution
- The death penalty violates the right to life set forth in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. It also constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.
- NVCADP believes that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
- Civilized nations have no death penalty. The nations that execute prisoners most frequently include China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Taiwan, Sierra Leone, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. is the ONLY western, industrialized democracy to retain the death penalty.
The Death Penalty is Costly
- Numerous studies have shown that the death penalty is a far more expensive system than one whose maximum penalty is life in prison. The Nevada Legislature commissioned a study, released in 2014, that showed almost the cost of cases can almost double when the death penalty is sought. And in 2015, Nevada chose to spend almost $1 million to construct a new death chamber to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though the state has no planned executions and has not executed a prisoner in almost a decade.
- The death penalty diverts scarce government resources from genuine law enforcement and criminal justice efforts.