Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates. They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if thevictim is white The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place.
The ACLU’s opposition to capital punishment incorporates the following fundamental concerns: Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment.
The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings – especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.Ĭapital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law.