Every single day people are executed by the state as a punishment for a variety of crimes. Sometimes people are sentenced for death penalty for crimes they have not committed. According to deathpenaltyinfo.com, the most commonly asked questions about the death penalty are, “Is the death penalty a form of cruel and unusual punishment?” and “Are certain groups of people sentenced to the death penalty more than others?”

It is unmistakable that the death penalty is as cruel inhumane form of torture. Like torture, execution is an extreme physical and mental charge by government authorities on people who have already surrendered themselves helpless. The cruelty of the death penalty is not only in the execution but also in the time spent under death sentence. The time spent behind bars, the prisoner is helplessly thinking of his or her own death. This cruelty cannot be excused no matter how wrong the crime. It is simply a denial of rights. Sentencing them to death is denying them the right to live. Who has the right to say a person is not right to live any longer? If anything, mistakes happen and execution is simply irreversible. In some countries, the death penalty is an attempt to decrease the amount of crimes. However, there is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than imprisonment according to Amnesty International.

Professor K. Beckett of University of Washington admitted to Amnesty International in 2014 that Jurors in Washington are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant in a similar case. In a study by Pierce & Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review in 2005, they found that in California those who killed whites were over three times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed black. Along with many other cases you can see the pattern of race of victim or race of defendant discrimination.

With 31 states that have approved the death penalty there have been 25 death penalty cases in the United States in 2015. These are 25 people that have been denied the right to live within the last two years! People every day are denied the right to live and are forced into inhumane cruelty. When are we going to stop this?