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Amy York April 24, 2000 Capital punishment should be abolished in the United States. There may have been a time when capital punishment was needed and acceptable, but that time is far behind us. The concepts and beliefs supporting capital punishment are outdated ....

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.... costs less than life long imprisonment. The cost of apparatus and maintenance of the procedures attending the death penalty, including death row and the endless appeals and legal machinery, far outweighs the expense of maintaining in prison the tiny fraction of criminals who would otherwise be slain (Draper 46). A report issued in1998 by the Judicial Conference of the United States found the cost of sentencing a defendant to the death penalty is higher than imprisoning the accused for life. This is due to the high cost of providing representation in federal death penalty cases (www.uscourts.gov/dpenalty.htm). Cases involving the death penalty take ....