The issue of whether or not a person supports or opposes the death penalty is currently one of great contention within the United States. The following analysis will not attempt to make a moral determination of which viewpoint is superior; rather, the following analysis intends to show a few of the strongest and most logical arguments for ending the death penalty. Morality within the context of the rule of law is a topic that could be debated until the end of time. However, for the purpose of this brief analysis – by presenting salient arguments and verifiable reason as to why the death penalty should be abolished, this analysis will work to appeal to individuals on the cost-benefit and risk-reward matrix of decision making rather than imploring a human rights response. From an economic standpoint, the cost to execute someone as compared to the cost of life imprisonment is staggeringly high. As compared with life imprisonment, the total average cost, inclusive of legal fees, state appointed attorneys, appeals process etc is in excess of 4 million dollars per prisoner executed. Assuming a standard cost of imprisonment of 35,000 dollars per year per prisoner, it would take over 100 years for life imprisonment to no longer be economically viable as compared to capital punishment (Iglesias, Semeshenko, 2012) Given the current environment coupled with the fact that many states are already struggling with large budget deficits and ballooning future budgeting needs, it only stands to reason that life imprisonment should be considered for the future as well as those prisoners already on their death row. Secondly, there are known cases in the history of the death penalty in the United States in which innocent people have been put to death for crimes they did not commit. Additionally, there are numerous cases in which DNA evidence helps to exonerate an individual who is currently on death row awaiting execution (Debrevnik, 2004). Although this is a moral dilemma, the mere existence of these statistics should give pause to any who would push for the continuation of the death penalty with no thoughts as to its consequences. In the opinion of this author, it is not the “good intent” of the system that proves it to be a success; instead, even one wrongful death equates to the entire principle being rendered ineffective. The death penalty has been proven that it is not a deterrent against violent crime. Crime rates, if anything, remain unaffected by the presence or lack of presence of the death penalty in a given state or jurisdiction. An overwhelming number of studies into this have irrefutably proven that the existence of the death penalty has little if any retardation of the violent crime rate; if anything, those states that employ the death penalty have the highest rates of violent crime in the country as compared with those states that do not employ the death penalty (Radalet 2009).