David Spence : An Innocent Man

Firstly, the risk of executing an innocent is a frightening fact. Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice. To execute an innocent person is reprehensible; a risk that should not be taken. What did these innocents get out of their life? They have a right to live. Secondly, there is a better alternative to capital punishment: life without parole. Capital punishment is usually quick. Citizens that commit such serious crimes should realize

I acknowledge that the occasional execution of an innocent person is a tragic event, and the answer is not to dismantle the system, but to exercise even more care in its application.

According to capital punishment supporters, many of these reasons of the anti-death penalty movement are false and are now wrongly accepted as fact. The argument that the death penalty does not deter crime is debatable. By executing murderers you prevent them from murdering again. If these people no longer exist then they obviously cannot commit more crimes. In addition, criminals have admitted, in thousands of fully documented cases, that the death penalty was the specific threat which deterred them from committing murder (Pro-Death Penalty, 2014). The opponents of capital punishment claim that the death penalty has caused and can cause the execution of innocent people. However, according to the supporters, no evidence indicates that innocent people have been executed. Upon reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, a Wall Street Journal study indicated that they were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed (Eddlem, 2002). Furthermore, advocates note that the

     The taking of a person's life is unreliable and once a mistake is made, nothing can be done to make up for it, because you have taken the person's life. Current statistics show that for every 7 people executed one has been released from death row. One in seven does not sound like never good consistency to me, and how many of the 6 still executed could still be innocent? I feel that the death of innocents cannot be justified by the death penalty. A recent study at Columbia University found that two thirds of capital cases had serious errors in them, two thirds does not sound like a very consistent number that I would

My famous Hoosier is David Wolf. He is famous for going into space four times, one of the first from Indiana.

Throughout history, various cases have not been properly executed in such a way that rightful criminals are taken to justice (hence the creation of courtrooms). The result of improper trials have led to the death of innocent lives which is unfortunately not unprecedented. A trial that epitomizes such unfair charges, leading to the execution of an innocent, was the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Trial. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was not guilty of the murder pertaining to the Lindbergh’s baby; he was wrongly convicted under circumstantial and biased evidence. The kidnapping of the baby had led to widespread speculations, and caused the case to spread amongst the

In the last several years, too many people in the United States have been wrongfully sentenced with the death penalty. Several accused have their sentence overturned or they have been totally exonerated. There are at least 8 people who were executed by United States and later proven innocent (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Over a 20 year period, 68% of all death sentences were reversed (http://karisable.com). A noteworthy example is of Jerry Banks who was convicted and sentenced with the death penalty for two counts of murder in 1975. Five years later, in 1980, Banks' conviction was overturned on the basis of newly discovered evidence which was allegedly known to the state at the time of trial. Another example was the case of Lawyer Johnson who was sentenced to death in 1971 by an all white jury for the murder of a white victim. Later in 1982, Johnson’s conviction was overturned and Johnson exonerated when a previously silent eyewitness identified the state’s chief witness as the real murderer. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) Human error is inevitable, particularly

The risk of innocent people being sentenced is high. About 14% of executions were of the innocent, and they weren’t found out until long after their execution. This supports my claim because too many innocent people are being executed against their will, and most of them aren’t even involved with the murder, just innocent bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In conclusion, there is just too much risk of innocent bystanders being executed for doing nothing wrong, and we should get the facts and evidence straight before we go kill an innocent

There has been cases in which people have been executed but then proven innocent. On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer's face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30-40 feet away. Two other witnesses, both who worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer but were never interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.(source) When people are tried for the death penalty, it is because they have killed someone. They are being killed, for killing someone. That is just hypocritical and morally wrong. Why would we kill someone for killing someone? When the death penalty is dragged one, families of the victims have to keep reliving the tragedy that they went thru for upwards of twenty years. "The continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives," wrote the Richards, who

The lack of proper resources during a trial can make the difference between the innocence and guilt of a person. The death penalty does not always show the innocence or guilt of a person. It shows how much he or she is willing to spend to help the trial go his or her way. The death penalty is an unfair system to those who cannot afford the “evidence” they need to help free them.

Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man or woman who might accidentally get an execution sentence. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year by the hands of heartless murderers. There are more murderers out there than people who are wrongly convicted, and that is what we must remember.

"Since 1973, over eighty people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence" (Innocence and the Death Penalty 1). Statistics say that of the three-thousand six hundred people on death row right now, at least one hundred of them are innocent (Capital Punishment 1). When an innocent person is executed, the real killer is still on the streets ready to victimize someone else (Pragmatic Arguments 1). The most important problem is that when an innocent person is executed, they represent another human being who did not deserve to die.

Unfortunately, this kind of misjudgment can never be reversed in pair with capital punishment. Even if the innocent is proven to be not guilty in the future, no one is able to return his or her life back to the body. No matter what compensation the nation could offer afterwards, it will never result in fairness and equality. Therefore, capital punishment should be abolished to prevent those innocent people from horrible unfairness.

Many prisoners in the past have been known to be killed before they were proven innocent. Many documented cases where DNA testing showed that innocent people were put to death by the government. This sometimes happens because there are defendants who are given minimal legal attention by often minor qualified individuals. The government has made many mistakes which are being wrong about convicting someone for something they didn’t do, and killing this person for the wrong reason. Putting the wrong person to death is the biggest mistake that can be made and the government cannot afford to make this mistake.

Although one might think that capital punishment leads to innocent deaths, this is completely false. People against capital punishment constantly claim that there have been numerous cases in which we have executed an innocent man. But the truth is that we do not have any records of ever executing an innocent man. The idea that innocent people can get executed on accident is highly false and inaccurate. Also, it is perceived that capital punishment takes away freedom