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Death Penalty Mistakes

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Everyone makes mistakes, it is a part of growing up and just life in general, right? But to what extent do mistakes begin to get considered crimes. Society as a whole has basically set boundaries as to what is socially acceptable and what isn’t and are quick to judge without knowing any reasoning. But should death really even be an option for extreme cases? Especially now that it is the twenty first century and the United States has overcome several different hardships throughout history, it would only make sense that the death penalty would get abolished forever. Maybe it is more understandable that it occurs in developing countries but not in one of the most developed countries in the world. From 1977 until now, there have been 1452 executions …show more content…

The death penalty clearly puts innocent lives at risk, since 1976, “138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who came within minutes of execution” (OADP). Recent studies argue that more than 4% of death row inmates are innocent meaning that the rate of wrongful death sentences is higher than what some experts had estimated. According to the Death Penalty Info Center, the main reasons that someone innocent could get wrongly convicted are: eyewitness error: confusion or faulty memory, government misconduct: police and prosecution, false confessions: mental illness, “junk science”: mishandled evidence, or snitch testimony: given in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Kirk Bloodsworth was the first person to get exonerated, have your conviction reversed, in the United States in 1993, which honestly it wasn’t that long ago. He was a twenty- three year old who had just served four years in the Marines and had no previous criminal record, so how was it possible that he got convicted and sentenced to death for a crime that he didn’t commit? Because of faulty eyewitness identification. The sketch the police came up with was a 6 feet and 5 inches tall man with dirty blond hair, and a slim fit. Bloodsworth was not that tall or thin and had red hair, obviously not fitting the description. Therefore, he spent nine years total in prison, two of those in death row, for a crime he didn’t commit. DNA evidence gained Bloodsworth his freedom back (United

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