The Death Penalty And Wrongful Convictions

Why is the death penalty used as a means of punishment for crime? Is this just a way to solve the nations growing problem of overcrowded prisons, or is justice really being served? Why do some view the taking of a life morally correct? These questions are discussed and debated upon in every state and national legislature throughout the country. Advantages and disadvantages for the death penalty exist, and many members of the United States, and individual State governments, have differing opinions. Yet it seems that the stronger arguments, and evidence such as cost effectiveness, should lead the common citizen to the opposition of Capital Punishment.

The moral and ethical debate on the sentencing and enforcement of capital punishment has long baffled the citizens and governing powers of the United States. Throughout time, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and the vast majority beliefs of Americans, have been in a constant state of perplexity. Before the 1960s, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Many argue that capital punishment is an absolute necessity, in order to deter crime, and to ‘make things right’ following a heinous crime of murder. Despite the belief that capital punishment may seem to be the only tangible, permanent solution to ending future capital offenses, the United States should remove this cruel and unnecessary form of punishment from our current judicial systems.

Each year, approximately about 10,000 innocent people in the United States get convicted of serious crimes that they did not commit. And at least four percent of them receive the death penalty being completely innocent. Scenarios like this happen all the time because there are more and more false persecutions each day which can be easily avoided. Many people are occupying prisons all over the world, for felonies they did not execute. More than 200 people have been exonerated through DNA testing nationwide. But why do these wrongful convictions keep happening?

It may have seemed like a clear verdict, but nine years later, he was found innocent and pardoned, the first man ever to be released from death row. Nine years later, he describes his time in prison as “Hell on Earth” (Bloodsworth). Nine years later, he faces a system in which his case is but one of the numerous wrongful convictions that take place or have taken place in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, nine years later, wrongful convictions are absolutely a problem in the United States, one that, every day, costs innocent people their freedom.

In the United States, the use of the death penalty continues to be a controversial issue. Every election year, politicians, wishing to appeal to the moral sentiments of voters, routinely compete with each other as to who will be toughest in extending the death penalty to those persons who have been convicted of first-degree murder. Both proponents and opponents of capital punishment present compelling arguments to support their claims. Often their arguments are made on different interpretations of what is moral in a just society. In this essay, I intend to present major arguments of those who support the death penalty and those who are opposed to state sanctioned executions application . However, I do intend to fairly and accurately

More than two centuries ago, the death penalty was commonplace in the United States, but today it is becoming increasingly rare. In the article “Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?”, Diann Rust-Tierney argues that it should be abolished, and Joshua Marquis argues that it should not be abolished. Although the death penalty is prone to error and discrimination, the death penalty should not be abolished because several studies show that the death penalty has a clear deterrent effect, and we need capital punishment for those certain cases in which a killer is beyond redemption.

Capital punishment, the state imposed penalty of death, continues to be one of the most controversial issues in contemporary American public policy. Since the earliest days of its employment in the colonial era until today, citizens have struggles with the issue of when and under what circumstances the taking of a human life by the state can be morally or legally justified. For some opponents of the death penalty, the simple answer is that the taking of a human life is always morally and ethically wrong, even when conducted under the auspices of state authority as a legal punishment. In contrast, proponents of capital punishment have contended with equal fervor that the death penalty is morally justified as a form of retributive justice,

In the article "The Case Against the Death Penalty," which shows up in Crime and Criminals: Opposing Viewpoints, Eric Freedman contends that capital punishment does not discourage fierce crime as well as conflicts with decreasing the crime rate. This essay will analyse Freedman 's article from the perspectives of a working man, a needy individual, and a government official.

Can anyone imagine the life of an individual suffering in prison knowing they are actually innocent from the very beginning of trial, but the judge still sentences them to twenty years in prison or the death penalty? The teenage years and mid-twenties heading into the thirties are supposed to be the best time in life for any individual, but also imagine all of those years taken away because the time spent in prison. No marriage, no more activities with kids or watching them grow up, can’t travel anywhere for vacation, all the holidays with family will disappear and other lifetime activities are gone as well. Wrongful conviction has been a huge issue for centuries now and the criminal justice system has not changed anything to help improve the innocent people walking away free. This paper will be addressing the problems of wrongful conviction in America such as wrongful convicts not receiving their compensation, capital punishment, the innocence movement, and cases that involve wrongful conviction, although, there are many cases that still have been unsolved with innocent people suffering in prison. Today in the United States, there are wrongful conviction reforms to help free innocent people who are behind bars and those who are standing against the death penalty.

False convictions are an ongoing dilemma in criminal cases. The available research is a significant barrier to understanding the prevalence of suspects being convicted of crimes they did not commit. Ethical considerations and variations in individual law enforcement agency policies contribute to the limited availability of records that often are fragmented, incomplete, and difficult to translate. Critical Information does not flow fluidly across the over the 3,000 counties represented in the United States. The multifaceted nature of crimes results in unlimited categorical variables that may influence outcomes of cases and pose extreme difficulty in uncovering mistaken convictions. There is an overwhelming lack of satisfactory data demonstrating that due process safeguards reach a standard in which capital punishment can be upheld as a constitutional, ethical, and moral option for the overall carriage of justice. The opposite is true, the speculative character and lack of concrete research about false convictions are proof that capital punishment, in the face of executions of innocent human beings, is a negligent, illegitimate, and unjust punishment that should be abolished.

The American judicial system is not perfect, and its flaws sometimes bare adversely on the people of this society. For instance, just because someone is labeled a criminal, does not always necessitate the fact that they are a criminal. Brian Gilmore argues this point when he mentioned that within the past 30 years, 102 innocent individuals have been acquitted from death row in America. He says that those individuals were either not released due to legal technicalities or because evidence was lost. “These men and women did not commit their crimes. Yet somehow, they were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to die, and some came awfully close to execution” Gilmore claimed. Unfortunately, it seems as though mistakes such as this one occur far too often; then, they eventually go unnoticed as we forget that those people, criminals or not, are human just like us. Considering the large window of feasible error associated with the death penalty, it is best that Americans make every effort to eliminate the intentional practice of capital punishment on criminals.

I realize that the death penalty can be a troublesome subject that may have people in this world divided. While there are many people who support it and there are those who are against it. Today crime has turned out to be a major problem in this country. If people want to commit crimes shouldn’t they do the time? But to dig a little deeper crimes and penalties are difficulties that stem from race, prejudice, beliefs, etc. Today’s criminal justice system has a lot of loop holes in it. Therefore, gang bangers, drug dealers, rapist, sex offenders are back on the streets. Lawyers are slightly responsible for why that is. Most lawyer’s will enable them to get away with their wrongdoings. The death penalty is good at a certain extent. I trust

In Stephen Bright’s article, “The Death Penalty as the Answer to Crime: Costly, Counterproductive, and Corrupting” Bright asserts that capital punishment does not work because it is racially biased, the quality of the lawyers and attorneys supplied by the state to poor defendants is unfair, and that the law system currently in place does not accomplish its true goals. Bright defends his claim with logos and ethos by examining the opinions of judges and district attorneys, and by describing experience within the fields of human rights and law himself in order to persuade the reader to take up more cases for those on death row. Given the language used in this article Bright is writing to an audience with intermediate to professional experience within the field of law, and a willingness to adopt a new idea on the constitutionality behind the death penalty.

When it comes to the topic of the Death Penalty, most of us will readily agree that people who take someone’s life should be punished the same way. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of if this is what they really deserve. Whereas some are convinced that this is what needs to happen so these criminals can learn the true value of the crime they have committed, others maintain that these felons should not be given the death penalty, since many of them is what they want.