The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

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

While, innocent people are being sentenced to jail time and put on death row because of errors in the criminal justice system. It has been frequently argued that the death penalty leads to a failure and misuse of justice by wrongfully executing an innocent person. Many people have been announced innocent victims of the death penalty. Improper procedure may also result in unfair executions. Since 1973, more than 150 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. California being the state with the biggest amount of death row prisoners since April (2015) with 746.

The first thing that used to run through my mind when I heard that someone had been sentenced to death was the word: guilty. David Wayne Spence and David Junior Brown are only a few of the many that were executed by the judicial system, and later found innocent. There is no way to truly know how many innocent people were executed; because once an execution is carried out most cases are shut. Could a fabricated eye witness testimony play a role in a defendant receiving capital punishment? I know race does. I want to become a forensic psychologist, and a part of my job will be assisting judges with sentences in the court room. There is this question that has been bothering me for awhile now, and I would like to know, how has the United States judicial system addressed the problem of innocent death-row inmates being executed?

The death penalty has been battered backwards and forwards by the questions of abolishment and replacement, with mixed results. There seems to a jagged line in the sand on where people stand, and due to the continuous use today (albeit at a slower clip than in the past), it is still very much a prevalent topic of punishment. Those who argue for it believe that taking it away will take away a great deterrent, that families find peace, and that those who commit egregious crimes deserve only death. Anything less “would fail to do justice because the penalty – presumably a long period in prison – would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime” (“Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments,” 2016). Those who don’t believe in this punishment as a modern-day, useful tool of deterrence and punishment for crime, continuously counter these arguments, as well as any others, daily at every turn. Though many states have made it illegal, others placing moratoriums or refusals to use it, the death penalty can still be found active today. But why can’t it be replaced with life without parole, and it if can why should it?

The death penalty can lead to the death of innocent people. For example, “…According to a new study, serious errors occur in almost 70% of all trials leading to the death penalty…”(Leibman). This shows that if 100 people were put on death row, 70 would have serious mistakes in their

It’s better to leave guilty criminals alive than to kill innocent people. I can’t imagine how Bloodsworth and others like him felt in the years that they were in the death row, waiting for their unfair death. According to Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, one in every nine criminals in death row is an innocent person who has been released from death row. One in every nine people could have been wrongly dead. There is no way to tell how many innocent people died before. Almost 1,400 people were executed since 1976 (Brook); I wonder how many of them may have been innocent. Courts do not give attention to claims of innocence once the suspect is dead. Defense attorneys move on to other cases where

"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.

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.

Is it right to administer the death penalty if the crime is not proven justly and in full? There is always a possibility that the death penalty could be administered to someone who was innocent. Since the death penalty was reinstated a hundred and thirty nine death row inmates have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (Overall). In 2009 alone nine death row inmates were exonerated after courts overturned conviction because of lack of evidence. This ranks the second highest number of exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States (Overall). With this stated, do we know as citizens that every inmate on death row is guilty? Do we wish to persecute an innocent man or woman and have their family suffer daily from the loss of the family member? No, we as citizens do not know these things for certain and it would be better to administer life in prison than to murder an innocent man or woman. Sixty three percent on Gallup Poll say an innocent person has been executed in the last five years (Friedman 30).

In Richard Dieter’s article "Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent”, he shares the mistakes and the dangers of the death penalty. Capital punishment had gotten more and more controversial during the 90’s because of the risk of innocence. There was no DNA evidence during this time to prove if a person was innocent or guilty, so when putting them to death there was still a possibility that they were incorrect on the verdict. Today there are DNA tests that help prove whether someone is innocent or guilty, but it cannot bring those back who have been executed unjustly because of the death penalty. Lack of witnesses, the pressure from the public to solve the case, and limited resources for the defendant were common obstacles and quickened them to be charged as a suspect and then sentenced them to death based on the crime they “committed”. As technology advanced with DNA evidence, some criminals who were on death row were let out of

Also, there are many people now on death row, or serving prison term, for crimes they did not commit. A good example of such people is Thomas Arthur. According to report from death penalty information web site; the Alabama state death row inmate had sat on death row for twenty years for crime he did not commit. The report reads, “The State of Alabama will execute another innocent person on 09-27-09 unless you reach out and act NOW to help fight for his life.” (Paine, 1998).There are so many people in this category all over the world dying and suffering for crime they knew not about. Our jail/prisons are overcrowded today not just with habitual offenders; many of them are innocent of their charges. Similar to Thomas Arthur’s story is Levin “Bo” Jones of Kenansville, NC who spent 15years of his life in prison, most of which was spent on death row. He was released because he was found to be innocent of the crime that put him in prison. The report said that his release came as States ramp up executions in the wake the U.S. Supreme Court decision approving lethal injection. (Paine). Imagine what would have become of Levin Jones; he

Since 1973, 153 people have been exonerated by death row. “It is used today and was used in ancient times to punish a variety of offenses. Even the bible advocates death for murder and other crimes like kidnapping and witchcraft” (Death Penalty Arguments). The death penalty is a ticking time bomb. If the victim cannot have their life back, the criminal should not get the chance to either. Enforcing the death penalty, only reserved for brutal crimes, can help states financially, and eliminate future crimes. Society has a high interest in preventing violent crime, therefore people should want to use the strongest punishment available to deter it, and that is the death penalty. There are only two options for these people; life in prison, with or without parole, or the death penalty.

Though people only get death row after many trials and concrete proof, there are still many that are innocent and falsely convicted. According to ACLU, between 1973 and 2015, there were 148 exonerations of innocent people from death rows in the modern system. These are the only ones they found out so far, so in reality, the numbers are most likely higher. Only a few innocent people on death row are lucky enough to be found not guilty before their execution. Afterwards, the person has already lost their life, everyone falsely thought they were a murderer, and their families are heartbroken. ACLU also says that one in every 25 defendants sentenced to death is likely innocent. This is clearly a lot and should not be acceptable.

Second, the death penalty has executed innocent people. According to Samuel R.Gross, an American lawyer, he conducted an experiment of how many innocent people were given the death penalty for crimes they did not commit. He found an estimated 4.1% or 1 out of 25 inmates on death row were executed for crimes they did not commit. He says these numbers are just an estimate and they are most likely higher than this. Also, these numbers are extremely alarming because exoneration from the death penalty rate for

With convictions and executions, there is always a chance that someone was wrongly filed with charges. What are we to do with these people? In a study of capital convictions from 1900 to 1986 conducted by Radelet and Bedau, 350 cases were identified in which defendants were mistakenly convicted of crimes they did not commit, and of these 350, 24 were executed. Though 24 un-called for executions in 87 years don't sound too bad, the number should be zero. Society must determine whether the risk of wrongly executing an innocent person is worth taking to reap the benefits of executions of convicted murderers.