The Idea that Many People on Death Row are Innocent is Nonsense
One of the most pernicious urban legends perpetrated by those who oppose capital punishment is that innocent people have been executed and that there have a large number of exonerations. Exoneration means innocent and while there is no question the justice system makes mistakes they are extremely rare. Of almost 10,000 people sentenced to death over the last 30 years exactly 4 have been removed from death row because DNA showed it extremely unlikely they committed the crimes of which they were convicted. The Innocence Project points to just over 200 DNA exonerations in all kinds of serious felonies. The question raised by Justice Scalia in his concurrence in the case of Kansas vs. Marsh was out of what universe. Those are 200 DNA exonerations out of tens of millions of rapes and murder cases. That would mean an error rate of about one ten thousandths of one percent or putting it another way a success rate of around 99.99%. No human endeavor is without risk and every year tens of thousands of people are killed by mistakes by pharmacists and doctors. Yet we don’t stop medicine or surgery, we seek to improve it and reduce the risk.
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"and while there is no question the justice system makes mistakes they are extremely rare"...
...if it was your child , brother or sister or you who was one of those "extremely rare" instances... would that change your mind?
-We are talking mega rare because it takes a lot to convict someone of 1st degree murder . It takes even more to execute someone.
-By your reasoning we should outlaw liposuction because more people are killed by the doctors mistake then wrongful executions.
-I think I would rather be swiftly executed then spend my life in prison for a crime I did not commit.
-Your from Australia which is funny because your ansters were convicted criminals who had the choice between British punishment or being forced onto a distance island. (no offense I just had to bring it up)
-Just because liposuction kills more people than wrongful executions, at least people who chose to use liposuction have a choice. And 'more people are killed by the doctors mistake then wrongful executions' please give statistics, because proof is more valid than opinions.
-'I think I would rather be swiftly executed then spend my life in prison for a crime I did not commit.' Well, you don't know until you end up in that circumstance, and you're not making that decision for everyone. And at least if you spend your life in prison and are innocent, you have the chance to be freed later on.
-'Your from Australia which is funny because your ansters were convicted criminals who had the choice between British punishment or being forced onto a distance island. (no offense I just had to bring it up)' What, so if my parents have come from another country, then I don't fit into your outdated stereotype/incorrect spelling then I'm not Australian? And how does this even relate to your argument
It is impossible to know the right answer for every person. Maybe only a handful of people were FOUND innocent after, but there could be so many more missing that we don't know about. It's a flawed system, I agree that just about everything has consequences, but this is something we can prevent or lessen greatly by dropping the death sentence and going to life without parole.
I am not opposed to a guilty murderer being put to death but the possibility of even one innocent person being wrongly put to death is reason enough to ban the death penalty . Any opinion to the contrary is evil, cruel and inhumane. Final decision.
The fact that there are over 200 innocent people nationwide exhonerated and a prison system that has only 3 million people in it, not tens of millions, is alarming. Is there always DNA evidence for the innocent? Do all innocent people get a decent appeal? According to many the TRUE number is closer to 10 percent of ALL people convicted are wrongfully convicted. Why are capital cases any different??? There is a real case to be made that if you are a minority your chance of receiving the death penalty for a crime increases DRAMATICALLY. until we are able to understand and repair these inequities, isn't the death penalty at least a BIT suspect? We should stop taking lives at least until there is evidence that it saves lives and there is TRULY equal justice for all.
I'm all for the death penalty. I don't think we use it enough.
That said I think we need to use all of the technology available to make sure we are executing the correct person. If there is DNA available it should be automatically tested. If someone else admits to the crime after the the fact. It needs to be seriously investigated. If witnesses recant after the trial we need to know why and their claims need to be taken seriously. If its discovered that the prosecutor or law enforcement withheld evidence there should be severe punishment. We're talking about a persons life.
I've frequently heard the statement "Twelve men and women found him/her guilty". Those twelve had to make the decision based on the facts at hand and when the "facts" change the decision may change.
Yes - we will inevitably execute someone who is innocent but we should do everything we can to eliminate that possibility.
You just made the good case for abolishment of the death penalty , look at what you wrote. How to make sure we are excuting the right person(s), hello the only way to be sure is to not murder them. There are some evil people in this world who do some some awful ugly things, however we are not God, we do not have the right to decide who lives or who dies in the name of justice.
That being said the death penalty is nothing more than legal murder powered by revenge, not justice. It does not deter anything, it is not cost effective, it cost millions in appeals process, and keeps the survivers of the victims wounds open and exposed. There is no such thing as closure for the families, even if the person who killed their loved dies, the pain of losing their loved one does not go away because someone stuck a needle in the killers arm.
I think keeping the inmates alive serves a dual purpose, first they could be innocent, and second prison is no kiddie park, life if one could call it life is having to remember what they did to be where they are at. No closure for them either, actually it is more punishing than death, because once they are gone they are gone, don't have to deal with their behavior any more. If you ask me death is too good for the killers who are guilty on death row.
Do you know or have you ever been in a prison, not the crap we watch on tv, a real prison? If you had you might think differently about how great the inmates don't have it. There are times when death would be better than life to some of the inmates. They have no future period, and that is good enough for me. If they seek redemption they will have to admit their crimes as well as participate in seeking forgiveness. Life means life is a sentence I can live with, no parole ever.
On the flip side of that coin is what about the people who have been excuted and were not guilty. I wonder if you had to administer the drugs to kill another person, then found out they were innocent of the crime they were put on death row for, how would you deal? Would you say "Yes we will inevitably execute someone who is innocent (but) we should do everyting we can to eliminate that possibility." Therefore that one person life was taken, now we find out he was innocent, but that's the breaks you win some you lose some. What if that person who was being executed was you, and all you can say is I'm innocent, and no body is listening because your the convicted killer who is about to die.
"No human endeavor is without risk and every year tens of thousands of people are killed by mistakes by pharmacists and doctors. Yet we don’t stop medicine or surgery, we seek to improve it and reduce the risk."
This is sadly true. But the comment made in this context, makes it really, really dumb. Presumably, someone sitting on Death Row is there because he wanted to kill someone, which is what makes it murder. The same can not be said about the mistakes of health care professionals.
You also note what a tiny percentage of Death Row inmates have been more or less exonerated by DNA evidence, but somehow failed to notice that it's four human beings that the state won't kill. Would ten innocent lives saved be enough to convince you? 100? 1,000? Perhaps you really need those percentages, so 1, 5, 10%? What percent of innocent human life lost would convince you that it's just not worth the risk?
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