I read a story today in the New Yorker about a guy who was executed in Texas and it is very likely that he was innocent of the charges against him. Here’s a link to the article
I am not against the death penalty per se, I think a person who takes another persons life in an act of malice forfeits his own right to existence. I would mete it out without remorse if I caught the murderer of a member of my family. I would vote innocent if I were on a jury where a person did the same, also without remorse or reservation.
Here’s the trouble, and why I am against the death penalty as a legal form of punishment exacted by society:
There is a conspicuous disparity in the number of folks on death row who are racial minorities. And on the basis that folks convicted of nearly identical crimes who are non white are considerably more likely to recieve the death penalty. Black defendants are 3.9 times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites convicted of the same crime.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976#racestat
Also disconcerting is the fact that if a defendant is charged with killing a white victim, that defendant is much more likely to receive the death penalty
“In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks.”
- United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing
If you’re a defendant in certain states you are much more likely to receive the death penalty. 95% of executions are in the southern states(See previous link for statistics, and note the Death Penalty Information Center’s 2008 report)
If all phases of capital cases ending in execution are taken into account, it costs more to execute the defendant than it would have if there was no death penalty and the defendant received life without the possibility of parole
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
Groups like Amnesty International and The Innocence Project have successfully presented evidence and exonerated over 135 inmates sentenced to death since 1976.
The New Yorker article points up the incompetence of the arson investigator in the case and there appear to be cultures of execution in the states that have the most executions. The checks in the system designed to prevent the possibility of an innocent individual being executed appear to be less than they must be in order to keep us as a society of being guilty of murder.
Thus, I think an immediate cessation of executions be enacted, as was done by the pro death penalty governor of Illinois and we re-evaluate the system. I do not believe a system can be put into place where the biases of the system are eliminated, and therefore believe the practice of execution should be eliminated. But even if one believes this is possible, clearly is is not the case now, and again that speaks for a moratorium on the death penalty.
I did not bring into, or consider in this, the argument that says the death penalty is not a deterrent, it is to me, but apparently it is not to the folks out there who commit capital crimes.
When there is reasonable doubt the very system is working, and even if it is it’s more expensive than an alternative that doesn’t exact an irrevocable penalty, how can we as civilized people justify what essentially boils down to revenge, or blood lust? Frankly we can’t, and we should stop the process immediately as it demeans us as a society.
