The Issue With Capital Punishment and False Convictions
By: Allison Miles
Capital punishment tends to be a topic individuals avoid conversing and sharing their opinions about, and for fairly good reasons. Others who do not feel comfortable with this subject may feel defensive, awkward, or even offended at the mention of the death penalty. Though this should only be brought up at appropriate times in conversation, if society speaks more about this issue than they do currently, there could easily be a change in state laws, and treatment of convicted individuals.
The man who set off the homemade bombs during the Boston marathon in April 2013, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, was sentenced to death on December 8th, 2017. Tsarnaev's sentence had gone against the wishes of multiple victims and their family members, and though he pleaded not guilty to his crimes, his lawyer Judy Clarke was not hiding the fact that he had involvement in the attack. However, at least 4.1 percent of United States capital punishment sentences in the modern era are wrongful convictions, which means about 1 in 25 people that are sentenced to death are quite likely innocent.
By definition, false convictions are usually undetected when they occur because if we know an individual is innocent, there would not be an initial conviction. There is no systematic method to ascertain the accuracy of a criminal conviction. If there was, there would not be any mistakes produced within the judicial system in the first place. Because of this lack of knowing, very few false convictions are ever revealed.
"This is a disturbing finding," said Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan law school and lead author of the research done there. "There are a large number of people being sentenced to death, and despite our best efforts, some of them have undoubtedly slipped through the cracks." Mr Gross. said that reducing a sentence from death to life in prison does not make the problem of false convictions disappear. "If they're innocent, the punishment is better than execution, but not a lot better." Earlier research has shown that two-thirds of prisoners sentenced to death will have those sentences overturned. A handful will be exonerated, but most will be forced to a life of prison.
“The best efforts of the judicial system are only devoted to prisoners when they face execution,” Gross said. “In many cases when people are released from death row, little or nothing is done to deal with the equally bad injustice they now face – that they will spend the rest of their lives in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.”
The Death Penalty is a very toucy subject to many people. Like you mentioned, a lot people will tend to avoid such discussions orf it. Many are for it while some are against it and then you have those in the middle floating around believing that the death penalty should be given to those who have committed the ulitmate crime. However, that is not always the case. There are many prisoners in death row who have been in it for a few months while others for years! I have always thought what is the point of being sentenced to death if you are going to be put on death row for 20 years or more? Especially for those who are truly innocent, the thought of waiting for your death sentence to come is already punishment enough. It is especially saddening when someone is given the death penalty and years later they are found innocent of the crimes they committed. But it was already too late. It is cases like these where you have those people who are against the death penalty because of the faults that can be found in the justice system.
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