The New Jersey legislature is set to pass a bill to abolish the death penalty and the Governor has said he will sign the bill into law, becoming the first state in forty years to abolish the death penalty. A New Jersey Commission charged with examining the death penalty issue determined it did not deter murders, was more expensive than life without parole and created conditions where an innocent person could be executed.
The Supreme Court will hear a case involving the Constitutionality of lethal injections as a method of execution next month, effectively placing a moratorium on executions in the United States until the issue of whether lethal injections constitute the "cruel and unusual" punishments banned by the Constitution. Even if lethal injections were found to be a "cruel and unusual" punishment by the Supreme Court, the death penalty would not be outlawed; the Federal and state governments would have to develop methods of executions that would pass Constitutional muster.
Between 1973 and this year, 124 convicted murderers have been exonerated of their crimes, based on DNA and other evidence, and released from death row. Fifty-eight percent of these exonerations took place in just six states, 22 in Florida, 18 in Illinois, and eight each in Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas.
The United States is one of the few developed nations that still execute criminals and we currently have about 3,300 prisoners on Death Row in the fifty states. If our criminal justice system is right 99% of the time it means as many as 33 persons on death row are innocent. While we can have confidence that a particular person accused of murder is guilty of the crime, the more persons that are placed on death row the greater the possibility that errors have occurred at some point in the arrest and trial process. The work of the Innocence Project has proven that major flaws exist in the criminal justice system and that innocent persons have been convicted and placed on death row.
Our societal traditions state that it is better for a guilty person go free than an innocent person be convicted of a crime he or she did not commit. That is the ideal, but given our history of racial slavery and segregation, unequal access to legal assistance for the poor and mentally ill and the normal error rate of human error in police investigations, eyewitness identifications and other criminal justice procedures, the system is far from perfect. The advent of DNA evidence has begun to demonstrate the flaws and error rate, but DNA evidence is available be used in a minority of criminal cases to convict or acquit an accused person.
As a retired mental health therapist who worked in a jail, I would prefer to have a death penalty because I know there are a few violent persons who have proven by their crimes that they cannot be trusted to live in our society. I also know that our criminal justice system is flawed and has, at least in 124 proven cases, sentenced innocent persons to death for crimes they did not commit. A criminal justice system than can sentence a person to death has to be perfect, and we know that this is an impossible achievement in any system that involves humans. Our only moral and ethical choice is to give up the right to execute persons for any crime in order to ensure that we will not execute innocent persons.
The maximum sentence for any crime should be life without the possibility of parole. The only release from this sentence would be death in prison or new evidence that would prove in a court of law that the accused was not guilty of the crime to begin with. Murder would not be the only crime eligible for this sentence. On the day I wrote this article a man went into an insurance agency in Florida intent on committing a robbery. He took with him a gallon of gasoline and proceeded to pour it on the two women, one of them pregnant, working in the office and set them on fire. A passerby tried to intervene to help the two women and was shot in the face by the robber. The women were burned over ninety percent of their bodies. This type of violent crime should also qualify for the life without parole for the first non-lethal offense unless there are extreme mitigating circumstances. Second crimes involving serious, non-lethal, violence would certainly qualify for the same sentence.
Many people will object to the elimination of the death penalty, but is just a matter of time until it is proven that an innocent person was executed for crime he or she did not commit. What do we say to the family of the executed innocent when it happens?
The link below will take you to a more extensive article on this issue and the website of the Innocence Project.
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Comments: 15
Good article.
I have worked hard in my life. I am harsher then most I think because of what I have been through. I was beaten while pregnant by the very man who was supposed to love and honor and cherish me while I carried his child. I was homeless, living in a battered women's shelter as a first time parent with a three week old baby. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I have made drastic changes in my life WITH HONESTY and HARD WORK. Before you say I am young and healthy let me tell you, my last xray told the er peopLe I have the arthritis of an 80 year old woman in my back and legs. My knee is currently out of place and I am still at work. I get chronic migraines. I am eligible for disability and able to stay home and live off the system if I so wish too, I DO NOT. I am capable of work, yeah there is some pain BUT i have a better quality of life because of it.
Because of this I feel people who kill, abuse, steal, or even try to cheat the system that helped me so greatly for the short period I needed it should be put to death. I think people who sell drugs should be put to death. I think ALL CRIMINALS should be put to death. Hell, put them on an island and make a Battle Royale only one can live pay per view special out of it. I am sorry but BAD PEOPLE are the one thing in this world I am truly prejudiced against and I am not afraid to get up on my soapbox and say it. You don't need anyone but yourself to make your life better and you can do it honestly without hurting others, if I did it anyone can so I have no freaking sympathy for the losers who don't! Plus killing them all would solve the overcrowded jails program and free up alot of our tax money for better things like educations and parks.
For that matter I think congressmen (and women) who do shameful things such as drunk driving, adultery, hookers and etc etc. should be put right there with the rest of the criminals and not given special treatment. Same goes for rich people (PARIS) and athletes as well!!!!! CLEAN UP OUR COUNTRY GOSH DARNIT SOMEONE NEEDS TOO!!!!
I know, I know that is very harsh. But it is how I feel about it. If everyone would listen to me we would have world peace in no time.
- stepping back down off my soapbox now, sorry, I had the time and you got me started!!! LOL
Let's just say I will never go to New Jersey, by deciding not to clean up their State they have lost my tourism dollars!!!!!
Punishment doesn't solve anything. It doesn't change people. It doesn't really help the people who cared for the victim.
Lock up the perp forever.
I fail to believe the "more expensive" comment made myself as well.
Thanks.
I have no religious, social, political belief that is in opposition to the death penalty. My objection to it is that, system that given the finality of the punishment and the errors and flaws in the criminal justice system, we do not and cannot have a death penalty that will guarantee not to execute innocent people.
Given the evidence, people who still support the death penalty should be willing to declare that they are willing to accept the execution of innocent persons in order that we may continue to execute the truly guilty. As an alternative, they could assert that the DNA and other evidence that has freed 124 persons from death row was wrong or faked and that every person on death row is actually guilty of the crime they were convicted of because our criminal system does not make mistakes.
I guess my response to the innocents sometimes getting put to death, well is anyone who would be suspect and arrested every truly "innocent" of everything. If you are a righteous person and an usptanding citizen and a truly good person would you put yourself in a situation where you would be suspect???? Not any of the people I know would. That is just my opinion. I can argue both sides of the debate. I will always be for the death penalty, I also cannot fault the people who don't.
Blessings to all.
I can only wonder if you would take that position if you or a loved one was the inncoent person facing execution for a crime that you or they did not committ. I would also suggest that you carefully review the Innocence Project website and read about the official misconduct on the part of the police and prosecutors that resulted in innocent persons being sentenced to death.
I think i am this opinionated because i was the victim of a crime. I was in a very pissy mood the day i wrote that. Of course i wouldn't want a loved one to die or even innocent people to die. I know that it happens though. What i was trying to get across is that if they would make the punishments was stricter and not just give people little slaps on the wrists crimes would decrease! My ex husband almost killed me and you know what he got? 180 days in jail with 90 suspended. For assault, domestic violence and child endangerment and even though he had threatened to hunt me down and kill me when he gets out after he very nearly killed me before being put in jail he wasonly in 90 days. when he got out he went on to hospitalize his next 3 girlfriends and he kept getting slaps on the wrists and let back out to harm others again. Then he got arrested for selling oxycotin to a cop and he only got a year for that. I don't think necessarily that all criminals should be put to death but i will revise my previous statement to say repeat offenders of the same offense. They tried to rehabilitate him and help him. He has been through anger management counseling three times (at the time when i left) he found God in jail and blah blah blah but keeps going back for the same freaking offense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My view i guess is where is the justice in the guilty being set free to do more harm. what about the innocent people who are killed in that they are the victims of the criminals who weren't put to death??? I am sure criminals who are released cause more deaths then the innacurate justice system would!
As for life in prison, i don't think that teaches them anything, they get freaking cable, three meals a day, a roof over their head and a weight room and many other amenities their life may not have provided them otherwise. Where is the justice in that? I have also seen numerous news stories where a wife beater or drug dealer is let out and goes on to kill or harm numerous people after. What about the drunk drivers that have been released and given back driving priveledges so many times it is ridiculous then they kill people with their stupidity.
Again, of course I do not want innocent people to die but something needs to be done because our current system of just slap 'em on the wrist and hope it does the job SUCKS and is not helpful for anyone! I don't feel safe! We need to start getting tougher and showing tough love and scaring people into shaping up!!!
Again, I don't expect people to agree with me. I like your article and how you presented it, i also like and respect your arguments. My personal opinion will not be swayed because of what i suffered at the hands of another and what i have seen from the time when i lived in his world.
Thank you for respecting my opinions as well.
Holiday blessings to you Duane!
~kimber