The institution of death row is unreliable and financially illogical. The criminal justice system in America is not always accurate, and when the context of the death penalty is included, a terrible combination arises. Using data from the Death Penalty Information center, it is evident that the court does not always make the right call. “Since 1973, 156 people have been exonerated from death row… Since 1976, 1411 people have been executed” (Innocence: List of Those Freed From Death Row). 156 people have been wrongfully placed on Death Row, and had their case not been looked over, would have been executed undeservingly. The court can never be always accurate, as these people were placed on Death Row without 100% certainty, and were later found
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No method of “humane” execution can be completely precise, as seen in the botched execution of Joseph Wood and Clayton Lockett. The government’s failure to cleanly put these men to death illustrates a clear reason to distrust the government in deciding the lives of American citizens. Lockett and Wood suffered and experienced extreme agony due to a practice designed to kill painlessly, therefore illustrating the lack of reliability within the institution of death row. In a book written by Ted Gottfried, a clear issue regarding the certainty and confidence in the sentencing of capital punishment is exhibited. A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases,” shows that death sentences had been set aside on appeal in 68 percent of convictions between 1973 and 1995. It added that there was “grave doubt whether we do catch” all of the errors (Gottfried 16). In 68 percent of death penalty convictions between 1973 and 1995, the initial jury that sentenced these men to die may have not “caught everything”. The American criminal justice system is and can never be 100% accurate, which is why a penalty involving the destruction of life has no place in society. Executing a man or woman without 100% certainty of whether or not they committed the crime …show more content…
No place, not even Texas, comes close… This is not a problem peculiar to Oklahoma, far from it. Wrongful convictions occur every month in every state in this country, and the reasons are all varied and all the same—bad police work, junk science, faulty eyewitness identifications, bad defense lawyers, lazy prosecutors, arrogant prosecutors” (Grisham
No method of “humane” execution can be completely precise, as seen in the botched execution of Joseph Wood and Clayton Lockett. The government’s failure to cleanly put these men to death illustrates a clear reason to distrust the government in deciding the lives of American citizens. Lockett and Wood suffered and experienced extreme agony due to a practice designed to kill painlessly, therefore illustrating the lack of reliability within the institution of death row. In a book written by Ted Gottfried, a clear issue regarding the certainty and confidence in the sentencing of capital punishment is exhibited. A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases,” shows that death sentences had been set aside on appeal in 68 percent of convictions between 1973 and 1995. It added that there was “grave doubt whether we do catch” all of the errors (Gottfried 16). In 68 percent of death penalty convictions between 1973 and 1995, the initial jury that sentenced these men to die may have not “caught everything”. The American criminal justice system is and can never be 100% accurate, which is why a penalty involving the destruction of life has no place in society. Executing a man or woman without 100% certainty of whether or not they committed the crime …show more content…
No place, not even Texas, comes close… This is not a problem peculiar to Oklahoma, far from it. Wrongful convictions occur every month in every state in this country, and the reasons are all varied and all the same—bad police work, junk science, faulty eyewitness identifications, bad defense lawyers, lazy prosecutors, arrogant prosecutors” (Grisham