Hey guys. Sorry I've been flying under the radar for like what, two weeks now? Unfortunately college is getting the best of me, which I didn't really plan to happen but hey, to quote the movie I'm watching "you can't fight fate."
Ok, so last week for extra credit in my International Relations course, we watched a presentation (live) from a man named Juan Melendes. Juan was wrongly convicted of murder first, due to the information from a police informer, who all the time had a grudge against Juan. He was sentenced to death in prison in a Florida court (where the murder took place) and was placed on death row, where he was incarcerated for 17 years, 8 months and 1 day. All of this could simply have been avoided had the prosecutor OR Juan's defense attorney had not withheld evidence that conclusively proved the murder was not committed by Juan, one month prior to the original trial.
Anyways, enough on one specific case. I was assigned to write an opinion report on corporal punishment. Juan's presentation brought up a lot of issues that I hadn't really thought of, but I have to say I'm still in favor of execution for certain offenses.
First of all, there is the moral issue. There have been 138 cases of former death row inmates being released because they ended up being proven innocent since the year 1973. Who knows how many more innocents have actually been executed. So should we entirely abolish the system because of the possibility of more cases of innocence? No, I don't believe so. There is a degree of inherent risk in everything, and while I'm not saying I don't care about an innocent man being executed, it is a calculated risk we must take. Currently, the only capital offense recognized in the United States is aggravated murder/first degree murder (and in some rare cases, felony murder and a contract killing). Let's break that down. Typically, murder first is sentenced in cases involving premeditation. The same concept of premeditation obviously applies with contract killing, but I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what "felony murder" is. The people we're talking about have absolutely no regard for human life. They can say "oh I'm so sorry" and blah blah blah but guess what, you could have stopped at any time and not committed the murder. Execution of such violent offenders ensures that there will be no further crimes from these individuals. It can't be argued that the death penalty is inhumane. Lethal injection is designed to be painless, and the electric chair is on its way out. But before an inmate is executed, they're given Valium or another sedative to "relax them". Do these animals give a sedative to their victims before they commit heinous, evil and twisted acts? No!
The legal system needs to be fixed, and not in the way politicians do with elections. As does the investigation process. Case in point; when Illinois first instituted the death penalty, there were so many inmates on death row, the process ended up being frozen while local law enforcement could investigate the cases (again) to see who was actually guilty and who was not. Another example of the legal system needing overhauling is what I stated above with Juan Melendes. Both the prosecutor and the defense attorney were in possession of evidence implicating another man in the murder, one month prior to Juan's original trial. Also, deserving mention is the fact that Juan is a Puerto Ricano, and did not speak hardly any English at the time of his trial. Was he given a court interpreter? He sure wasn't. How can you expect to hold a free trial with a foreign man who does not even understand the concept of deportation?
What could be easily argued by the anti-death penalty camp is economics. Currently in the state of Colorado, it costs 35 thousand dollars per year to house one inmate. To execute them, the standard price is 2-3 million. This is driven by the lawyers, and the price is largely paid upfront, due to the much larger amount of resources thrown into a corporal punishment case than into any others. Also contributing to the price tag is the fact that death row inmates are given more appeal processes than non-death row prisoners. I have no way to realistically counter argue. It costs more to execute a prisoner than keep them for the rest of their life. However, the death penalty should be sentenced to criminals that are obviously guilty of the crimes they committed. In less-certain cases, there should be more investigation before the trial, so that the trial can hopefully be more conclusive. This is the way to cut out most if not all wrongfully-sentenced persons.
Overall, I think the choice is clear. I am 100% for the execution of evil men (and women), any less would be immoral, unjust and most importantly spitting in the face of the victims' families.
A good death penalty resource I came across in research
No comments:
Post a Comment