The Death Penalty 5 Essay, Research Paper
The death penalty must be abolished. We have given our government the authorization to determine who shall live and who shall not. We have given twelve individuals the power to determine the mortal fate of another human being. Today’s system of capital punishment is fraught with inequalities and injustices. There is no room for the difference between life and death.
Nearly four centuries have passed since the first recorded lawful execution on American soil (Captain George Kendall was killed for the crime of theft in 1608). Every method used in the death penalty has purported to be more humane, less painful, and scientific. Massive and familiar as the death penalty is to modern America, in order to understand the death penalty today, we must look at the changes it has undergone. The intended effect of hanging is the dislocation of the cervical vertebrae which produces instant death. Hangings are optional to the condemned presently in only four states-Montana, New Hampshire, Washington, and Delaware. The 1996 execution of John Taylor in Utah provides a clear look at the modern method of death by firing squad (Taylor claimed he was innocent and chose a firing squad over lethal injection to embarrass state officials). Taylor was strapped into a wooden armchair and a hood was placed over his head. A stethoscope was used to locate his heart and a red cloth target was pinned to the site. Five anonymous sharpshooters using .30 caliber rifles, stationed behind an upright canvass sheet twenty feet from their target fired on command and Taylor died quickly. The electric chair, introduced in 1890 has the intended effect of paralysis of the heart and respiratory system. The prisoner is strapped to the chair and a powerful surge of electricity is passed through his body. In Georgia in 1985, Alpha Otis Stephens had to be hit with three separate 1,900 volt surges of electricity before he expired. In the case of lethal gas, the prisoner is strapped in an airtight chamber and a lever outside of the gas chamber is pulled, dropping capsules of sodium cyanide into a vat of sulfuric acid. Cyanide gas fills the chamber.
Introduced in 1977, lethal injection is the most commonly used method of execution in the United States today. The prisoner is strapped to a gurney lying on his back and a needle injects three substances. The intended effects of these drugs are that the first is an anesthetic, the second is a drug paralyzing the diaphragm and respiratory muscles, and the third stops the heart. Based on external indicators of pain and distress (i.e. screaming, sweating, facial grimaces, defecation and urination, vomiting, pupil dilation, writhing of the body) the general consensus is that lethal injection is the most humane method of killing. Advances such as this will anesthetize the public conscience to the reality of the death penalty, along with the condemned man.
“Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another out but similars that breed their kind.”
–George Bernard Shaw
During public executions in early America and Europe, pickpockets feverishly worked the crowds, even though picking pockets was a crime punishable by death. Not only did public executions of the past fail to deter, they provoked great violence, which was the principal reason why, despite enormous popularity, executions were removed from public view.
The theory of deterrence, used so fondly by pro-death penalty advocates, follows that the greater the punishment for a particular behavior, the less likely we are to engage in that behavior. Common sense leads us to believe this to be true. Common sense also tells us that the earth stands still as the sky and stars spin around us. Upon further investigation, however, we find this gives the impression of the truth.
As capital punishment became morally troubling for Americans, this theory of deterrence offered a seemingly scientific explanation for state-sanctioned murder. Numerous studies have been conducted throughout the last century in examining the relationship between murder rates and the imposition of the death penalty, and the determination has been that there is in fact no consistent relationship between the two. The pretense that the death penalty prevents would-be murderers from committing their crimes does not consider that the imposition of the death penalty was founded on logical thought and rational behavior. The large percentage of murders are crimes of passion, committed without aforethought fueled by feelings of rage, hatred, jealousy or fear.
“O.J. didn’t buy justice; every defendant deserves the kind of defense O.J. was able to afford”
–one of Simpson’s attorneys
The sad, shameful fact is that money makes the difference between life and death for many defendants. Far too often, it is not those which who commit the most despicable crimes who are sent to death row, but those who lack the money to mount an adequate defense. Money can buy a thorough investigation of the crime, expert analysis and testimony, a careful search for mitigating factors that may need to be presented during a penalty phase. Most important, money can buy a skillful, experienced lawyer.
Money is not the only factor working against justice in our biased legal system. Gender is an important part in determining sentencing; 97% of the individuals currently on death row are men. A recent study found that killing a white person increased the odds of being sentenced to death by a factor of nearly 4 in Illinois, a factor of 5 in Florida, and a factor of 7 in Georgia. While some murders are so vicious and violent that race may not be a determining factor in sentencing, in less brutal murders both prosecutors and jurors may unintentionally let race influence their decision making process.
‘It is better than to set free a thousand criminals than to wrongfully put to death an innocent man.’
In 1996, Rolando Cruz was allowed to walk out of his death-row cell after eleven long years. He had been convicted of the rape and murder of a ten-year-old Chicago girl. No physical evidence had ever linked Cruz to the crime, and no motive was ever established. Lacking real evidence, the police created phony evidence. They claimed that during interrogation, Cruz had recounted a “dream” that contained specific details about the killing-details only the real killer could have known. Prosecutors disclosed the “dream” evidence only four days before the trial. Although most of the interrogation was tape-recorded, the portion describing the “dream” sequence was not. Even though the man who had actually committed the murder had confessed to the crime eight years earlier, it took a new DNA test to exonerate Cruz.
The work of Hugo Beau of Tufts University and Michael Radelet of the University of Florida has identified 416 people who were wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death between 1900 and 1991. All of these people were imprisoned. Over 30 of these wrongfully imprisoned individuals came within day or minutes of being executed. In 23 cases, the innocent person was executed. The four main sources of error are police error (coerced or false confession, sloppy or corrupt investigation), prosecutor error (suppression of exculpatory evidence), witness error (mistaken eyewitness identification, perjured testimony) and a variety of other errors that don’t fit into any neat category. These miscellaneous errors include misleading circumstantial evidence, forensic science errors, incompetent defense lawyers, exculpatory evidence ruled inadmissible, inadequate attention to alibis, and pressure created by community out rage. The most common means of discovering these mistakes are confession by the actual perpetrator, evidence uncovered through the perseverance of a dedicated defense counsel, and the publicity generated by members of the media.
“On death row the allegorical pound of flesh is just the beginning. Here the whole person is consumed. The spirit is captured and gradually worn down, then the body disposed of.”
–Robert Johnson
In early America when capital punishment was common, and societies were more barbaric, capital punishment was acceptable. In today’s ever increasing humanitarian society, the death penalty is without question unacceptable. The theory of deterrence has crumbled under the immense pressure of research. The death penalty has not and can not be imposed fairly. The cost of an innocent man’s life is too great to risk in state-sanctioned murder. We have the chance to begin the new century in a society free of murder in any form and we need to embrace that chance. It is our moral responsibility to abolish the death penalty. We were placed in a society that acted on primal instinct and feeds on revenge. But I still believe there to be hope for the future.