The death penalty has been utilized in America since 1608, nearly since the birth of the country. Last year alone forty seven people were executed in America, and for every 8.2 executions one person is exonerated. This means that for every 8.2 people who are killed because of the death penalty one person on death row is found innocent and released. These odds are not good enough to justify the continuation of government sanctioned executions. Killing people is against the law and the government should not be above the law.
Jimmie Duncan is a man from Louisiana who has been on death row for nearly thirty years. He was released on bail in November after his conviction was overturned. He was originally accused of raping and drowning his own girlfriends baby, though the forensic evidence has now been labeled “not scientifically defensible”. Imagine being wrongly incarcerated for thirty years after one of your loved ones experiences the life altering loss of a child. Jimmie doesn’t have to imagine this because it happened to him in real life.
The most likely outcome of a death sentence is that it will be overturned. America has been proven to be unable to administer the death penalty fairly or reliably. Robert Dunham, Death Penalty Information Centers executive director states,”Thirty-year-old cases are coming up for execution that wouldn’t even be capitally prosecuted today. And when you look behind the data, the features that best characterize executions — race of victim, vulnerable defendants, what side of the county line the crime occurred and when it was tried, and the lack of meaningful judicial process — are all illegitimate bases to administer the law.” The death penalty is subject to bias based on irrelevant factors like race. This is reason enough to cease or at least decrease the application of the death penalty because of America’s history with lynching and racially motivated mass incarceration.
Students at Lake shared similar opinions as well. Alex Buswell expressed,”I don’t think that a life should be taken on one account.” She felt that the death penalty was unjust in many cases but also thought that if a criminal committed a capital offense that they should have to reflect on that and live with it, rather than being sentenced to death.
