Death penalty laws in the United States are biased and must be modified.
Since the United States resumed the death penalty in 1976, it has joined the list of other countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia with a high level of executions. Up to October 29, 2015, the United States has had a total number of 1419 executions of inmates. Of those executions, 13 were posthumously found innocent. Also, 156 inmates on death row were exonerated after DNA tests reveal their innocence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Enough flaws, bias and ambiguity! The American public now demands fairness, justice and equality. First of all, the entire justice system must be revamped.
The judicial system in the United States regarding death penalty is biased toward certain people. Young men and women are being wrongfully convicted for crimes they have not committed. For example, one of those 13 unjustly executed victims was Larry Griffin. He was found guilty in 1980 for the murder of 19-year old, Quintin Moss. His conviction was based solely on Robert Fitzgerald's testimony who later recanted his previous testimony and confessed of having committed the murder of Quintin Moss. What a travesty of justice!
The best available evidence indicates that, on the one hand, innocent people are sentenced to death with materially greater frequency than was previously supposed and that, on the other hand, convincing proof of their innocence often does not emerge until long after their convictions.- United States v. Quinones.
The fundamental issue with the judicial system is that it prejudges and automatically rushes to some type of verdict simply based on who the person is. Poor whites, blacks, and other minority groups fall victim to this demagoguery. An African American is more likely to receive the maximum sentence or the death penalty for the same crime committed by a Caucasian. It's a fact. The mindset that pervades the judicial system is that once someone belongs to a particular ethnic group, a social or economic class, that person is automatically stigmatized as criminals or more susceptible to commit crimes.
In this case, the fate of the people who fall in those categories is sealed. It is so true that the judicial system often disregards the evidence that contradicts their assumption. To solve this problem, a few options are worth being considered: first, the jury's decision should only be the first step in someone's fate; next, the judge's role is to oversee the jury's decision to make a final determination; third, the testimony of only one person should not be adequate for a maximum sentence, let alone for death penalty; fourth, it should require a stack of evidence to arrive unmistakably at death penalty; fifth, this is a requirement for judges to use a combination of methodology-seeking evidence where a consensus is reached on guilt or innocence.
According to Death Penalty Information Center, the worse that could happen is wrongful convictions, which sometimes include:
• Inadequate legal representation
• Police and prosecutor misconduct
• Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
• Racial prejudice
• Jailhouse "snitch" testimony
• Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence
• Community/political pressure to solve a case
What leads to the stage of execution is a long and arduous judicial process which starts with the crime, the arrest, the incarnation and the trial, and so forth. It is hard to believe that despite going through all these legal mechanisms that lead to conviction or to capital punishment, the judicial system is still mired with so many biases, flaws and ambiguities. The death penalty, far from deterring crimes, is instead used as a legal tool to commit crimes. The wrongful conviction and execution of 13 innocent people exemplify the scope of the problem.
The souls of 13 innocent victims in their graves are demanding justice; those who are also wrongfully put behind bars are screaming for justice. It is time that the justice department in the country acts upon the recrimination of those silent or unheard voices and institutes order, fairness and the real rule of law. It often goes like this: anyone without a name recognition, prominence or adequate representation in court is 100 times more likely to get the maximum sentence or death penalty, while someone named Dupont, Kennedy or Rockefeller would either be acquitted or sentenced to a fraction of the minimal legal time for the same crime committed.
Current Death Row Statistics shows 3035 inmates waited to be executed. Among those executed, 50% are whites, 35% black and Hispanics 8% and others. Blacks comprise 13% of the United States population, but the number of them on death row almost equals that of the majority group. My goal is not to defend criminals of a certain ethnic groups, but rather to advocate justice, equality and fairness across the ethnic line.
In addition, other major changes to the death penalty laws include the following: the execution of inmates takes too long and costs the taxpayers too much money to keep them incarcerated for about two decades prior to their executions. Money is being squandered this way. The current annual cost for maintaining an inmate in a state prison in California is $47,102 and at least $2 million for every case of death penalty, according to procon.org.
With the court having tangible evidence and a solid confession from the alleged criminals, executions should follow a short time thereafter. The taxpayers' money that is being spent unreasonably on death row inmates for years and years could have been used more wisely by offering an opportunity to rehabilitate other jailed inmates, a second-chance like, so to speak. A successful rehabilitation is all some inmates need to reintegrate themselves as full-fledged members of society.
Public opinion is in majority in favor of death penalty. Therefore, anyone who confesses to have committed a crime should be subject to a uniform law and to the same fate, regardless of ethnicity and whether it is minimum, maximum punishment or death penalty. We all look forward to having a court system in the United States with fairness, justice and equal treatment for all.
