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... on death row (Cornell Law Review, 542). Death-penalty advocates often point out that no one has been proved innocent after execution. However, the DNA evidence that could establish such innocence has frequently been lost by prosecutors with no incentive to keep it. In Virginia case, a court actually prevented posthumous examination of DNA evidence.
On the defense side, lawyers and investigators concentrated their scarce resources on cases where lives can be spared. And while DNA answers some questions, it raises others: If so many inmates are exonerated in rape and rape-murder cases where DNA is obtainable, how about the vast majority of murders, where there is no DNA? Might not the rate of error be comparable? Politics, for once, seems to be in the background, largely because views of the death penalty don't break down strictly along party lines.
Ryan of Illinois is a Republican; Gray Davis, the hard-line governor of California, a Democrat. The Republican-controlled New Hampshire Legislature voted to abolish the death penalty; the Democratic governor vetoed the bill. Perhaps the best way to understand how the politics of the death penalty are shifting is to analyze and compare both cases of two Ricky's. In January 1992, Arkansas Gov.
Bill Clinton interrupted his presidential campaign to return home to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man convicted of killing a police officer. Rector had lobotomized himself with a bullet to his head; he was so incapacitated that he asked that the pie served at his last meal be saved for later. By not preventing the execution of a mentally impaired man, Clinton was sending a strong message to voters: the era of soft-on-crime Democrats was over. Even several years later Gore did not dare step out front on death-penalty issues (Sifakis, 38). Ricky McGinns case presented a different opportunity for Bush. While the decision to grant a stay was largely based on common sense and the merits of the case, it was convenient, too.
In 1999, Talk magazine caught Bush making fun of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Earlier this year, at a campaign debate sponsored by CNN, the cameras showed the governor chuckling over the case of Calvin Burning, whose lawyer fell asleep at his trial. In going the extra mile for McGinn over the objections of the appeals court and parole board, Bush looked prudent and blunted some of the criticism of how he vetoed a bill establishing a public defenders office in Texas and made it harder for death-row inmates to challenge the system. That system has scheduled 23 more Texas executions between now and Election Day. Gary Graham, slated to die June 22, was convicted on the basis of one sketchy eyewitness account when he was 17. The absence of multiple witnesses would make him ineligible for execution in the Bible.
At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death (Deuteronomy 17: 6). Grahams age at the time he was convicted of the crime in 1981 would make him too young to be executed in all but four other nations in the world. Americans might not realize how upset the rest of the world has become over the death penalty. All of our major allies except Japan (with a half- dozen executions a year) have abolished the practice. Only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Congo execute more than the United States.
A draft version of the European Unions Bill of Rights published last week bars EU countries from extraditing a suspected criminal to a country with a death penalty. (If approved, this could wreak havoc with international law enforcement). Admission to the EU is now a reason on ending capital punishment, which forced Turkey to abolish its once-harsh death-penalty system (Bedau, 198). Another controversial issue in the question of capital punishment is the execution of juveniles. The United States has 73 men on death row for crimes committed when they were too young to drink or vote (mostly age 17); 16 have been executed, including eight in Texas.
Thats more than the rest of the world combined. So far, opposition abroad has had little effect at home. What changed the climate in the United States were a series of cases in Illinois. The story traces back to the convictions of four black men, two of whom were condemned to die, for the 1978 murders of a white couple in the Chicago suburb of Ford Heights.
In the early 1980 s, Rob Warden and Margaret Roberts, the editors of a crusading legal publication called The Chicago Lawyer, turned up evidence that the four might be innocent. The states case fell apart in 1996, after DNA evidence showed that none of the so-called Ford Heights Four could have raped the woman victim. It was only one case, but it had a searing effect in Illinois for this reason: three other men confessed to the crime and were convicted of it. The original four were unquestionably innocent and two of them had nearly been executed (Landau, 125).
By then other Illinois capital cases were falling apart. Some of the key legwork in unraveling bum convictions came from Northwestern University journalism students. Late in 1998 their school hosted a conference on wrongful convictions. The event produced a stunning photo: 30 people whod been freed from death rows across the country, all gathered on one Chicago stage. But it was another Illinois case, early in 1999, that really began to tip public opinion. A new crop of Northwestern students helped prove the innocence of Anthony Porter, who at one point had been just two days shy of lethal injection for a pair of 1982 murders.
Once again, the issue in Illinois wasn't the morality of death sentences, but the dangerously sloppy way in which they were handed out. Once again a confession from another man helped erase doubt that the man convicted of the crime, who has an IQ of 51, had committed it (Landau, 134). By last fall the list of men freed from death row in Illinois had grown to 11. Thats when the Chicago Tribune published a lavishly researched series explaining why so many capital cases were suspect. The Tribunes digging found that almost half of the 285 death-penalty convictions in Illinois involved one of four shaky components: defense attorneys who were later suspended or disbarred, jailhouse snitches eager to shorten their own sentences, questionable hair analysis evidence or black defendants convicted by all- white juries.
Whats more, in the weeks after those stories appeared, two more men were freed from death row. That pushed the total to 13 - one more than the number of inmates Illinois had executed since reinstating the death penalty in 1977. Probably, the Porter case and the Tribune series were enough for Governor Ryan. Declaring a moratorium on Jan. 31, he told Newsweek last week, There probably wont be anymore deaths, at least while he is governor. I believe there are cases where the death penalty is appropriate, Ryan said. But weve got to make sure we have the right person.
Every governor who holds this power has the same fear I do. In the conclusion, it is necessary to make certain sum-up points, concerning the problem of capital punishment. Most states are not as lucky as Illinois. They do not have reporters and investigators digging into the details of old cases. As the death penalty becomes routine and less newsworthy, the odds against real investigation grow even worse. And even when fresh evidence does surface, most states place high barriers against its use after a trial.
This has been standard in the legal system for generations, but it makes little sense when an inmates life is at stake. In most jurisdictions, the judge instructs the jury to look for guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But is that the right standard for capital cases? Maybe a second standard like residual doubt would help, whereby if any juror harbors any doubt whatsoever, the conviction would stand but the death penalty would be ruled out. The same double threshold might apply to cases involving single eyewitnesses and key testimony by jailhouse snitches with incentives to lie. Unless executions are dramatically speeded up (unlikely after so many mistakes), the death penalty will remain far more expensive than life without parole.
The difference is in the upfront prosecution costs, which are at least four times greater than in cases where death is not sought. California spends an extra $ 90 million on its capital cases beyond the normal costs of the system. Even subtracting pro bono defense, the system is no bargain for taxpayers. Whether one is for or against the death penalty, it is hard to argue that it does not need a fresh look. From America's earliest days, when Benjamin Franklin helped develop the notion of degrees of culpability for murder, this country has been willing to reassess its assumptions about justice. If we are going to keep the death penalty, the public seems to be saying, let's be sure we are doing it right.
DNA testing will help. So will other fixes. But if, over time, we cannot do it right, then we must ask ourselves if it is worth doing at all. References: Landau, Elaine. Teens and the Death Penalty. Enslow Publishers, Inc. , Hillside, NJ. 1992.
McCafferty, James A. Capital Punishment. Aldine Atherton, Inc. , Chicago, IL. 2001. Sifakis, Carl.
The Encyclopedia of American Crime. Smith mark Publishing, Inc. , New York, NY. 1992. Flanders, Stephen A. Capital Punishment.
Facts On File, Inc. , New York, NY. 1991. Pastore, Anne L. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1993. U. S.
Department of Justice. Washington, D. C. 1994. Bedau, Hugo A. "Capital Punishment. " Grolier Encyclopedia. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc. , 1993.
The New Republic Richard A. Posner, 1999 Cornell Law Review, Cornell Law Review, November, 1993, 79 William Bowers, "Capital Punishment and Contemporary Values: Peoples Misgivings and the Courts Misperceptions, " 27 Law & So Rev. 157 (1993). Jonathan Alter, DNA and Other Evidence Freed 87 People From Death Row; Newsweek, 2 / 2, 2000 Jonathan Alter, Rethinking the Death Penalty, Newsweek, 2 / 4, 2000 Newsweek, 1999 2001 Time Magazine, 1995, 3 / 5, 149, New York, 1995
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Research essay sample on Rest Of The World Death Penalty
