The Death Penalty: Fatally Flawed
"Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not
only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon
defendants who are actually innocent." - William Brennan, Jr., late U.S. Supreme Court Justice
If the imposition of the death penalty is a disgrace to a state that was
founded on principles of justice, human rights and civil liberties, it is
even more appalling when death sentences are handed out to those who are
innocent. Pennsylvania's criminal justice system is failing to fulfill its
hightest duty: to protect innocent people from wrongful convictions and death
sentences.
Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, Pennsylvania actually has
released more people from death row than it has executed. The recent
exonerations of William Nieves and Hank Kimbell are consistent with a
disturbing national trend: more than 100 death row prisoners in 25 states
have had their convictions overturned in the past three decades.
For every eight prisoners executed in the United States since the death
penalty was reinstated, one innocent person was condemned to die and later
exonerated. How many equally blameless but less fortunate prisoners still
await execution or have already gone to their deaths?
The criminal justice system provides no reliable safeguards against this
danger. Errors have been made repeatedly in death penalty cases because of
poor representation, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct and the
presentation of erroneous evidence. Once convicted, a death row prisoner
faces enormous obstacles in convincing any court that he or she is innocent.
Death penalty supporters contend that the release of so many innocent
people from death row is evidence that "the system works," that it prevents
irreversible mistakes from being made. Nothing could be further from the
truth. When death row prisoners are exonerated, it is almost always due to
extrajudicial factors such as the tireless work of dedicated attorneys or
investigations by journalists, not the appeals process. Innocent people are
freed from death row not because of the system, but in spite of it.
As long as the death penalty remains a part of our "justice" system,
innocent people will continue to be sentenced to death. Some will be
executed. It is inevitable. Ultimately, the abolition of the death penalty
is the only guaranteed protection against such tragic mistakes.
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