Possibility of innocent death
Leslie Cantu:
The death penalty is irrevocable. "In case of a mistake, the executed
prisoner cannot be given another chance. Justice can miscarry. In the last
hundred years there have been more that 75 documented cases of wrongful
conviction of criminal homicide. The death sentence was carried out in
eight of these cases" (Draper 47). Undoubtedly many other cases of mistaken
conviction and execution occurred and remain undocumented. A prisoner
discovered to be blameless can be freed; but neither release nor
compensation is possible for a corpse.
Jessica Spinler:
Despite the moral argument concerning the inhumane treatment of the criminal,
we return to the "nature" of the crime committed. Can society place an unequal
weight on the tragically lost lives of murder victims and the criminal? This
is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at
the core of perhaps the most intriguing issue facing the U. S. Supreme Court
today. Punishment is meted out because of the nature of the crime, devoid of
any reference to the social identity of the victim. Compassion and political
calculation have combined to transform victims and their advocates into a
potent lobbying force. Beginning in California, 1987, the Supreme court carved
out a crucial exception: Neither the life of the victim nor the suffering of
his survivors could be a factor in any state or federal case punishable by
death (Shapiro, 61). The catch is that every reduction in the elaborate legal
process that has evolved to ensure that only the guilty die increases the
chances that an innocent person, victim, will be subjected to this most
irreversible and final of punishments, injustices. The possibility of an
innocent person being put to death is another factor some people have against
the death penalty. According to the 1987 Stanford University survey, at least
23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century (Kramer, 32).