How many people sentenced to death do you think are?

Question

actually innocent? Can the system really mess up that much??

Answer 1

Of course it can. The legal system is run by human beings, and human beings make mistakes, either through error or design. In the past 15 years, the Innocence Project at Benjamin Cardozo University, has exonerated over 200 people convicted of serious crimes, based upon DNA analysis. 15 of them had been sentenced to death. But DNA is not available in every case, and is not always conclusive when it is available. Moreover, the courts have, in recent years, been erecting higher and higher roadblocks preventing prisoners from challenging their convictions. (The idea that courts in the United States are bastions of liberalism is a laughable myth.) It is thus certain that there are far more innocent people who have been convicted of crimes whose innocence cannot be scientifically established, and that some of those people have been sentenced to death.

One of the problems with the death penalty is that once a person has been killed, there is almost no incentive left to prove that person's innocence, so it is very probable that there are many innocent people who have been put to death whose innocence will never be discovered.

Answer 2

Isn't one kinda messed up?

My problem with the death penalty is that I don't think the people that run the IRS and DMV should be trusted with deciding whether I live or die...that's not a power I'm comfortable with the government having.

So, if even one person is innocent, that's too much. If even one person gets the death penalty, who would have gotten a different outcome if he had different race, income level, or lawyer, that's too much.

This doesn't mean society shouldn't be safe, but allowing the government to kill is just asking for mistakes.

Answer 3

If it messes up even once that's too much!
If abolishing the death penalty saved even one innocent person then it would be worth it!
I don't know just how MANY innocents have been sentenced to death but even if it were only one it would be too many!
The only person who should judge or decide whether a person lives or dies is God.

Answer 4

There is one in Ohio, Kenny Richey. The State of Ohio acknowledges that he is probably innocent of the murder that sent him to Death Row. However, they have argued that, because they did not know that at the time of the original trial, they are allowed to execute him. Fortunately, the Court of Appeals disagreed with that view and Mr Richey has a fresh trial next year.

If it can happen so blatantly in one case, it can happen in others. Here in NC we have had a spate of people released from prison after they were found not guilty of serious crimes - all had done at least fourteen years in jail. Granted, none of them were sentenced to death, but when the only way out of prison is in a wooden box, does it really matter?

Answer 5

It absolutely can. I'm not saying it happens all the time, cause it doesn't, but there is undeniably some flaw in our system. And it's a shame, because being raised as Americans, we believe INNOCENT until proven guilty (in Europe, it tends to be reverse). Putting an innocent man to death is a crime of the state, and there's no question it's happened in the past. I'm sure Texas has had it's fair share of them, and I know GWB didn't lose sleep over it when he was Govenor.

Answer 6

Yes the system can really mess up that much. However things are changing and the people currently being convicted and sentenced to death are guilty.
It is not like it use to be.

Answer 7

It happens, I think DNA may help reduce the amount of prisoners wrongly executed. And probably add a few to the list when the scientists make a mistake.

Answer 8

Does not matter. One is too many.

Answer 9

very few if any