The Death Penalty #1

After reading the about the steps and stages of the death penalty, I realized that there are not that many rights that protect the accused. They have a right to appeal and try to gain clemency but other than that, they are really in the hands of their lawyer and the prosecutor. I do not believe that one can truly prove that the accused is guilty unless there is concrete evidence such as having the crime caught on video or if they admit to their crimes. There is also a very unfortunate part of our justice system that seems to be more prevalent when determining the death penalty. That is racism and bias against minorities. I read an article today that talked about how an investment tycoon defrauded its lenders over 3 billion dollars and was sentenced to 40 months in prison. The second part of the article was about a homeless African American man who robbed a bank by putting his hand in his pocket and told the teller to give him money. She gave him a stack of $100 dollar bills, however he only took one bill.  The next day after feeling remorseful he turned himself into the police and gave back the money saying it was only so he could pay for food and that his mother didn't raise him that way. When he was put to trial he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. This made me cringe when I read this article. It's not fair when some lying and stealing wealthy white guy steals 3 billion dollars and gets less than 4 years in prison, when a man who stole $100 and turned himself in gets almost 5 times that sentence. This racism shows in capitol cases too. Statistics show that there are more African Americans executed annually than whites. This connects to the Troy Davis case. Even though 7 of the 9 witnesses recanted their testimony against Davis and that there was no real evidence that he committed the crime, he was still executed. I can pretty confidently infer that if it was a wealthy white man under the same exact circumstances, that he would have been acquitted or at least had a retrial.  

When I first entered this class, I agreed with having the death penalty. But after seeing and learning about these different stories about the victims and the accused killers, I now believe that it should be abolished. My change in opinion might speak for the rest of the country. It might be that the supporters just aren't educated enough on the subject. However, I have never experienced, nor know what the victims families have gone through and experienced, so I cannot speak for them. No one should go through what they experienced and I understand where they are coming from. However unless that there is cold hard evidence that they committed the crime and they have no remorse, then I believe that they should have life in prison in case they are in fact innocent.