Punishment or Death: Reform or Regret

Just listen to the word “Death Penalty.” Now, say it to yourself again. The term sounds daunting, correct?

Well, it gets worse when accused individuals are put to death and were later found to be innocent of the crime.  What do we do then?  We literally took an innocent person’s life.

Bob Herbert wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times “Convicted, Executed, Not Guilty,” which illustrated the idea of wrongfully convicted defendants being executed and later found innocent.  Mr. Herbert mainly focused on the Larry Griffin case.  In 1980, Mr. Griffin was convicted for a drive by shooting, of a drug dealer.  During the trial, the prosecution presented eyewitness testimony from Mr. Griffin’s cellmate, and later provided physical evidence that linked Mr. Griffin to the crime. On the other hand, the defense team refuted the prosecution’s evidence and presented three suspects who were responsible for the crime and physical evidence that proved Mr. Griffin’s innocence. Despite the defense’s convincing presentation, Mr. Griffin was convicted of the crime and was sentenced to capital punishment for arsenal and murder. Decades later, an investigation in to Mr. Griffin’s case, found that Mr. Griffin was wrongfully convicted for the crime, because of erroneous forensic evidence. The most important fact is that we cannot give Mr. Griffin his normal life back, because he already was immorally executed.

Throughout the years, a prominent adversary of death penalty, The Innocence Project, has kept reports about wrongfully convicted people being executed. Recent years, those investigations exemplify that many criminal convictions were wrong and state courts took innocent men and women’s lives.  Here is one of their stories.

It was December 1991 in Corsicana, Texas when a rumbling fire destroyed Cameron Todd Willingham’s home killing his three daughters.  Mr. Willingham claimed he was asleep during the fire. However, prosecutors provided forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony pointed to Mr. Willingham. In addition to the forensic evidence, the prosecution provided a jealous motive; several eyewitness testimonies and that implicated Mr. Willingham. Mr. Willingham was executed in 2004.  However, recent investigations concluded that forensic evidence may have erroneous in linking Mr. Willingham of the crime, but guess what, Todd Willingham is another example case of wrongfully executed and therefore cannot be exonerated.

The Death Penalty Information Center has been tracking people wrongfully convicted in death penalty cases throughout the nation. Florida has the most exonerated people out of all 26 states that used the death penalty in 2015.  Florida has 26 released wrongfully convicted individuals; Illinois followed with 20 and then Texas with 13.  In total, there were 156 exonerations throughout the 26 states for the past years.

Clearly this is a problem.  How can state and government officials and prosecutors sleep at night while they are responsible for these statistics?  It is also ironic because one of our main country’s main objective legal systems is to prevent crime and maintain law and order in our communities and states, and capital punishment is a crime when we “accidently” take someone’s life.  Instead of states using the death penalty, they should consider other reversible punishments such as life imprisonment without any chance of probation. Although is a costly option, but in the long run, we can save an innocent people from wrongful death. Meanwhile, killing is wrong and immoral. No one should have the right to take another life.  There will be no room for reform or regret.