Executing the Innocent :: capital punishment essays

The risk of executing honest persons is a decisive objection to the institution of capital punishment in the unify States. Consequentialist arguments for the demolition penalty are inconclusive at best the strongest justification is a retributive one. However, this argument is seriously undercut if a prodigious risk of executing the innocent exists. Any criminal justice carcass carries the risk of punishing innocent persons, but the punishment of death is uncommon and requires greater precautions. Retributive justifications for the death penalty are grounded in respect for innocent dupes of homicide but accepting serious risks of mistaken executions demonstrates disrespect for innocent humanity life. fall in States Supreme Court decisions of the 1990s (Coleman v. Thompson and Herrara v. Collins) illustrate the reality of serious risk and suggest some explanations for it. I live in a city (Philadelphia, PA) whose govern Attorney seeks the death penalty more often, and wit h greater success, than any other D.A. in the United States. In Philadelphia, as elsewhere in the U.S., the majority of defendants in capital trials are poor, and depone on court appointed defense lawyers paid by the local anesthetic jurisdiction. It is no coincidence that a city which sends large numbers of convicted murderers to death wrangling has an unusually impoverished system for representing indigent defendants. According to Tina Rosenberg, where cloak-and-dagger attorneys routinely charge $50,000 to defend a capital case, Philadelphia pays court-appointed lawyers a $1700 forthwith fee for preparation and $400 for each day in court. The administrator administrator of Philadelphias courts reckons that this averages $3519 a case.(1)Those numbers help to explain why District Attorney Lynn Abrahams department has such a high percentage of homicide defendants sentenced to death. They as well as suggest that Philadelphia runs an especially great risk of sending to death row some persons who are innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. But why does Philadelphia subscribe to for the death penalty so oftenin Rosenbergs words, virtually as often as the law will allow? (320) D.A. Abraham says that she considers herself the representative of the victim and the victims family, and that the death penalty is the right thing to do for them. (321) This is essentially a retributive rationale for capital punishment.The risk of executing innocent human beings is the focus of this paper. I believe that this risk is so significant that it constitutes a decisive reason for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States.