Death Penalty #3

Stages-

In an effort to protect the rights of the accused, police try to be sure that they are arresting the right person for the crime. Unfortunately, many crimes that become cases of possible capital punishment are not caught in action by the police, and therefore all arrests must be made using evidence that is collected and by speaking to witnesses. While this is definitely a way to verify that the correct people are being arrested, it is also the first flaw in the system. A person’s life is directly being put into someone else’s hands. If a police officer shows the picture of a suspect to a witness, if that witness says “Yes, that’s the guy,” then he has sent that person to their deathbed, but if the witness says “No, that isn’t him,” then that is giving the police a huge reason to let that suspect go, even if it really was the murderer. The defendant’s case in the guilt phase trial is another way for the government to ensure that the accused are being given their rights. The defendant is allowed to present their argument and produce evidence that would show why they are innocent. In addition, it is now a rule that the penalty must be decided by a jury, rather than a judge. In the next stage, the Direct Appeal, the defendant is allowed to demonstrate that a mistake was made and that they are in fact innocent. Lastly, there is a stage called Clemency, in which a person is allowed to motion for their sentence to be reduced. I do not think that this is a sufficient system because many innocent people are being executed. While there definitely are a ton of stages that allow for an innocent person to prove themselves, I still think that something obviously has to be wrong with our system because there are many people being executed who are later found to be innocent.

Methods-

The most humane form of execution is definitely death by lethal injection. I think that all of the other forms of execution are “cruel and unusual” punishments and that they violate the 8^th Amendment. Hanging is “cruel and unusual” because the prisoner dies by fracturing or dislocating their neck. While this is a very quick process, there are many complications that can occur, causing the death to be very slow and painful. The next type of execution that was introduced, firing squad, is clearly “cruel and unusual.” Being executed by a firing squad means that a person is shot at by multiple people, eventually resulting in them bleeding out and dying. This is extremely cruel because being shot is extremely painful, let alone being shot five times. Sometimes, the heart can be missed, and the death then becomes extremely long and painful. Death by electrocution is also cruel and unusual because oftentimes a person does not die from the first shock. It is hard to say how many shocks it will take, but the body is literally frying like an egg afterwards. Lastly, death in a gas chamber is extremely cruel and unusual because it is extremely painful. Dr. Richard Traystman from John Hopkins University School of Medicine said that, "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety...The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." This is a horrible way to die, and making someone go through this type of pain is extremely cruel and unusual.

(Some pictures of the different methods of execution...)



Hanging





Firing Squad





Electrocution



Lethal Injection



Gas Chamber





State By State Data-

Looking at the maps with the different data, I found it to be very interesting how there were many trends regarding the death penalty and different races and genders. Looking at the data, California and Texas seem to be the states with the largest amounts of executions. Each time I filtered the results to see a different statistic, it always seemed that these states had an overwhelming majority of executions, especially California. I definitely think that there is racial profiling occurring in the executions. For the most part, most of the people being executed are white males. I think that the reason for this is the fear that sentencing someone of a different race to death would start an argument that that was racial discrimination. This, of course, is not always true, but I truly think that the government fears that these issues will arise, and therefore try to limit the amount of minorities that are sentenced to death. Another huge trend is in the gender. Basically, all of the people on death row are men. There are definitely some women scattered throughout the country, but for the most part, it is men who are on death row. Because of Roper v. Simmons in 2005, there are no juveniles on death row because it was considered “cruel and unusual” to sentence someone to the death penalty to a crime that they committed as a juvenile. I definitely think that there appears to be a trend in this data. It seems that mainly white males are the ones sentenced to the death penalty. I don’t think that this is the way it should be because each case should be treated equally. There should be guidelines as to when the death penalty is and is not appropriate, because I think that there is definitely a possibility that if a white male committed a crime and an Asian female committed the same crime, they would not receive the same consequences.

Looking at the information presented in the fact sheets, my previous response is shown to be correct and my opinions are only reiterated. Cases involving capital punishment are extremely expensive, and in many states each case costs over $2 million. Making the taxpayers pay for these executions seems completely unfair to me. Sentencing the accused to life without parole accomplishes the same thing as the death penalty because it is keeping these criminals off of the streets. In addition, these graphs prove that there is an extreme racial discrimination against white males when it comes to the death penalty. It is very obvious that the Death Penalty Information Center feels that there is a bias towards white males because they constantly include data that shows how there are many more white males on death row than any other race. My favorite piece of data from the information is that 88% of criminologists believe that executions do not lower homicide rates. I think that this is so interesting because one of the main purposes of having the death penalty is to lower the number or homicides, but it appears that this is not working.