death penalty 2

Race and Class

Everyone no matter how much they may say that they are not racist, have their prejudices.  In some cases this effects the case and the whole saying that “justice is blind” because people are not blind (unless they are in which case a jury of blind men and women would be the best jury if no one told them race or ethnicity).  I believe that our justice system does a pretty good job at making sure only guilty people do go to prison, but we are human and we do make mistakes and we do make judgments of people whether it is based off of race or other reasons.  Part of a first impression is the silence before anyone starts talking, judgment unfortunately happens and that “wrongful” judgment could result in a major wrong doing.

Law and Politics

People in this country and elsewhere had early laws, if a person is caught stealing they get their hands cut off, this effectively stopping them from stealing.  We come from these laws and roots, people think that an eye for an eye would bring out a lesson to others thinking of carrying out the same crime.  Also many families know that murdering the murderer won’t do anything to bring back their loved ones, but they feel like killing the accused would make them believe the killer got what s/he deserved.

The Bigger Picture

There is no possible way for any state to come up with a foolproof plan on who gets the death penalty and who does not.  Every crime is different and carried out in different ways; therefore, all people of the jury and the United States would feel different about every case. Some would say the death penalty is needed for all murders and rapes, others would say it is not and, others still would say it depends on if the person in question murdered two people or one or if the suspect tortured them before killing them, etc. There cannot be one single answer to everyone’s problems because everyone thinks differently.  A margin of error is acceptable because that means the justice system came close to perfecting the conviction rate of innocent people and less than 1% of people sentenced to death being innocent would be a somewhat acceptable number because it is relatively low and the innocent can still plea their innocence through the clemency process.