In the case of capital punishment (the death penalty) there exists many steps the accused and the state must go through that are designed to protect the individual on trial. The Grand Jury has to decide whether there is sufficient evidence in the case for the suspect to even go to a trial that would determine a guilty/innocent verdict. After that the trail then goes to the death/ no death trails, a trail to determine the penalty for the crime.
The steps involving the grand jury help to protect the accused by determining the validity of the evidence the police and investigators found. Then during the guilty phase the jury is well vetted and asked whether or not they could provide a fair decision by determining based off of testimony the guilt of the defendant. Then the penalty phase has the death or life in prison decision in which the aggravating factors vs. the mitigating factors are weighed against each other, once done the jury recommends life or death then the judge formally states the sentence, to protect the defendant some states allow the judge to reverse the jury’s decision and in others the judge must do what the jury says (this does not help the defendant).
From this point in the process to getting a death penalty sentence I do not believe to be sufficient. In the beginning of the article it said that a capital case that would warrant the death penalty is usually a case that has a lot of people in the town the crime was committed very upset and desperate to find the killer. The case might even have national coverage and then people may still be hurried to sentence someone to death. Therefore, if a jury really wanted to they could get past all these safe guards and despite innocent’s sentence a suspect who did not do the crime to death.
The next steps after the guilty verdict allows for the guilty to prove through other evidence that there was some sort of mistake in the procedure that carried out the sentence on him. However with limits in some states on how long after the sentence new evidence can be submitted I do not see how this might help. If I was a police officer arrest a murderer who was later found guilty and sentenced to death, then that case is done I found the guy, he was guilty and given a punishment why would I search for new evidence saying I was wrong about the guy I caught.
The next step reviews the case and the punishment if something in the process of the trials were wrong, i.e. the prosecutor did something to screw with the case or a juror was not a fair choice in the decision a retrial could be scheduled. Clemency allows the death row inmate to be re considered for a lesser sentence.
While I believe that there is always a way to defeat the system as a whole I believe at this ending point in the procedures before the execution is given I also believe that there is enough opportunity for an “out” from the death penalty for the accused to be sufficiently protected in certain states. Because different states have different rules and protections.
In Methods I believe that the lethal injection is the most humane because the prisoner is put to sleep before the injection is given. The gas chamber, hanging, electric chair, and firing squad are inhuman as the prisoner could get injured without dyeing instantly in the hanging there is too much room for error despite the rehearsal that they do before. The electric chair does not insure a painless death and the gas chamber takes to long. Anything that takes to long to execute the prisoners with pain is cruel to make the prisoner suffer for a while before. In the lethal injection the prisoner feels nothing.
The results are mixed there is no evidence that deterrence works in the death penalty. The crime rate is lowest in the states that have little to no executions which means that the death penalty does not work to deter people from committing acts of murder. This means that people would commit murders even if they know that s/he would be killed for it.
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