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Thread: ROBERT DeWITT: Fixing the death penalty

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    ROBERT DeWITT: Fixing the death penalty

    This is a good read

    Most of us have worked with or even against one of those people who do everything they can to sabotage what you're trying to do. And then, when it's all over, they complain because the result they sabotaged isn't as good as it should be.

    That is what we hear from death penalty opponents. They've made sure the process is so cumbersome that the expense is impractical and the time it takes prevents it from deterring crime.

    And yet they complain that it is too expensive and doesn't deter crime. They make a mess of the system they oppose and then say those of us who support it should abandon it.

    Most recently, they complained that some methods of execution made it cruel and barbaric. So when states adopted a painless method of execution, they worked to pressure the company that made the chemical used in lethal injection to stop manufacturing it.

    The truth is that death penalty opponents have worked to impose their minority opinion on the majority who support the death penalty. They consistently lose the battle for public opinion but subvert the public's will on the issue.

    And what Europeans think of our justice system is no concern of mine. This is a sovereign country that is not beholden to appeasing the desires of Europe. I thought we settled that in 1783.

    There are a number of arguments against the death penalty. But the one with the most traction these days is that a wrongfully convicted person can be released from prison but can't be resurrected from the dead. There is no question that a death penalty hanging over the head of a wrongfully convicted person is a nightmare situation.

    But I would argue that if someone is wrongfully convicted, he should hope that he's given the death penalty. If he gets life in prison and he doesn't have a lot of money or relatives who are willing to work on his behalf, he's likely to rot in prison for the rest of his life. Imprisoning an innocent man is an injustice, too.

    Should he get the death penalty, he will have, in addition to his own resources, an army of anti-death penalty advocates working to uncover the slightest flaw in the prosecution's case. It strikes me as a bit ironic that death penalty opponents seem interested in justice only when it involves the death penalty.

    For every case in which there is doubt over the defendant's guilt, there are more in which the defendant's guilt is not in doubt. Even in cases where the defendant confesses to the crime, trials and appeals drag out for years. The question usually revolves around mental competency. And that is something most jurors aren't really qualified to answer.

    Much has been made over the number of minorities sentenced to death as opposed to whites. That ignores higher crime rates among minorities. And it also ignores what has happened since the Supreme Court's moratorium on executions was lifted in 1976.

    While blacks commit just over 50 percent of the murders in this country, more whites have been executed since 1976 — 694 to 429 — and more whites are currently on death row. After executions resumed in 1976, the first prisoners executed were all white, and it took several years before a black man was executed.

    For the death penalty to have the desired effect, it must be carried out more swiftly. I have been amazed to learn how swiftly executions were carried out in fairly recent history, often as quickly as one to two years.

    A time lapse of five years from the arrest is a reasonable expectation and one close enough to the event to serve as a deterrent. That means expediting the trial and appeal process.

    It seems to me, first and foremost, that jurors should not determine whether mental illness or competence is a defense. That should be done pre-trial and involve the defense, prosecution and mental health professionals who are beholden to neither side. And it should be done as a matter of course in all capital cases.

    Second, the rules of admissibility of evidence should be relaxed for the defense. People defending their lives should have all tools available to them. Excluding evidence will create doubt about the fairness of the trial.

    The standard for guilt should be stricter. As judges usually inform juries, there is a difference between all reasonable doubt and beyond a shadow of a doubt. There are plenty of death penalty cases where confessions, video evidence or testimony by multiple eyewitnesses, or overwhelming forensic evidence removes all doubt about who committed the crime.

    While I am not much on creating another layer of bureaucracy or padding the legal system any further, it might be desirable to establish an appeals court that handles nothing but death penalty cases. Death penalty cases would have the full attention of the court, and the court would be expert in handling them.

    And finally, the courts should not allow the defense to use appeals to delay the sentence. Appeals should be filed simultaneously, and appeals filed after that should be based strictly on new evidence or additional facts.

    The death penalty will never be perfect because the justice system isn't perfect and people aren't perfect. But if we throw it out because it can't be administered perfectly, we should throw out all punishment. None of it will ever be administered perfectly.

    Robert DeWitt is senior writer for The Tuscaloosa News. Readers may reach him by e-mail at robert.dewitt@tuscaloosanews.com.

    http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/articl...ws04?p=3&tc=pg

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Right on! I agree with nearly all of what he says (I'm just not sure about changing the burden of proof--it seems to me that "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is already sufficiently stringent).

    Just to make this article perfect, however, maybe he could've addressed the racial disparity in victims, which is something antis often bring up. That is, defendants (black and white) are far likelier to get the death penalty when the victim is white. Antis often claim that this means the death penalty is a priori racist. What they fail to note, though, is that prosecutors in areas that have a large or majority black population tend to use the death penalty sparingly, if at all. Bearing in mind that there are all kinds of exceptions to the rule, blacks do tend to be less enthusiastic about the death penalty than whites and, thus, tend to vote for prosecutors who are more selective in asking for the death penalty than prosecutors in areas with small black populations.

    Another likely explanation for the racial disparity in victims has to do with the nature of what can be charged as capital murder. Capital murder is premeditated murder plus something else (e.g. rape, robbery, kidnapping, etc.). My best guess, and I admittedly don't have the statistics to back it up, is that not too many white guys are robbing convenience stores and murdering the black clerk and not too many white guys are mugging blacks on the street and murdering them. I may be wrong on that one. Perhaps there are some surprising statistics out there to contradict my supposition.

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