Our society emphasizes the death penalty, yet few of us have examined its many sides.
We’re influenced by personal beliefs and agents of society, but we are not yet informed citizens.
It’s shocking how many people support the death penalty but don’t understand how a person is sentenced to death row.
One major factor in determining whether a person goes to the death chamber or not is their financial status. Many of us don’t see the relationship between money and freedom. If a person who is wealthy is charged with murder, he or she has a better chance of being able to afford proper legal representation. This may get them acquitted of the crime or have the severity of their sentence reduced.
Proper legal representation is not cheap.
Those provided by the state or government will not be of the best quality, leading me to wonder if the poor in this country are being given a fair trial.
The one thing many on death row have in common is that they’re poor. Death row is apparently not a place for the rich and famous.
Another major issue which must be taken into account is the fact that the majority of the persons on death row are minorities.
In a report entitled “Death Row U.S.A.,” winter 2009 it stated out of the 3297 persons currently on death row, 2493 of them are minorities.
Additionally, of the 3297 inmates on death row, 3239 of them are men. This is a reflection of a society that is letting down minorities and men.
This can be seen in many examples of popular culture in the media in which minorities and men are being portrayed as thugs and jail birds, which encourages these behaviors.
Additionally it is shocking that minorities and the poor form the two largest demographics on death row.
One needs to ask whether proper economic and social programs are implemented to ensure that minorities achieve higher standards of living.
In addition, in order to be a member of the jury in a case which involves the handing down of the death penalty, one must be in favor of the death penalty.
This makes me wonder if there is anything ensuring a fair trial when the punishment which is being handed down is death by the state.
In an Amnesty USA report it states that in Arizona, Ray Krone was released in 2002 for a crime which he did not commit.
He previously spent ten years on death row. He was the 100th person to be freed since 1973. The report further presented that in 2003, in Illinois, four persons were found innocent after spending years on death row. In 2007, in North Carolina Jonathan Hoffman was freed.
In 1995 Hoffman was charged with the murder of a jewelry store owner. It was later learned that the states key witness, Johnell Porter, and the prosecutor made a deal to lie on Hoffman so that he would be sentenced. These were some of the major reasons stated which lead to wrongful convictions:
- Poor legal representation
- Police and prosecutorial misconduct
- Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
- Racial prejudice
- Jailhouse “snitch” testimony
- Suppression and misrepresentation of mitigating evidence
- Community or political pressure to solve cases.
I am not saying to do away with the death penalty because I do believe that if someone has deliberately committed murder they should be executed by the state. But I am presenting information which will assist right thinking citizens in making informed decisions about the death penalty.
Amadu Wiltshire can be reached at awiltshire@ut.edu.