Innocence and Death Penalty
-- By Suraj Chaudry
When George Ryan commuted the death sentence
for all 176 death row inmates in Illinois
in 2003, he gave a clear explanation for
his unprecedented decision: "Our system
is haunted by the demon of error – error
in determining guilt, and error in determining
who among the guilty deserves to die." Ryan's
claims about systemic errors that led to
wrongful convictions were supported by 13
exonerations since 1977, but also by a three-year
study, "Report of the Governor's Commission
on Capital Punishment," that found many
problems with the fairness of death sentencing.
Catastrophic failures in distinguishing
the innocent from the guilty, which Ryan
attributed to the Illinois death penalty
system, also plague other states where capital
punishment is still practiced.
The number
of people executed in the country since 1976
(1221) and the number of people exonerated
in the same period (130) gives an indication
of the high degree of error that undermines
any hope for justice sought through the death
penalty; 10 percent of people sentenced to
death may be innocent.
For those who believe
that capital punishment serves as a deterrent
against such heinous crimes as murder and
rape, it should be apparent that there couldn't
be any better encouragement for these criminals
than execution of the innocent. When an innocent
person is executed for a crime, the case
is closed forever - there have been no cases
of posthumous exoneration in the United States
- effectively freeing the actual perpetrator
from any potential punishment.
A bigger contradiction
looms for those who believe the death penalty
serves as retribution for those who commit
murder, taking from them what they have taken
away from others. By executing a possibly
innocent person, society exercises the same
cruel and inhumane behavior of which it accuses
the murderer. Instead of enabling retribution,
society commits an irrevocable criminal act.
Pursuing that logic, shouldn't those who
support capital punishment demand the death
penalty for those who supported the execution
of an innocent person? In the last three
decades we find at least a dozen cases of
executions where the defendant was factually
innocent, according to an article in Crime
and Delinquency journal. What is the punishment
for society committing murders of innocent
people in the name of the death penalty?
There is no way society can make up for
taking an innocent life, just as there is
no way a murderer can give back the life
of a victim. In the case of a criminal, we
can ensure that no one else suffers a similar
fate by not allowing the criminal to go back
into society. In the case of society taking
an innocent life, all we can do to ensure
a similar murder doesn't happen again is
to abolish the death penalty. As long as
the facts show that there are wrongful convictions,
there cannot be any justification for the
practice of death penalty in Colorado and
elsewhere.
Suraj Chuadary is a 2010 CSU graduate
majoring in English and Philosophy.
