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Death Penalty: Wrongful Convictions Debate

The speaker argues that the death penalty should be banned for three key reasons: 1) There have been many wrongful convictions that have led to innocent people being sentenced to death or executed. DNA evidence has exonerated over 100 people from death row. 2) Death is an irreversible punishment so there is no possibility of correcting mistakes if someone is wrongfully convicted. Eyewitness testimony and evidence have proven unreliable. 3) The death penalty is morally wrong as a society that teaches murder is wrong should not use murder as a form of punishment. Capital punishment contradicts society's and the legal system's principles.

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69 views2 pages

Death Penalty: Wrongful Convictions Debate

The speaker argues that the death penalty should be banned for three key reasons: 1) There have been many wrongful convictions that have led to innocent people being sentenced to death or executed. DNA evidence has exonerated over 100 people from death row. 2) Death is an irreversible punishment so there is no possibility of correcting mistakes if someone is wrongfully convicted. Eyewitness testimony and evidence have proven unreliable. 3) The death penalty is morally wrong as a society that teaches murder is wrong should not use murder as a form of punishment. Capital punishment contradicts society's and the legal system's principles.

Uploaded by

rfmorado
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Hello judges, opponents and members of the audience. I would like to begin by quoting the late Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. you may murder the murderer but We are here to discuss the issue of the death penalty. We believe that the death penalty should be banned because of the obvious mishaps which have happened in the past:
Arizona: Ray Krone, released in 2002

Spent 10 years in prison in Arizona, including time on death row, for a murder he did not commit. He was the 100th person to be released from death row since 1973. DNA testing proved his innocence.

Illinois: Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, Stanley Howard and LeRoy Orange, pardoned in 2003

Sent to death row on the basis of "confessions" extracted through the use of torture by former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and other Area 2 police officers in Chicago. They were pardoned by outgoing Governor George Ryan, who also commuted the remaining 167 death sentences in Illinois to life imprisonment.

I can go on and on and talk about the many wrongful convictions which were have been conducted in the past. What mostly conflicts me is the thought that if people were wrongfully convicted in then surely people were wrongfully executed. Secondly we oppose the death penalty because it is a form of punishment which is permanent. Death is irreversible so therefore there is no room for mistakes. DNA is a powerful tool in the criminal justice system but it is not fool proof. Eyewitnesses have proven unreliable over and over again.

Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:


Inadequate legal representation Police and prosecutorial misconduct Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony Racial prejudice Jailhouse "snitch" testimony Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence Community/political pressure to solve a case

Therefore if the evidence often is tainted and questionable then surely our legal system cannot administer a drastic punishment such as death when there is a small room for error. Lastly we would like to argue that the death penalty is morally wrong. How can we live in a society that teaches that murder is wrong when the society also uses murder as a form of punishment? It seems

that our society and legal system contradicts their selves every time it sends someone to death. On a moral standpoint, capital punishment is wrong.

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