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The Real Reason to End the Death Penalty
April 2021
When intellectuals talk about the death penalty, they talk
about things like whether it's permissible for the state to
take someone's life, whether the death penalty acts as a
deterrent, and whether more death sentences are given to some
groups than others. But in practice the debate about the death
penalty is not about whether it's ok to kill murderers. It's
about whether it's ok to kill innocent people, because at
least 4% of people on death row are innocent.
When I was a kid I imagined that it was unusual for people to
be convicted of crimes they hadn't committed, and that in
murder cases especially this must be very rare. Far from it.
Now, thanks to organizations like the Innocence Project, we
see a constant stream of stories about murder convictions
being overturned after new evidence emerges. Sometimes the
police and prosecutors were just very sloppy. Sometimes they
were crooked, and knew full well they were convicting an
innocent person.
Kenneth Adams and three other men spent 18 years in prison on
a murder conviction. They were exonerated after DNA testing
implicated three different men, two of whom later confessed.
The police had been told about the other men early in the
investigation, but never followed up the lead.
Keith Harward spent 33 years in prison on a murder conviction.
He was convicted because "experts" said his teeth matched
photos of bite marks on one victim. He was exonerated after
DNA testing showed the murder had been committed by another
man, Jerry Crotty.
Ricky Jackson and two other men spent 39 years in prison after
being convicted of murder on the testimony of a 12 year old
boy, who later recanted and said he'd been coerced by police.
Multiple people have confirmed the boy was elsewhere at the
time. The three men were exonerated after the county
prosecutor dropped the charges, saying "The state is conceding
the obvious."
Alfred Brown spent 12 years in prison on a murder conviction,
including 10 years on death row. He was exonerated after it
was discovered that the assistant district attorney had
concealed phone records proving he could not have committed
the crimes.
Glenn Ford spent 29 years on death row after having been
convicted of murder. He was exonerated after new evidence
proved he was not even at the scene when the murder occurred.
The attorneys assigned to represent him had never tried a jury
case before.
Cameron Willingham was actually executed in 2004 by lethal
injection. The "expert" who testified that he deliberately set
fire to his house has since been discredited. A re-examination
of the case ordered by the state of Texas in 2009 concluded
that "a finding of arson could not be sustained."
Rich Glossip has spent 20 years on death row after being
convicted of murder on the testimony of the actual killer, who
escaped with a life sentence in return for implicating him. In
2015 he came within minutes of execution before it emerged
that Oklahoma had been planning to kill him with an illegal
combination of drugs. They still plan to go ahead with the
execution, perhaps as soon as this summer, despite new
evidence exonerating him.
I could go on. There are hundreds of similar cases. In Florida
alone, 29 death row prisoners have been exonerated so far.
Far from being rare, wrongful murder convictions are very
common. Police are under pressure to solve a crime that has
gotten a lot of attention. When they find a suspect, they want
to believe he's guilty, and ignore or even destroy evidence
suggesting otherwise. District attorneys want to be seen as
effective and tough on crime, and in order to win convictions
are willing to manipulate witnesses and withhold evidence.
Court-appointed defense attorneys are overworked and often
incompetent. There's a ready supply of criminals willing to
give false testimony in return for a lighter sentence,
suggestible witnesses who can be made to say whatever police
want, and bogus "experts" eager to claim that science proves
the defendant is guilty. And juries want to believe them,
since otherwise some terrible crime remains unsolved.
This circus of incompetence and dishonesty is the real issue
with the death penalty. We don't even reach the point where
theoretical questions about the moral justification or
effectiveness of capital punishment start to matter, because
so many of the people sentenced to death are actually
innocent. Whatever it means in theory, in practice capital
punishment means killing innocent people.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Don Knight
for reading drafts of this.
Related:
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#Will Florida Kill an Innocent Man?*
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#Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?*
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#Did Texas execute an innocent man?*
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