That, ultimately, brings in the question of “Which is more important… the health of Society as a whole, or the health of the individual members of that Society?”
But if an innocent person is executed, you have effectively allowed someone else to go unpunished. I don’t think any studies have shown that execution actually prevents murders. I find the idea of executing innocents abhorrent and scary.
As for actual cases, I believe Sacco and Vanzetti were the only ones actually found not guilty posthumously in the US. The others were never cleared in a court of law. I suppose this offers some evidence as to the chances of continuing a fight after theexecution.
Would you feel the same if you were the one about to be wrongfully executed? And how would your wrongful execution prevent the murder of anyone? If an innocent is executed, then the guilty party goes free.
Note to self: read all posts before replying.
This is a link from a previous death penalty thread. It contains this quote.
"“The system is not working,” Harrison wrote. “Innocent people are being sentenced to death. If these men dodged the executioner, it was only because of luck and the dedication of the attorneys, reporters, family members and volunteers who labored to win their release. They survived despite the criminal justice system, not because of it. . . . One must wonder how many others have not been so fortunate.”
Harrison is not a defense lawyer, but a member of the Illinois Supreme Court. Again, he states that the innocent men freed from death row were lucky! “They survived despite the criminal justice system, not because of it. . . . One must wonder how many others have not been so fortunate.”
**
Yes, and the family of Dr. Mudd still are fighting for exhoneration. Point is, though, that’s 2 cases in over 100 years, both of which are extremely high profile, and largely fueled by the relatives of the convicted killer.
and now on to:
others have already taken you to task about the latter part, let me point out your poor reasoning on the upper part.
In our country, there are many different levels of “murder” and punishments therein. Since you aren’t submitting the specifics involved, it’s difficult to make any reasonable assumption about the circumstances. Are these cases of some one who plotted and planned a person’s death, then was released and did the same thing? Or are these cases where one prisoner, already serving time for murder, kills another? Vehicular homicide, the driver at an armed robbery where some one died are other instances of criminally defined murders.
note, I am NOT saying that any one person’s death is not a tragedy, nor am I claiming that vehicular homicide is some how NOT the person’s fault. What I am trying to point out is that unless you’re advocating the death penalty for ALL cases of homicide, statements like “those 1000 people wouldn’t have died” don’t really speak to the situation.
Taken to it’s extreme, we could darn near eliminate crime if we advocated the death penalty be immediately imposed for any and all criminal behavior. Or, all people who have been found guilty of ANY criminal behavior be locked up until they die of natural causes. Of course, then, we’d have a good portion of our population incarcerated and the rest as paid guards, but, hey, them’s the breaks.
Point being that we, as a society, have chosen a graduated system of criminal justice with lesser penalties for lesser offenses.
I am very much against the death penalty.
That said, I’d like to point out that once a person has been convicted, the presumption of innocence has been overcome. The burden does shift to the convict to show either that new evidence exists which raises a substantial probability of innocence – and that this evidence is truly new, unknown and not reasonably knowable through exercise of due diligence before now.
Or he needs to show that errors were committed during the trial that deprived him of a fair trial - evidence was admitted against him that was obtained illegally, or contrary to the rules of evidence… or that he was denied the assistance of competent counsel. IN other words, the burden is on him; he’s lost the presumption of innocence.
- Rick
** Bricker** re: presumption of innocence etc. I agree, in the court, the person who has been convicted has lost the “presumption of innocence”, and then must set about to prove the conviction was wrong. But that’s different from having to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that they’re innocent”
Consider:
Fred’s been convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman. He proves, through DNA, that he was NOT the supplier of the semen found in the woman. While this might (and I emphasize MIGHT) be enough to overturn his conviction, it does NOT prove that he did NOT rape and murder the young woman, merely that he did not leave his semen at the scene.
So, the charge to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that some one is innocent of a crime” is often nearly impossible to achieve - You may be able to prove some one else was involved, or that the eye witnesses were wrong and mistook some one else, but that’s different.
Look at it this way. you can sometimes prove you **were ** somewhere(I WAS at the bank at that time) but proving the opposite is often VERY difficult (how do you prove you WEREN’T somewhere if you can’t prove where you were at the same time? )
Basically, you are right SPOOFE. He was convicted of sedition and given the choice of exile or suicide, and he chose the latter. I guess that to him, exile truly was a fate worse than death.
Is this just in the US? Because if we’re including Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, there are millions.
Socrates: He was guilty.
Read IF Stone - the Trial of Socrates. If you read Plato, you will see that Socrates (assuming Plato is accurate of course) proposed a philosopher king, someone who could search for the truth and would have the wisdom to rule. Many of the characters Plato has Socrates arguing with(and who Plato made to look like fools) had just risked their lives ovethrowing the Spartan imposed tyranny ruling Athens. They had restored democracy, and here was Socrates teaching the young that a select elite should rule. Of what they charged him - he really was guilty. His in your face and frankly superior attitude won him a few more enemies than it did friends.
I was involved in a similar debate quite some time ago and did quite a bit or research.
A fairly significant number of innocent people have been executed in the U.S. I think it was 5% - 10% of all executions since the death penalty was re-introduced.
The odds of you being executed rise sharply if you are poor, black, or live in Texas.
It’s a great system isn’t it?
I for one would hate to be the hypothetical single innocent individual out of the hundred.
Oh, a bah upon you! I opened this thread and they were the first ones I thought of.
I just skimmed most of this (looking for links) so I don’t know if he’s been mentioned, but if not…what about Dreyfus, IIRC, the French army man whose execution was largely based on anti-Semitism?
And a case could be made for Eddie Slovik, as he was innocent of capital crimes like murder and rape, but was executed for desertion.
Cite please? The cites I have seen of those who were innocent but executed were heavily wieghted in the 1950’s and before. Very few in the “modern period”. I do not know of any in the last couple of decades. Modern justice tends to find out they are innocent before they are executed- altho i will admit, far too often after they are convicted. I did see some numbers along yours- but they were of folks who had their death penalty reversed after conviction, but BEFORE execution.
From The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. 124, no. 3, July 1993, “Jonas Wood ‘Halifax’ of Huntington” by Matthew Wood(p. 146)- “Jesse Wood was hanged for murder in 1806 in Poughkepsie. The accounts say a shot was heard and a bystander came running. He found Jesse and two of his sons, one dead of a gunshot. Jesse said the two sons were were fighting and one killed the other. The son Joseph said said his father fired the shot. Jesse Wood was convicted on 4 November and hanged on 5 December. Many years later, the son confessed that he was the murderer.”
Well, “modern justice” being what it is, please keep in mind that the 70 or whatever # we’re agreeing to, were under the “old rules”. the NEW, improved rules include limiting appeals, speeding up the execution process, “streamlining”. In my state, for example, they’ve just introduced legislation requiring appeals with NEW DNA results to be filed within ONE year of conviction.
I (once again) heartily recommend that you read “Actual Innocence” by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer.
While we might molify ourselves with the thought that “gee, we’ve advanced Sooooo far since the bad old 20’s and 30’s when a minority male might get hanged for dating a white woman”, reading that book will bring new depth to the word terrifying. Think it couldn’t happen to you? think again.
I don’t think Dreyfus was executed. He spent a long time on Devil’s Island, But I think he was eventually pardoned, and given his rank back.
I would also like a cite for this.
There is also the issue of wether a person executed in times past would have been convicted of a lesser offence using more recent legislation.
You might include deserters from the British Army for cowardice in WWI, in many if not most cases they had already served in the front line and were shell-shocked.
Most court martials were a total travesty of justice.
There have been a few in British legal history who were executed when either not guilty or guily of manslaughter .
Ruth Ellis - suffered years of brutal treatment from her lover and was in the throes of post-natal depression when she stabbed her abusive partner.
Then there was Timothy Evans who was executed for the murder of his baby daughter but recieved a free pardon in 1966 - Had the jury kown at the time of John Christie’s serial killer toll he would never have been convicted.
try this site
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/wrong.html
from this site
Here is a better place and will be more relevant to the US