The Controversy over the Death Penalty Essay

The article, ‘Judge: Cop Killer Brandon Daniel competent can dismiss lawyers’ published in July of 2015, talks about Daniel’s case—overall punishment. This article is about a twenty-six year old man, Brandon Daniel, who murdered an Austin, Texas police officer. The police officer, Jaime Padron, received a call involving shoplifting at a Wal-Mart in the north side of town. Both, Brandon Daniel and Padron were wrestling on the floor when the officer was shot dead. In this situation, this murder is considered capital murder. When an individual is sentenced with capital murder, they are sentenced execution or in other words the death penalty. Texas is known for having the highest number of death penalties since 1976. However in this case,

Andrew Six was executed in Missourie by lethal injection in 1997 for the 1987 murder of a 12-year-old. Investigators also found out that Six’s DNA matched a triple homicide case in Iowa, three years earliers before he murdered the 12-year-old girl. This triple homicide victims are 20-year-old Justin Hook Jr., 19-year-old Hook’s fiancee and 41-year-old Hook’s mother. Hook’s body was found after Six’s trailer burnt down and the authorities tried to notify her mother but then they found out that the mother is missing. The investigators believed that Six was the prime suspect but there are not enough evidence to convict Six therefore the case was closed. Few days later, Hook’s mother was found in a hilly wooded section. It was reported that all

Inmates in Oklahoma State Penitentiary, located in McAlester, Oklahoma, sued state officials after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014 led to Lockett laying in agonizing pain for 40 minutes after receiving the lethal injection cocktail, waiting for his heart attack to kill him (Konrad, Web). Richard E. Glossip and the other death row inmates petition the Court, believing that the use of midazolam as the initial drug of execution violated the Eight Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment (S. Ct, p.1). The Supreme Court of the United States of America denied the motion in a 5-4 ruling, stating prisoners “failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the

In Oklahoma, Greg Wilhoit serves as an inspiration to end the infamous capital punishment. His wife was viciously murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the 1st of June. Greg was alleged for the death of his spouse, and was found guilty when the bite marks found on his wife’s body matched his teeth. He was then put in jail and was sentenced to death in 8 years. However it was proven wrong and he successfully won the case, but he didn’t win the nightmarish trauma that strongly affected his mentality during those forlorn 8 years of false accusation. It led him to depression and eventually his miserable demise. Greg’s case is an example of an inaccurate and flawed judgment of death penalty. Everyone deserves a second chance, less allegations which cause wrong executions, and reverence to human rights.

An article written by Dahlia Lithwick, published on Slate, was released on April 17, 2017. The article tells the story of an act some may call immoral: the death penalty, and how the state of Arkansas is rushing to execute inmates before their lethal injection drugs expire. Shortly before this article was published, an order by a judge detailed the risks of the speedy executions. Lithwick’s career focuses on law and she writes regularly about the justice system for Slate. Lithwick’s passion for fairness in the law system is the root of her key point. She

According to a NJ.com Judge Portelli said at the bail hearing. “Now that you have the DNA, it changes the whole dynamic of the trial.” The implication of this material is good judgment and investigation which was conducted and as result the DNA change the whole dynamic of the

Kirk Bloodsworth was 22 when he spent eight years in prison, two of those on death row. He was wrongfully convicted. A 9-year old girl was raped and killed on July 25, 1984. Two boys had seen her walking with a man before she suddenly disappeared. The boys described the man to the police and the police came to the conclusion that the murderer was Bloodsworth. He repeatedly claimed he was innocent but he was found guilty and sentenced to death on March, 1985. After 8 years he finally proved he was innocent through DNA testing. He was released from prison on June 1993. He was paid 300,000 dollars (“Correcting”). The US should not institute the death penalty everywhere in the country because it would put us at risk of executing innocent people, costs us millions of dollars in administering the penalty and there is a better way to help the families of murder victims.

One of several errors in the trial was a reckless omission by a forensic scientist who testified for the prosecution. Semen was found on the victim’s body, the scientist testified, and Dominguez’s blood type matched the semen sample, meaning he could have been the perpetrator. The scientist did not tell the jury, however, that two-thirds of men in America would have matched that sample. Dominguez was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released after serving four years and sought DNA testing at his own expense. The tests proved his innocence. His case is one of many in which limited forensic science or wrong forensic testimony has led to wrongful convictions.

In 1991, Cameron Todd Willingham murdered his three daughters by setting fire to their home in Corsicana, Texas. The damning evidence against Willingham was the arson investigator’s findings—that the fire was intentionally set with the help of a liquid accelerant, a discovery proven by laboratory tests and burn patterns. Willingham claimed he was innocent for years, appealing his conviction until his execution at the Texas State Penitentiary on February 16, 2004. However, Willingham may not have been the murderer. In 2009, the Texas Forensic Science Commission panel reopened the case, determining that the arson investigators had used flawed science when they labeled the fire as arson. And while fire science has improved since the year of the alleged arson, experts have argued that the Corsicana Fire Department was negligent in their findings. The science commission is still investigating the arson ruling, and if the judge clears Willingham, it will be the first time an official has formally declared a wrongful execution in Texas. So did he actually do it? We may never know, for it’s all just speculation now. Does this mistake pale in comparison to all those who have “rightfully” been executed under the death penalty? Depending on your moral code, it might. But rather than narrowing this argument down to one specific instance, let us look at the death penalty on a broader scale, its merits and its flaws, the factors that push someone to standing in fear of the execution

On June 1, 1985 Kathy Wilhoit was murdered. Greg Wilhot was left a single father to care for his four months old and fourteen months old. Nearly a year after Kathy was murdered Greg was accused, arrested and charged with the murder. The evidence to convict Greg of murder was a bite mark on Kathy’s body, that two dental “experts” matched with Greg's bite. This man was behind bars with two young daughters at home, so his parents decided to hire one of Oklahoma’s “best” defense attorneys. Unfortunately this attorney had taken to drinking and neglected his responsibilities as a lawyer. Greg Wilhoit was sentenced to death. In an article by Nancy Vollertsen, Greg's sister, she wrote a quote from Greg saying “"At the sentencing," Wilhoit said, "the judge told me I was to die by lethal injection. Then he said, 'But if that fails, we'll kill you by electrocution. If the power goes out, we'll hang you. If the rope breaks, we'll take you out back and shoot you.'" Needless to say after eight years in prison twelve new odontologists found that the bite mark could not be Greg’s. Unfortunately, these cases of finding innocent men guilty and are all too common. Luckily, Greg was exonerated before he received his incorrect punishment of death. (Vollersten) Though Greg was lucky, that is not always the case with capital punishment and innocent men are convicted and killed. Capital punishment it too subjective to mistakes and biases to be taken into consideration. As well

Texas is known for some terrible things, but few are as bad as our penchant for sentencing innocent people to death. Advances in forensic science (like using science) have helped exonerate at least 48 people in Texas since 2001, when a law made it easier for defendants to request post-conviction DNA testing. Study of DNA exoneration cases has shown the fallibility of other, less scientific types of evidence, like “snitch” testimony provided by alleged accomplices or jailhouse informants.

For example, in California, a Los Angeles deputy public defender complained the death row was like “a college where nobody ever graduates, where they just keep building more dorms” (Galliher, Koch, & Wark 122). This bizarre analogy was generated because by 2009, California had on executed thirteen people over a thirty-one year period. According to this deputy’s calculation that meant “it would take 1,600 years to execute everybody on death row” (Galliher, Koch, & Wark 122). California is a state with a wide variety of cultures and many lawyers. As such, two-thirds of the death sentences were vacated by higher courts and as of 2011, many attorneys and activists in California claimed that the death penalty was just too costly to be feasible. Appeals could tie up a California case or decades because “most prosecutors and judges don’t have much experience with death penalty cases and don’t know what they are doing, and thus they make mistakes that are picked up on appeal” (Galliher, Koch, & Wark

“On Jan 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the lethal three-Drug cocktail used in most U.S executions. In a perfect world, perhaps, the government wouldn’t wait 30 years to determine whether an execution method makes sense” Von Drehle, D (2008). So many Americans are being sentenced to death, and we stand back and wonder how this can be happening. It happens because we have criminals and so we will continue to have crime, and instead of trying to figure out the who, what, where and why we would rather put them to death. The reasons to abolish the death penalty go on and on, what about the

Although supporters of capital punishment argue that there has been no proof of an innocent person being executed in the past century, more inmates are being exonerated from the death row (SB). It is evident that the criminal justice system makes mistakes as errors have gone through the process. In “Death Penalty Debates: Is the capital punishment system working?” Kenneth Jost stated that a Texas death row inmate, Anthony Graves, spent nearly two decades in prison for a crime he did not commit, becoming the 139th former death row inmate to have been freed of his alleged crime (AP). Some death row inmates were proven innocent by DNA analysis and some were released based on a reexamination of evidence. “Most of the exonerations, like Graves’,

In 1989, a man named Claude Jones was convicted of shooting a liquor manager. When the investigation began, the tests revealed that a strand of hair was found at the scene of the liquor-store shooting did not belong to Claude Jones, as was originally implied by the first prosecution. Instead the hair belonged to the victim,however this was enough to convict Jones of murder, and in 2000 he was executed. A few months after his execution, however, the necessary DNA technology had been developed. The hair was put up on DNA testing again, and this time there were different results. The Co-founder of the Innocent Project, Barry Schenck stated," The DNA results proved that the testimony about the hair sample on which the entire case rested was wrong. Unreliable forensic Science and a completely inadequate post-conviction review process cost Claude Jones his life." The incident that happened to Jones was a tragedy, and this is why states today need to outlaw the death penalty because not only does it convict innocent people but it also costs too much, and it is not up to a jury to decide whether a person lives or dies.