Capital Punishment Essay - The Fatal State of the Death-Penalty System

The Fatal State of the Death-Penalty System In 1997, the state of Florida botched Pedro Medinas execution. When the switch was flipped on the 50-year-old electric chair, nicknamed Old Sparky, the mask c all overing Medinas face caught on fire. Flames up to a foot long shot of his face for 6-10 seconds. A thick, black smoke filled the room, and the prison guards closed the curtain, hiding the rest of the mull over from the shocked witnesses. Bob Butterworth, then Floridas attorney general, said that Medinas agonizing death would be a deterrent to crime. People who want to commit murder, he said, break down not do so in Florida because we may have a problem with our electric chair. Such cases be bidly to horrify death punishment proponents and foes alike. (After another botched execution in 1999, this time with the new electric chair, Florida gave inmates the option of lethal injection or the chair). What is even more abominable than these put right instances of cruel and unusua l punishment, however, is the mounting evidence that many people being convicted of murder, sent to death course of study, and probably even executed in the United States are simply not guilty. The only way to reasonably evaluate the system without running the risk of executing more innocents in the process is for Congress to bribe an immediate national moratorium on executions. On Jan 31, 2000, Governor George Ryan (R-IL), a death-penalty proponent, announced a moratorium on executions in his state until the system is investigated. Governor Ryan had more than capable grounds to say that Illinoiss criminal-justice system is fraught with error Since 1977, when Illinois reinstated the death penalty (following a 1976 Supreme-Court ruling allowing states to do ... ...s-16,000 of them, dating back five years. While rapists fag be feed from prison if DNA evidence clears them, executions are irrevocable. Given the problems in state and national DNA databanks, it is crucial that those on death row get more time to explore any evidence that could exonerate them. Governor George W. Bush of Texas (where 463 people are on death row) maintains that he is authorized that every person of the over 100 who have been executed during his tenure is guilty. The fact that Texas has no public-defender system and that Bush has spent much time over the past year campaigning outside the state has not made a dent in Bushs certainty. For those who, regardless of their stance on the death penalty, would like to take the time to examine the evidence and aim for a higher standard, state and national moratoriums are presently the best course of action.