Quote:
Originally posted by RudeDawg:
quote:
Originally posted by Dramnek_Ulk:
Besides what if the person executed was innocent?
AS the U.S.A already proves, many of those who are executed are innocent, and once they are gone, they’re gone.
And even one innocent man executed, is a stain and blight upon a nation that claims to uphold the constitution.
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This is the third time that this argument has been used in this thread. It's a myth, people. Here in Texas, there is 1 case of someone being PROVEN innocent after an execution. ONE. I will agree, that is one too many, but it is NOT the 'many" that keep being pointed out.. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]And yet There are many whose executions have been stayed at the last moment, only to find that they were innocent. Consider that nationwide, 89 individuals have been released from death row since 1973. Florida alone is responsible for nearly 25% of these miscarriages of justice. Conflicting standards puts the number of innocents released from death row at either 19 or 21. Since 1979, the people of Florida have executed 50 prisoners and released 21. And there are serious questions about the guilt or innocence of some of those who have been killed. In August, Equal Justice USA released a damning report which raised reasonable doubts about the guilt of James Adams (executed in 1984), Jesse J. Tafero (1990), and Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. (1998). There are others still on Florida's death row who can raise serious doubts about their guilt, notably Samuel Jason Derrick, Virginia Larzelere, Paul William Scott, and William Thomas Zeigler.
A study of jury death sentencing in Philadelphia between 1983 and 1993 found that black defendants were 38% more likely than non-black defendants to receive the death penalty. In Illinois, 87% of death row inmates are black
On the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, President Clinton signed an executive order to the effect that the U.S. would honor numerous international treaties with respect to minimal standards and safeguards applicable to the death penalty, including ICCPR, the Geneva Convention, and the ECOSOC. However, the U.S. continues to violate these treaties by executing juveniles and the mentally ill and accepting a racial bias in the application of the death penalty.
Statistics demonstrate that the death penalty does not deter murder. The South, which accounts for roughly 80% of the executions carried out in the U.S., maintains the highest murder rate of American regions. The Northeast, which accounts for roughly 1% of executions, has the lowest murder rate. A conference of police chiefs in 1995 placed the death penalty last as a factor in reducing violent crime
From 1985 to 1995, Amnesty International has documented the execution of juveniles in eight countries: Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United States. Of those countries, the United States by far had executed the most juveniles.