The 8th Amendment of the United States: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted“. My civic issue blog will be focusing on cruel and unusual punishment and actions the United States takes that question the implementation of this clause.
This week I will be discussing the death penalty. The death penalty should be abolished for many reasons. The criminal justice system is flawed resulting in false convictions, discrimination, racial bias, and an excessive use of the death penalty on vulnerable groups. Additionally, many of the execution methods are inhumane and the death penalty is a violation of human rights.
Our criminal justice system is far from perfect and this is reflected in the death penalty. False convictions are more common than they should be. The equal justice initiative was founded by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer from Harvard who has spent his life fighting for a more equal and fair criminal justice system. If you’re interested in reading or watching a compelling and heartfelt book or movie, I highly recommend both the book and movie adaptation of “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson. His organization has discussed and researched the prevalence of false convictions and exonerations of those on death row. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, 1,542 people have been executed in the United States since 1973. However, even more shockingly, 183 people convicted and sentenced to the death penalty have been exonerated and then released from death row, meaning evidence later came out that they were innocent. This is a scary amount of error for a system that is ending people’s lives. For every 9 people executed by the death penalty, one person on death row has been exonerated. Unfortunately our system does not always convict the guilty, but a system where the innocent can be convicted should not be putting people’s lives at risk.
Additionally, bias is clearly present in our criminal justice system and death penalty convictions certainly do not escape this. First, there is racial bias in our criminal justice system and this is reflected in the use of the death penalty. 42% of all people on death row are African American despite African Americans making up just 13% of the US population. Additionally, people convicted of killing White victims are 17x more likely to be executed than people convicted of killing Black victims. The criminal justice system is biased especially with the usage of the death penalty.
Another flaw of the death penalty is that it has been used most on those who are the most vulnerable in our society. This includes poor people who can’t afford adequate representation and people suffering from severe mental health. The most vulnerable people should not be punished with execution while the rich and privileged get away with so much. There have been many situations in which poor people cannot afford an effective lawyer. There have been people sent to death row whose lawyers slept through the trial, showed up to the court intoxicated, did not prepare proper evidence, witnesses, or do any sort of investigation into the case. This leads innocent people to end up on death row for the crime of being poor and having a bad lawyer. Additionally, according to mental health experts, approximately 20% of those on death row are likely suffering from severe mental illness. Instead of sentencing people with severe mental illness, many of whom have endured trauma, we should be providing mental health resources and treatment to reduce crime.
Even if our criminal justice system was flawless with no false convictions or bias of any sort, there would still be serious problems with using the death penalty. Many of the methods used during execution should be considered a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause. Some of the most inhumane ways people have been executed in the United States are by the electric chair, hanging, a firing squad, and lethal gas. Additionally, executions themselves are violation of one of the most fundamental human rights: the right to life. Under many widely accepted human rights documents including the monumental, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to life is guaranteed. The government taking away someone’s life is an extremely dangerous thing, especially in the United States where it is clear the process has been discriminatory and flawed.
https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/methods-of-execution
https://www.aclu.org/issues/human-rights/human-rights-and-death-penalty