Quote:
Originally Posted by KSigkid
I know it looks like the criminal is protected to the detriment of the innocent person, but I think there's another way to look at it. Not every person who is accused of a crime is guilty, and not every crime is as serious as it appears at first glance. The laws are set up (or, the aim is that the laws are set up) so that, in those cases when someone is actually innocent, or that the crime wasn't as serious as first thought, the person has a fair shot of re-entry to society. Now, it doesn't work out that way in a lot of cases; innocent people are put on death row or spend years in prison, and guilty people walk the streets.
On the death row issue; check out this website: http://www.innocenceproject.org/ . There's also lots of resources on the web that talk about innocent people who have spent decades in jail, or who have been put to death. There are also first-hand accounts from those innocent people who spent 10, 20, 30 years or more in prison. Having executions the same day as guilty verdicts would virtually ensure that more innocent people were put to death. |
Another reason that I would not do away with death row right now... forensics. Even DNA testing for criminal trials only started being used in the 1980s, and there have been MAJOR advancements in this area recently. There are still cases where judgments are being overturned for people who have been sitting in jail for years, because at the time of their trial, such forensic tests weren't yet available. This is still a very new area of research, and I don't think we should start killing everyone just yet.