by Bobby Brown

Created on: December 31, 2010   Last Updated: January 15, 2011

 "A system that will take life must first give justice."
- Former ABA President John J. Curtin, Jr.

I consider myself to be a moral person and a person who values life and forgiveness. The death penalty transcends the issue of morality and enters the realm of justice. Morality is very subjective and is often interpreted by a person's life experience. Justice on the other hand should always be objective, looking at all of the facts and then determining a punishment.  A society that cannot or will not punish its criminals will soon enter a state of anarchy. 

 
As a form of punishment, I don't have any problem with the death penalty, when it is administered to the most vile of criminals who have committed the most heinous of crimes. The issue that I have with the death penalty is that it is not measured out fairly. African Americans are at least three times as likely to be sentenced to death for similar crimes committed by whites.http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-black- and-white-who-lives-who-dies-who-decides, thus nullifying any real sense of justice. 

Everyone is aware of the disparity in the penal system when it comes to African Americans, and the death penalty issue only highlights the problem. Race is not the only issue to consider, however. There are too many people on death row  (of every color or race) who are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. If they are not innocent, then there are too many people sentenced to death for crimes that truly do not merit the death penalty. (There's a great movie that deals with this very topic called "The Life of David Gale", starring Oscar winners  Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet) Capital punishment, of all the possible punishments, should be clearly earned!
  
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 there have been 1,234 executions in the United States. The Innocence Project has helped free 256 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die http://www.innocenceproject.org/#, mainly through DNA testing  and other forensic procedures which did not exist prior to the convictions of many of these people.  Had those 256 people been executed the error rate would have been an astounding 19%! (since 1976). An error rate of nearly one in five is clearly not acceptable, and that rate today is undoubtedly higher because the Innocence Project didn't exist in 1976.

By way of comparison , consider that every year in America there is a genuine collaboration between health care professionals, private citizens and government agencies to combat flu season. A lot of publicity, planning and community activism is involved in the process. In  2009,  .12% (that's 12 in every 10,000) people died of flu, and for H1N1 the rate was 2 in 10,000. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_people_ die_from_the_2009_swine_flu.  Are we straining at gnats but swallowing camels or what?

 
All things considered, capital punishment as it is currently experienced in the United States has so many flaws that it provides absolutely no justice to anyone. How can there be justice if the wrong person is executed? How can there be justice if someone is more likely to receive the death penalty simply because they were born the wrong color? There cannot be justice until the system is fixed.

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