Cameron Todd Willingham Case Essay

Cameron Todd Willingham was thirty six years old when he was accused of murdering his three children and executed. Forensic evidence determined that a fire was set in the house on purpose, and Willingham's conviction was largely based on this evidence. After several professional forensic scientists reviewed the case, they concluded that there was no evidence that the fire was set on purpose. Along with scientists disproving the fact that the house was set on fire on purpose, one of the witnesses who claimed that he saw Willingham set the fire recanted his statement. With the evidence provided there should not have been enough evidence to convict Willingham, much less put him on death row. In all likelihood Willingham was innocent and executed for a crime he did not commit. All in all this injustice could have been prevented by the abolishment of capital punishment. It is immoral for the United
However there is one valuable deterrent for this argument, it is morally wrong to kill another human being, no matter the evil they have caused. There is an old quote by Gandhi “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” That is, you can get revenge on the person who wronged you, but you’ll just end up, in a sense, blind.By killing inmates, by seeking revenge against criminals, people believe that this will in turn make them feel better that the person who killed someone they knew, no matter how close to them, is dead. While this feeling is understandable, and even human, it is immoral. All in all, the death penalty should be abolished for the express reason that it is unethical to kill people. Above all it is not worth the risk of having innocent people executed in cold blood.Willingham is one example of many, of people who have been wrongfully executed, and by abolishing the death penalty, further deaths can be