The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Essay Example
Abolish the Death Penalty
The death penalty should be abolished in all fifty states. There are a growing number of concerns around capital punishment: if it violates the Eight Amendment, if race plays a factor in who gets the death penalty, and if the cost of capital punishment is really giving society a deterrent. “I would have more confidence in the fair-mindedness of this jury and the jury’s pronouncement of the death sentence, had the state not used its peremptory challenges to exclude every African American juror, resulting in an all white jury for this black defendant”. Quote by a judge in the Supreme Court of Louisiana (Amnesty International). In almost every death penalty state there are cases of discriminatory jury practices. Such practices include the elimination of African American jurors from death penalty cases, called the “Texas shuffle”. Most district attorneys believe that “black jurors have doubts about the defendant’s responsibility for the killing and believe he is remorseful despite his impassive demeanor. White jurors see him as dangerous… Black jurors feel that the white jurors do not understand black defendants’ and the environment in which they live...” (Amnesty International). According to The American Civil Liberties Union; among the 38 states that allow the death penalty, 98% of the prosecutors are white and have complete control in deciding which cases become capital cases. In Georgia, District Attorney Joseph Briley tried 33 capital cases between 1976 and 1994. In almost all of these cases the defendants were black and the victims were white, out of 103 jury challenges Briley used 96 of them on African American jury candidates (ACLU). Yet another account of how bad the problem of jury rigging is in our judicial system is Harold Williams, a man who spent more than sixteen years in prison on death row after a Pennsylvania jury gave him three death sentences. During his 1989 trial, Wilson was prosecuted by Jack
The death penalty should be abolished in all fifty states. There are a growing number of concerns around capital punishment: if it violates the Eight Amendment, if race plays a factor in who gets the death penalty, and if the cost of capital punishment is really giving society a deterrent. “I would have more confidence in the fair-mindedness of this jury and the jury’s pronouncement of the death sentence, had the state not used its peremptory challenges to exclude every African American juror, resulting in an all white jury for this black defendant”. Quote by a judge in the Supreme Court of Louisiana (Amnesty International). In almost every death penalty state there are cases of discriminatory jury practices. Such practices include the elimination of African American jurors from death penalty cases, called the “Texas shuffle”. Most district attorneys believe that “black jurors have doubts about the defendant’s responsibility for the killing and believe he is remorseful despite his impassive demeanor. White jurors see him as dangerous… Black jurors feel that the white jurors do not understand black defendants’ and the environment in which they live...” (Amnesty International). According to The American Civil Liberties Union; among the 38 states that allow the death penalty, 98% of the prosecutors are white and have complete control in deciding which cases become capital cases. In Georgia, District Attorney Joseph Briley tried 33 capital cases between 1976 and 1994. In almost all of these cases the defendants were black and the victims were white, out of 103 jury challenges Briley used 96 of them on African American jury candidates (ACLU). Yet another account of how bad the problem of jury rigging is in our judicial system is Harold Williams, a man who spent more than sixteen years in prison on death row after a Pennsylvania jury gave him three death sentences. During his 1989 trial, Wilson was prosecuted by Jack