The Death Penalty

     In numerous recent articles in the New York Times former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens speaks on how the Death Penalty is wrong and unconstitutional. Justice Stevens once thought that the Death Penalty could be carried out rationally, morally, fairly, and without error but now thinks differently. Former Justice Blackmun stated  “The problem,” he said, “is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.” A system that takes innocent lives, is a system that needs to be eliminated, but it continues to thrive today. The Death Penalty is a grotesque abomination of racism today. It can be considered as today's new way of lynching. Often times police and prosecuratorial misconduct happens in which evidence of innocence is withheld from the court room. The juries that are assigned to duty are usually those who lean in favor of  conviction. Judges and prosecutors are commonly white males who are often unfair bigots. The defense lawyers that are hired for the convicted defendants are usually incompetent and unqualified. Unless eliminated more innocent lives will be wasted and this reckless, unconstitutional cycle of judgement will continue to taint this country.


Herbert, Bob. "Broken Beyond Repair." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 29 Nov. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/>.