2007.02.28
Death Penalty
Talking with The Defiant One tonight brought up an interesting idea concerning the death penalty. Personally I’m not for the death penalty, but then again I’m for overhauling our criminal system. Still, I absolutely understand why people are for it (except for politicians who use it for their own gain). I even find myself for it in some cases. It makes me something of a hypocrite but I can live with that.
Anyways, the discussion came to what should happen when an innocent (proven innocent, not assumed innocent) person is found guilty and is executed. Because sentencing someone to death is an absolute (there’s no reversing this once done) punishment, how can it be made as serious an option as possible? How can it be used less glibly (not that it is in most cases)? The Defiant One came up with this idea and I concur.
If we are to keep the death penalty, then if an executed person is ever found to have been actually innocent the prosecution -the ones that ask for the death penalty- should be tried for murder. By “prosecution” I mean the person who authorizes the lawyers to press for the death penalty. This could be the prosecution team, the General Attourney in charge of the case, etc.
Categorized: thoughts
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One Response to “Death Penalty”
- Mookee says (March 1st, 2007 at 17:28:42 )
Wow, talk about problematic and completely immoral (sp?).
Punishing the prosecution, or the one who wants the prosecution to be zealous … ok. Nail them for mailicious prosecution, a civil suit for wrongful death, but the prosecutor didn’t actually commit a crime (unless you put a law on the books that states that it is a crime — somehow that sounds like an infringement of rights).
I’ll not argue that sometimes prosecutors are overly zealous in their pursuit of “justice.” As ridiculous as it seems … one could then argue … what if it turns out that the evidence that proved the guy’s innocence was fabricated and now we’ve killed a second person, the first of which was “appropriate,” the second, inappropriate. Do we then prosecute the second prosecutor?
Bottom line is you can’t punish a man for something he didn’t do (ok, I get it, a guy was given the death penalty and later proven innocent, he was punished, he didn’t do it, I see the irony, get over it). The prosecutor didn’t KILL the person in question. Granted, he did things that led to his death, and there are crimes for that. Do we give the death penalty to the dude who wears the cool black mask and wields the axe? He’s just doing his job … but he’s the one who actually did the killing. What about anyone working at the prison when the guy was incarcerated? That’s wrongful imprisonment. They didn’t know?
Sorry … that’s not an excuse for breaking the law.
It’s definitely an interesting question, and an interesting solution … perhaps if you elect me leader of the world I will implement your idea, despite its many flaws.
