Race and class have had a major effect on the death penalty. The film Deadline proves that people have been wrongly convicted for their race. One example the movie provides is David Keaton who was sentenced to death, but later released after being proven innocent of his crimes. This is such a strong example because had he not been proven innocent, he would have been killed. Murdered, just like that for a crime he did not commit because somewhere in the justice system, someone did not like that he was black. Keaton’s brother stated, “Growing up black in this state, you know, you really didn’t have a chance when it came to a crime.” This statement has sadly been proven true in many other cases as well. Black people have been constantly wrongly convicted because of the members of the jury and the media. His brother also said, “You know, they say that justice is blind, but justice really isn’t blind.” I completely agree with this statement. Justice is not blind because we are humans and we have opinions. Members of the jury are supposed to be able to put those opinions aside, but the truth of the matter is that they don’t. A juror cannot take part in a case where a white person is killed, the suspect is a black person, and they do not like black people. They simply cannot ignore their views. Race effects the determination of the death penalty, as well as law and politics.
Looking at statistics, the death penalty is greatly supported in the states where it is allowed. The reason for this is that people like the death penalty because they get revenge. People can become so distracted by their desire to get what they want and give others what they deserve that they are blinded from justice. In the United States, people look at situations of revenge with the theory of ‘an eye for an eye.’ Basically, someone should be punished in the same way for which they committed the crime; if they steal money, they have to pay back that money and spend time in jail. It’s our way of lessening the pain by knowing that they are going through the same pain we are. I think the notion of the death penalty is so widely accepted because it has been around us for so long. Also, we used to execute in much more inhumane ways than we do now. Since we have changed the way in which we execute to a more humane form, such as lethal injection, we feel the act is justifiable.
Looking at the bigger picture of the issue of the death penalty, there is a quote by Stephen Bright that reads;
“This was the third person released by the journalism students at Northwestern, and of course it doesn’t say much for our legal system when people spend sixteen years on death row for a crime they… didn’t commit. And that ultimately comes to light not because of the police or the prosecution, or the defense lawyers or the judicial system, but because a journalism class at Northwestern took it on as a class project to see whether or not these people were guilty or not. You know, if those students had taken chemistry that semester, these folks would have been executed.”
This quote shows just how easily the death penalty can be unjust and how easily innocent people are proven guilty on death row. A journalism class of college students proved the innocence of death row inmates; something that the Constitution of the United States could not prove. There truly is a problem there. These innocent people on death row sit there day after day, awaiting their death and being aware of their innocence and their inability to prove it. It took unbiased students with the desire to be true and just to the wrongfully convicted people to prove their innocence. To prove innocence that should never have been deceived. Bright also talks about how had the students taken a different class, the innocent people on death row would have been executed. It took chance for the inmates to get out; the chance that those students had chosen that class and then chosen to write on death row inmates. Hours in court with evidence, a selected jury and judge and all it took was the chance that those students would be put in the same class together? There truly is something wrong with our justice system.
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