I decided to write my final paper for my MS in Criminal Justice on wrongful conviction and the death penalty. Keep in mind that I am all for capital punishment for murders, rapes, child molestations and such.
However, I am not fully convinced that the process is as accurate as it could be. What bothers me is that between 1973 and 2000 there have been 130 people exonerated on death row due to DNA evidence. There has been roughly 6,000 people sentenced to death during this time period. That is a small percentage of innocent people. But all of the exonerations have occured roughly in the last 10 years as DNA testing has been a relatively recent process. To complicate matters half of the exonerations come from Illinois and New York-the first two states to allow postconviction DNA tests. In other words, if other states did what Illinois or New York did, and allow DNA testing after the conviction, the number of exonerated would be higher than 1%.
Is 1% too large of a number? Would you like your car to blow up 1% of the time you started it, or traffic lights not to work 1% of the time?
Wrongful conviction provides three problems.
1. An innocent person bears the crimes of another-justice is lost.
2. The public safety is threatened-a criminal who did the crime is still free to commit more crime.
3. Loss of money-The taxpayer must pay for convictions and appeals for people who shouldn't be in prison.
Matt
Comments
Fallibility of Man or Science? Are they related?
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Hrmm.
jamesj- JID: hystrix@jabber.g4g.org
What about now?
It is lamentable that a certain percentage of innocent people have been put to death. It is amazing that there could be enough evidence to convict someone beyond reasonable doubt for something to which they have no connection.
But - 1973 to 2000 is a long time frame, and four years in the past. Sure we make mistakes as a society, but we advance and get better. We released slaves, and began civil rights. We have allowed millions of people ti die on operating tables not yet ready to invade the human body. We do all sorts of things that our technology is not ready to handle, but as time saunders on we get better and more accurate.
We have to do the responsible thing and protect people using our best science, followed by our best judgment.
Now...
Most of the scientific studies were done in 2000 because George Ryan of Illinois commuted the sentences of all death row inmates. Thus, most of the research was done at that point of time. We don't know current data, because of a number of factors that go way beyond the scope of this. (How do you get your sample, etc...) We do know that for the state of Illinois there were 12 people completely exonerated out of 285. This happened post-conviction! That is an error rate of 4%. It is highly unlikely that 100% of the errors were discovered. It would then be logical to assume that at least an additional 1% of those convicted were innocent.
Is a 5% error rate acceptable? If the lights on my way to work malfunctioned 5% of the time I would be outraged. If cans of soup had poison in them 5% of the time I would be outraged. Yet, we don't get angry about this because we have never experienced it.
I'm not sure...
why it is logical to assume that 1% more of the convicted are innocent.
The point is, 5% failure is too high; that is why we have due process. Would it be an outrage if 5% of convictions were wrong? Sure, but it would be worse if they were wrong and the sentence was carried out immediately.
Again, look at the percentages of failure in past instances, and compare them to what we can achieve today. Surviving surgery was 80% fatal, now its less then 5%. 30% of pregnancies ended in the death of both mother and child, not 100 years ago. Today, we are doing much better.
It is good to be outraged over the high percentage of innocent felons; that is what brings about change. We just need a little perspective on how the situation is improving.
At least we know the system is not perfect, that helps us do something about it
“I’m not sure why it is l
“I’m not sure why it is logical to assume that 1% of the convicted are innocent.”
It isn’t logical. The failure rate is much higher. Notice that Illinois has a MINIMUM known failure rate of 4%. Illinois is only one of two states that first allowed DNA testing post-conviction. So statistically it looks like Illinois has a higher failure rate than other states because other states don’t allow you to have DNA tests after you are convicted. (Some other states have started this in the last year.) In other words once you are convicted, even if DNA says you are innocent it doesn’t matter in most states. Keep in mind that this percentage is based on DNA exonerations. I pity the poor people who were convicted and the real offender didn’t leave DNA around. The chances of their getting out are pretty much nil.
Food for thought: In Virginia, $305 is THE MOST a court-appointed counsel can receive for defending a client in a felony punishable by less than twenty years.