Death Penalty

In the hit show Prison Break, Lincoln Burrows is put on death row for a murder he did not commit. Each week we saw firsthand, his frustration and the desperation of the situation he was in. This television show is a reality for the many innocent people that have been put on death row. Since 1993 there have been 138 defendants exonerated from their death sentence. The number of innocent people put to death is probably higher. Supporters of the death penalty say that the benefits of the death penalty outweigh the risk of executing innocent people. This is not true because the risks are too high, and the benefits too small. This high risk of mistakes occurring can be attributed to police errors, and problems with the judicial system. For these reasons, the death penalty should be abolished.
The number of innocent people wrongly put on death row is staggering. In 2010 the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment, released a report on capital punishment in the United States. They found that from 1973 – 1999 there was an average of 3.1 exonerations per year. From 2000 – 2007 this increased to 5 exonerations per year (2). This clearly shows that the risk of errors in our capital punishment system is increasing because more people are being wrongly sentenced to death. This increase in the risk of errors can be attributed to many different factors. One is the pressure on police and prosecutors to solve notorious murders in a community. In 1983 10 –year old Jeannine Nicarico was abducted, raped, and murdered. After months of frustration with no indictments police and prosecutors used fabricated evidence to put the blame on two suspects Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez. They were put on death row and after years of appeals, in 1995 they were finally released. Following their release three prosecutors and four police officers were indicted for

Cited: Death Penalty Information Center. Facts About the Death Penalty. Death Penalty Information Center. Death Penalty Information Center, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf>. Denno, Deborah W., and Arthur A Jurow, George L. "New Data on the Effect of a "Death Qualified" Jury on the Guilt Determination Process." Harvard Law Review 84.3 (1971): 567-611. JSTOR. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/1339553>. Kubrin, Charis E McAtlin, Barbara J. "Written in Blood, Stamped in Unfairness... Virginia 's Infamous 21-Day Rule." Justice Denied. Hans Sherrer. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. <http://www.justicedenied.org/21day.htm>. Ofshe, Richard J., and Richard A Zimmerman, Paul R. "State Executions, Deterrence, and the Incidence of Murder." Journal of Applied Economics 7.1 (2004): 163-93. Social Science Research Network. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=354680>.