Post response questions, requires a position support position evidence assigned readings. Please correct sources APA. Each question 1.5 pages length. The reading attached. 1. Critics death penalty contend evidence wrongful conviction offenders sentenced death powerful evidence favor abolishing death penalty
One of the foundational principles of the American system of justice is that it is better to let a guilty man go free than it is to condemn an innocent man as guilty. The existence of the death penalty seems to belie this principle. Once someone has been put to death, there is no way to reconsider the verdict. No matter how heinous the crimes of the clearly guilty people put to death, there also have been innocent persons convicted of capital crimes. Despite all of the controls put into place within the American justice system, mistakes have been made in the past and fortunately many of these defendants were still alive, so they could be set free. The use of DNA evidence has cleared many defendants. A study of exonerations from 1989 through 2003 in the United States found a total of 340 exonerations occurred: 327 men and 13 women. 2, 144 of them were cleared by DNA evidence, 196 by other means (Gross et al. 2005: 524).
Some of these other cases were due to what were later shown to be unreliable...
2005: 539). This likewise highlights the imperfections of the justice system and its resistance to admitting when it has made a mistake. And mistakes are likely to disproportionately occur amongst the prosecutions of the poor, given that they typically have less competent representation.
Gross (et al. 2005) notes that the evidence presented by these figures is not always conclusive that the defendants were innocent It is not always clear why the defendants in question were cleared but it is conclusive evidence of the imperfections of the justice system. The American justice system, like all justice systems, is administered by human beings and can make errors. One of the most interesting aspects of the Gross study is the way in which it highlights how prosecutors and other individuals responsible for trying defendants for capital crimes do not fully understand or even
trust the
science behind DNA evidence. Science is often a contentious, much-disputed topic within the American political discourse, and the inability of prosecutors to understand and accept science is a frightening illustration of how innocent persons can be convicted and nearly 'fall through the cracks' of the system. "When Charles Fain was exonerated by DNA in Idaho in 2001, after eighteen years on death row for a rape
murder, the original prosecutor in the case said, "It doesn't really change my opinion that much that Fain's guilty (Gross et al. 2005:…
