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Death Penalty
Viewpoint Summary
Convicted wrongfully for the murder of a man by the name Delbert Baker, Juan Roberto Melendez-Colon spent more than seventeen years on death row awaiting his execution. His eventual release came after Mr. Baker's real killer confessed to the said murder. Now a free man, Melendez-Colon adds his voice to the call for the abolition of the death penalty. In his opinion, wrongful conviction cases cannot be resolved using DNA testing. In response to proponents of the death penalty who are somehow convinced that DNA testing could easily resolve persistent cases of wrongful conviction, Melendez-Colon points out that DNA "is quite limited because it is not present in the great majority of murder cases." To back up his assertion, Melendez-Colon observes that since 1973, only 17 of the 139 death row exonerations involved DNA. In his opinion, there is a huge amount of money that the State of New Hampshire could save by abolishing...
Funds saved in this case could according to Melendez-Colon be used to protect helpless members of the public from further harm by amongst other things developing and implementing crime and violence reduction programs at the community level.
How the Discussion Fits with or Relates to other Viewpoints
According to Radley Balko, DNA testing has brought to the fore the inherent shortcomings of the capital punishment system. As the author observes, with DNA testing continuing to exonerate more people, it is highly likely that a number of innocent people are still on death row. Like Melendez-Colon, Balko is convinced that DNA evidence exists in a very small number of wrongful conviction cases. In his own words, "the subset of cases for which DNA testing can prove guilt is exceedingly small." It should however be noted that in contrast to Melendez-Colon who calls for the absolute abolition of the death penalty, Patrick Leahy is more appreciative of DNA testing and the role it could play to help resolve some of the shortcomings of the capital punishment system. In…
Like Melendez-Colon, Philip Brasfield and Carl M. Cannon are also of the opinion that DNA testing cannot help resolve the inherent shortcomings of the capital punishment system. According to Brasfield, although post-conviction DNA testing has been of great significance in helping expose the fallibility of the said system, "DNA tests are useless in cases where no evidence is found at the crime scene." This statement effectively reinforces Cannon's assertion that DNA is largely irrelevant in a significant number of other cases including but not limited to non-rape cases. For this and several other reasons, the authors appear convinced that the execution of innocents cannot necessarily be prevented through the utilization of DNA evidence. In the opinion of both authors, the death penalty should be abolished so as to bring to an end the killing of innocents in the name of justice.
My Opinion on the Topic
It is highly likely that a significant number of people have been wrongfully convicted and subsequently executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty in the U.S. In my opinion, embracing the utilization of DNA testing (both pre and post-conviction) could help solve some of our capital justice system's fundamental flaws. Given that the said testing has in the past helped exonerate quite a number of death row convicts, its widespread utilization could help solve many more innocent lives. With that in mind, the federal government needs to further increase funding to programs that seek to enhance both the availability and quality of DNA testing. That way, we do not necessarily have to abolish the death penalty.
The authors also argue that the lack of black political representations is not helping the cause and that the "three strikes you're out" rule is designed to punish repeat offenders and reward police officers and citizens who feel that blacks are inherently more criminal (Healey and O'Brien, 2007, pp. 207). When one segment of a society is labeled as "criminal," and even blacks begin to hate other blacks and
DNA The emergence of DNA testing has resulted in the exoneration of many people convicted of crimes. The ACLU (2011) has stated that 17 people on death row were exonerated as of September, 2011. A project in Virginia found 33 individuals convicted of sexual assaults who between 1973-1987 who were still incarcerated in 2012 and whose innocence was demonstrated by DNA testing (Michaels, 2012). DNA testing has proven effective at uncovering
Capital Punishment & DNA DNA Evidence, Capital Punishment, & the Criminal Justice System Capital Punishment is an issue of great contention. There are many people who strongly favor the use of capital punishment; there are also a great number of people that are adamantly against the use of capital punishment. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) evidence has become a crucial factor in the criminal justice system and the issue of capital punishment. Since the
" Giannelli (2003) stresses that advantages and reliability of scientific and technical evidence depend on whether a scientific culture exists. For reliability of DNA and other scientific evidence, there have to be sufficient written protocols and "an empirical basis for the most basic procedures." (Giannelli, 2003) Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer (cited by Giannelli, 2003) conclude that their investigations revealed that a third of the criminal convictions of 62
DNA in Criminal Justice System DNA in the Criminal Justice System -- DNA as Evidence Justice and Science Sources of DNA at Crime Scene Evidence Collection DNA Evidence on Trial DNA Matching This paper addresses the use of DNA in criminal justice system. The research paper will cover the usage of DNA as evidence. The importance of DNA in any criminal case as forensic evidence will be discussed through case studies. The role of DNA in court
Much of the credit for these exonerations goes to teams of reporters, professors, students, and pro bono attorneys who were willing to listen to the claims of innocence from imprisoned defendants and who dedicated hundreds of hours of uncompensated time to proving these men innocent (Gould, 2008)." In fact, in June of 2009 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that prisoners do not have the right to DNA