The Death Penalty

After the arrest of the accused there is a arraignment. This is the first time that the accused will hear their charges and be able to make a plea in front of a courtroom. This is the first place where the rights of the accused are protected. They are told exactly what they are being accused of and they are allowed to plead their case. Next there is a hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to prosecute the accused. If enough strong evidence is found there will be a hearing of a grand jury, there they will determine whether the evidence is compelling enough to charge the suspect with a specific crime. The rights of the defendant are being protected because the evidence against them is being carefully analyzed for strength and validity. Finally the prosecutor must announce their intentions to seek the death penalty. This is the final aspect that protects the accused because they know what the prosecutor’s intentions are so they can make their case against it.
    I do not believe that the system we use to enforce the death penalty insures that only the guilty are convicted. I think there are a lot of grey areas where people could slip through. For example eyewitnesses may have false memories, feel pressure to describe a certain suspect, or lie. Also there are people who give the police information hoping to get something out of it. Their intentions might not be right and they could endanger an innocent person. Finally most of the case is based off of evidence found at the crime scene. That evidence can be tampered with or staged. Our steps to enforcing the death penalty are not the most accurate, but I don’t see how they could be more accurate. There isn’t really a way to decide if someone is lying or telling the truth. It is also hard to determine if the evidence is genuine or designed to look a certain way. I think that our system that enforces the death penalty is as good as its going to get. There will always be a large margin for error.
I do not feel that any way of murdering someone is humane, but I would say the most humane are hanging and lethal injection. Hanging has a series of probations that it takes to ensure a quick painless death. They measure the weight of the inmate and the length of the rope. There is always potential for error that could result in a long painful death, but they do their best to make it quick and painless. Lethal injection is also somewhat humane because there is also a small margin for error. The inmate is strapped down and put to sleep. Then they inject the chemical that paralyzes the entire muscular system so the inmate dies of respiratory and cardiac failure. They try their best to make it quick and painless. I think that gas chambers, firing squads and the electric chair are cruel and unusual because there is a large margin for error, the death of the inmate can be extremely slow, and the death of the inmate can be extremely painful. If we are trying to be humane we should not torture the inmate.
After looking through the state-by-state death penalty information what  statistic I found the most interesting was the women.  In almost every state I looked at there were 0-2 women executed. The only one that I saw that surpassed that was Texas with 10 women executed. It made me think a lot. Why are women executed far less then men? Do women commit less crime? Are women better at hiding from their crime? Is it easier for a woman to plead innocent? There has to be a reason behind the small amount of women executed and I am curious what it is.
I do not think any of the crimes listed deserved the death penalty because I do not believe in the death penalty.  I think that death is the easy way out. It happens and then you are done. Any criminal who committed the crimes listed in the document deserves a lifetime in jail. In jail they will settle into a boring, strenuous, lifeless routine. The only thoughts they will have are regret and guilt. Spending your life in jail is miserable and the strongest form of punishment. Sentencing the death penalty is relieving someone of the punishments of jail.
The chart on Illinois current death penalty information reveals that the state of Illinois no longer has the death penalty but it does not give a clue as to why.  I would assume that the death penalty is no longer used in Illinois because the process takes to long, all types of executions are cruel and unusual,  and the murder rate is not high enough to need a death penalty punishment as a warning.
After looking at the fact sheet I stand by my opinion that the death penalty is the wrong answer. Executions are bad for the economy. They are extremely expensive and the taxpayers paying for the death penalty may not support it. The evidence is also solid that race is a large determining factor in utilizing the death penalty. This is an unfair and illegitimate bias that our justice system is using. Only one third of the population supports the death penalty. The death penalty is not the majority opinion in the United States; we are a democracy so we should be able to end it. The death penalty information sight is against the death penalty and so am I. The evidence I found on their sight has made me more secure in my beliefs.