Living in Illinois, we all live in a state that kills people. How so you ask?
It is the hypocritical policy of the death penalty. Every person
on death row had their sentence conveyed into life in prison by ex-governor George
Ryan because thirteen (13!) people were found not guilty while on death row.
This means that we have probably sent innocent people to their death.
I know many people do not seem to have that as a big deal, but imagine this. You are picked up by the Police for murder, charging you with killing a gas station cashier. You know you did not commit the crime, but the Police interrogate you for hours upon hours until you are confused to the point where you almost believe you did the crime. You sign papers that mean you are confessing to this, but you don't even know what you are signing because your eyes are full of tears and have men who are twice your size yelling at you. (This does and has happened, so don't say you wouldn't ever do something like that. Try disagreeing with a Chicago cop in an isolated room where you aren't allowed to yell, stand up, or talk back, and even if you don't they will probably still beat you back into the 3rd grade_ Now you are in front of a jury, and you plead for them to listen to you, that you didn't know that you were confessing, that you were confused. These people don't believe you, and if you were in their position you wouldn't either. So there you are, in a courtroom where you are the scum of the earth, and every person in that jury believes your just trying to bullshit them. So you are convicted. Here comes the fun part. The prosecution now gets to call the family of the victim to the stand. The dead cashier's wife comes to the stand, telling of how good of a father he was and that her life has been ruined by you. His 8 year old daughter is called up and says that she misses her daddy, crying of how she has to grow up with out him. His mother comes to the stand, bawling, crying of how she had to see her son die before her, and how no parent should have to see that. Every one of these people is saying how you took away their husband, their daddy, their son. The jury wants you to burn in hell for this, and sentences you to the death penalty. Here you are, innocent of the crime, but your lawyer does not care what happens to you. You are just case No. 978 to him. You spend 12 years on death row, until a gang member picked up for drug possession mistakenly confesses killing the cashier 12 years before. You are released, losing 12 years to your life, all dignity that you had, and all respect you had worked so hard for. Your life has been ruined by the killing of someone you did not even know. Stories like this have happened in our state. As said before, 13 men have been found innocent while on death row, some only a matter of HOURS away from being executed. But that did not stop the restarting of the death machine by incoming Gov. Rod Blagoevich. The public sentiment seems to be that people deserve the death penalty. We like to think of ourselves as the greatest, most advanced, and most of all the fairest country in the world. Why then do we have the death penalty then when most of the civilized world does not? One can say China does, but China executes people for shoplifting, so I don't think that is someone who is pro-death penalty wants to identify with. We are seen as barbarians for this by most of the world, and have been kicked off the U.N.'s human rights council in big part because of it. In Oklahoma a boy who was convicted when he was 17 was executed, and children younger than him have been sentenced to death. That's right; we execute minors in our country we have the right to execute those who legally can not vote, drink, live on their own, or even sometimes drive. Our government says that children can be tried as adults, despite them STILL BEING CHILDREN. To give a 15 year old kid who probably has had a terrible home life and probably been living in prison like atmosphere since he was born the death penalty isn't exactly what I would call justice. I am not trying to defend the crimes that murderers commit or offend the families of murder victims. If somebody killed my little brother, I would want them dead and would be very tempted to kill them myself. That however doesn't make it right. If I went killed someone who killed my little brother, it would be seen as wrong and I would be sent to jail. But if he is convicted of the crime, the government would not only say the man deserves to die, but they would kill him. How does that make me wrong and them right? The answer is that neither is. We kill people that kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. That makes me want to punch myself in the face just listening to the hypocrisy. I know that victims want their loved ones killer dead, and I agree that I would want the same. But that doesn't make it right. Plus the fact that we have sentenced innocent people to die and have probably executed an innocent person, I cannot understand how the death penalty is worth it. An eye for an eye leaves the world blind, and many people seem to be blind to the facts that are so obvious and simple. If killing people if wrong, why do we continue to do it? Don't ask me. I haven't got a clue. |