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David Kopshever
Isabel Sperry
English 5
March 14, 2013
A Matter of Life or Death
On May 11, 1978 newlyweds Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal were kidnapped from a gas
station in Homewood, Illinois. They were taken to to an abandoned house in East Chicago Heights,
where Carol was raped 7 times by the four kidnappers, and they were both shot and killed at point
blank range. Anyone familiar with crimes of this magnitude, especially those whose lives have been
somehow touched by brutal murder and violent crime, have an understandable argument for why
capital punishment is necessary and just. Most people agree, those who commit crimes this atrocious
deserve death. But this is not the full issue begging moral inspection. Rather, we must extend our
pursuit for justification of the death penalty by examining whether our judicial system, as well as our
society as a whole, is capable of administering death on those it sees fit. While considering this crucial
aspect of the death penalty argument, we must keep in mind that killing innocent people is morally
wrong. Transitively, supporting a system that commits murder of innocent people through the intended
purpose of prosecuting guilty offenders, is also wrong.
Proponents of capital punishment make the argument that our criminal judicial system is
adequate in weeding out innocent defendants in death sentence cases. There are several appeals
processes in place meant to insure that the prosecution and resulting execution is only of those that are
truly guilty. Supporters say that the number of people actually executed who were innocent is trivial.
While the percentage is small, it does happen. Executing even a few people by mistake points to an
inherently flawed system. Wrongful execution is not an outdated issue, either. One of the most recent
examples of the execution of an innocent defendant is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, accused
of and put to death for killing his three daughters by arson of his own home. At the time of his arrest,
Cameron was 23 years old. The Huffington Post summarizes the case,
“At his August 1992 trial, (the) two fire investigators testified for the prosecution that
Willingham torched his own home. The prosecution also called a jailhouse snitch, Johnny
Webb, to the stand. Webb claimed that Willingham admitted in jail after his arrest that he killed
his children... But doubts about Willingham's guilt emerged. In 2000, Webb recanted his
testimony. Forensic science had evolved since his trial, too. In 2004, Gerald Hurst, a chemist,
released a report days before Willingham's execution that said the testimony of the fire
investigators was wrong and that the fire was accidental. The report was rushed to Gov. Rick
Perry, but he denied a request for a reprieve, allowing the state to put Willingham to death by
lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004 ”.
In 2009 a report by the Texas Forensic Science Commission backed up the findings of Gerald
Hurst, stating the original forensic prosecution evidence did not have “Any basis in modern fire
science”. Following this report, Perry immediately replaced the commission's chairman, halting
further investigation and the inevitable exoneration of Willingham. The execution of innocent
defendants is a frighteningly real occurrence. Former Mayor of New York, Edward Koch argues, “If
government functioned only when the possibility of error didn’t exist, government wouldn’t
function at all” (577) This may be a fair generalization in reference to government services with less
drastic consequences, but applying this rationale to capital punishment is hazardous to our integrity. We
cannot simply shrug our shoulders and sweep under the rug mistakes resulting in the murder of
innocent human beings .
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Historically, there are three main factors contributing to the wrongful prosecution of capital
punishment cases: (1) Discrimination based on race and socioeconomic class, (2) an imbalance in the
quality of state appointed defense attorneys versus state prosecutors, and (3) police investigative
misconduct, usually fueled by a strong desire to prosecute for the sake of “solving” a case. To date,
none of these concerns have been successfully addressed in the judicial system. The documentary
film,“The Thin Blue Line” illustrates a striking example of the imbalance in our criminal court
system between prosecution and defense attorney abilities, as well as police and prosecution
misconduct. Randall Adams was falsely prosecuted and sentenced to death for killing a police officer.
The evidence against him was inconclusive at best, and a more capable defense team clearly would
have been able to pick apart the prosecution's unreliable testimonial evidence. It was only because of
forces originating outside of the judicial system that Adams was eventually released. Similarly, the
1978 murder of newlyweds Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal, resulted in the infamous “Ford
Heights Four” case. The victims were white, the defendants were black. The jury was all white. Two
of the four defendants were sentenced to death, the sentence being reaffirmed in appellate court by
another all white jury. Again, it was the work of outside forces, this time a student investigative team
headed by Northwestern Professor David Protess, that eventually exonerated the men of all charges
through DNA evidence and the discovery of documents recanting previously incriminating testimony.
The innocent four men spent over 14 years in prison. The actual killers were later prosecuted and plead
guilty. If not for the exhaustive work of the student investigative team, two of these innocent men
would now be dead by the hand of a system plagued with imbalance and imperfection.
The question now rises, is there a net benefit to the use of capital punishment? In other words,
does the death penalty have a deterrent effect such that would make the execution of innocent
individuals worth it because of the lives saved by the threat of death to potential murderers? Former
Governor of Illinois George Ryan states, the death penalty has been abolished in 12 states. In none of
these states has the homicide rate increased (558). Although this is not conclusive proof that capital
punishment has no deterrent effect, it strongly supports that it does not have a significantly desirable
affect. Furthermore, a study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of
Colorado, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology states that 88% of the nation’s
leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. Potter Stewart
asserts that, the death penalty is said to serve two social purposes: retribution and deterrence of capital
crimes (614). However, observations of the relatively ineffective deterrence factor, coupled with the
risk of unjust implementation of capital punishment, it is fair to conclude that a public outcry for
retribution in the form of the death penalty is not enough to justify the occurrence of wrongful
executions. Therefore the death penalty must be abolished.
There are many other faulty justifications for capital punishment, among the most common is
the claim that without the death penalty, the existence of repeat murder offenses will occur in a higher
frequency. This is an appeal to the emotion of fear. In reality, the replacement of the death penalty with
life without parole (LWOP) is equally effective in keeping dangerous murders off the streets by its
definition. This illuminates a separate but loosely related issue. The United States criminal system
houses convicted drug offenders in the same prisons as its violent crimes offenders, including
murderers. This has several negative implications, the relevant one being that it creates a dangerous
environment for non violent criminals. Drug abusers and small time crooks may deserve to be
punished, but they should not be locked away with the most brutal and dangerous people on earth. A
simple solution is to house violent and non violent criminals separately.
Another claim from capital punishment supporters is that LWOP is more expensive than
exercising the death penalty. This argument is flawed from the start, because it places a higher
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emphasis on money spent than innocent lives lost. For practical reasons, people concerned with
monetary loss over human life do not belong in the debate over the morality of the death penalty.
However, the issue should be addressed nonetheless. According to an assessment of costs by Judge
Arthur Alarcon and Prof. Paula Mitchell, California's annual cost of the present death penalty system
are approximately $137 million per year. They also estimated that the cost of a system which imposes a
maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per
year. The argument that killing convicted murderers will save taxpayer money is dead wrong. If we
abolished the death penalty, the estimated 125.5 million per year in savings could be used towards any
number of important issues, like improving our lopsided public education system, one of the underlying
factors of our extraordinarily high crime rates.
One final argument to be debunked is the claim that the bible affirms capital punishment. Under
most interpretations, it does; the strongest instance being, “...Should she die, you shall give life for
life, eye for eye...” (Exodus 21:22-25). As Helen Prejean points out, this may have been to limit the
revenge taken against an offender, “Only an eye for an eye, only a tooth for a tooth.” (624). But the
issue of relying on the bible for practical instruction on current issues is deeper than the different
variances of interpretation. First, it is unconstitutional to enforce the religious teachings of Christianity
through the means of the government judicial system. In the same breath as the frequently referenced
'eye for an eye' quote is uttered, the bible asserts that the woman in the example is the rightful property
of her male master. You cannot pick and choose which biblical lessons to live by with blind faith and
assert that the lessons are accurate.
There are endless arguments for and against capital punishment, some are better or worse than
others. The most plausible pro argument is undoubtedly that the highest form of retribution is indeed
and appropriate for criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes imaginable. At face value,
this is a valid argument. But who makes up this government mechanism which decides life and death?
What qualifies these people to make such irreversible decisions? Is it their education? Is it their
guiltless credibility? Is it some indescribable moral superiority? No. the fact is that these people making
the life and death decisions are made of the same flesh and blood as the accused murderers they
condemn to death. We are all prone to human error, to dishonest and deviant behavior. Asimov's
morally and intellectually supreme robot is not carrying out the duties of the District Attorney. For this
reason, the death penalty cannot remain in effect. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Harry
Blackmun, “...Because human error is inevitable and because our criminal justice system is less than
perfect... I feel morally and intellectually obliged to simply concede that the death penalty experiment
has failed.” (620-621)