I used to believe that the judicial system had it “right”. What I mean by that is that I used to believe that if someone was arrested, tried and found guilty and sentenced for whatever crime then the person sentenced were the ones actually guilty. If the person confessed to the police then there was no question in my mind. However let me tell you about my recent journey and then I’ll tell you how I feel now.
I’ve always liked crime shows and have somewhat been a closet fan of true crime because I didn’t want anyone to think I was crazy or psycho or whatever. But I’ve always liked watching shows like 20/20, Dateline, Cold Justice, etc. So I believe it was around December of last year that I saw an episode of 20/20 which talked about a Podcaster that investigates cases of people convicted but presumed to be innocent. So I listed to his very first episode (Season 1 Episode 1) in which he said that “If you haven’t listened to Serial or Undisclosed stop now and go listen to them”
That’s how I started falling down this rabbit hole and have found an issue that I have became very passionate about. I have since learned that there are approximately 120,000 wrongfully convicted people in prison. I’ve also learned that more than 1 out of 4 people that were wrongfully convicted people made a false confession and were later exonerated by DNA evidence that cleared them from the crime. According to the Innocence Project since this group was founded in 1992 there have been 365 DNA exonerations.
So let me take a moment to ask a few questions:
1- Are you Pro Death Penalty or No?
2- Hypothetically if an innocent person is executed is that still considered to be Murder?
3- Would you believe a Jail House Informant that claims the suspect confessed to the crime to them?
4- Would you believe an eyewitness that places the suspect at the scene?
5- If the suspect did not testify at trial would that sway your thought of guilt or innocence?
The reason I ask is like I said before I used to believe if you were tried and found guilty you should be sentenced accordingly. I used to think that prisoners weren’t sentenced harshly enough. However learning what I’ve learned and seeing the statistics I wouldn’t mind if we did away with the death penalty all together.
- Since 1976 there have been 1,493 executions.
- Since 1973 there have been more than 160 death row inmates released due to evidence of their innocence.
- It actually cost approximately $1M – $2.3M MORE to execute an inmate than it is to house them for a life sentence.
- According to an article in the Dallas Morning News (from March 1992) it costs on average $2.3 million for a death penalty case which is 3x more than it costs to house a prisoner at the highest security level for 40 years.
- There have been several states that have moved up execution dates for prisoners due to the drugs expiring that are used in Lethal Injection. (Arkansas is the most famous due to the West Memphis 3 Case #WM3
So where do we go from here; in future posts I want to talk about specific cases that I have learned about and go over the pros & cons and give my feedback on my thoughts on the case. I really help in anyway I can, one of the problems is I live in a small town so I can’t really volunteer my time with the North Carolina Innocence Project because they are approx 3-4 hours from where I live. So about the only thing I know is to try to spread the word and get other people aware and involved in this issue.
As a very dear friend of mine always says…..”Peace Out” and until next time….See Ya!
Ramblings of a Country Girl 