If you favor the death penalty, would you change your opinion if someone close to you was wrongly convicted?

Question

and sentenced to death?

Answer 1

only if he/she really did it

Answer 2

man cannot play god

Answer 3

you have to turn it around, would you still be against the death penalty if someone you loved was murdered and you had the option on sending the person who did it to death?

my uncle is in prison currently. i didn't think he did it, but a jury did.

i am still for the death penalty.

Answer 4

I don't favor the death penalty for that very reason. Mistakes are too easy to make, and people can be wrongly convicted. It happens all the time.

Answer 5

I stood by my husband as someone tried to railroad him, and it's still scary to think how close he came to being wrongly convicted of a felony (though not a capital offense).  It did give me a different perspective on the process, and I saw how much $$ and politics are involved, especially in a small town where the DA's are trying to make a name for themselves and all the lawyers and judges know each other.

I'm sure it could happen that someone could get wrongly convicted for a capital offense, but with all the automatic appeals and DNA evidence now, it's extremely unlikely that someone would end up on death row with no appeals left and be truly innocent.  I'm sure I would feel differently about my own loved one's case, but no, it wouldn't change my opinion that there has to be some ultimate punishment for heinous crimes and you have to draw the line somewhere.

Answer 6

If you would have asked me that several years ago, I would have said no.  This is because there are so many appeals that innocent people were so rarely convicted for murder that it is unlikely they would ever go to death.

Asking today, the answer is he!! no.  With DNA evidence being as it is, and the VERY ridiculous burden of proof, if OJ can get off, then NO innocent person will ever be put to death again.

kj...the instance of someone being wrongly put to death does not happen all the time, except in the minds of you liberals.  There are rarely times when someone who has been sentenced to death is later found innocent, but that is what the appeals process is for.  And with the number of appeals and DNA evidence AND burden of proof, I doubt it would ever happen again.

arklatex...your story showd a success in the system (even if it was a difficult trial) because there was ALMOST a wrongful conviction.

Frankie...if it is so well documented, where are the examples?  Why do people still refer to a couple of examples convicted and executed 50+ years ago and NOTHING CURRENT?

Answer 7

The death penalty has so many appeal processes it is difficult to get wrongly convicted.

Answer 8

there are more people let go during a murder trail than falsely convicted; (OJ) for example...liberal thinking...

Answer 9

I wouldn't change my mind about favoring the death penalty. But if someone close to me did something wrong and deserves it, I wouldn't care.

Answer 10

In fact some of the wrongfully convicted people finally released from death row have said that they and their families had previously supported the death penalty.  But when they saw that a perfectly average man can face a terrible deadly nightmare, they changed their minds. You can find out about these cases and read about the people involved at www.innocenceproject.org or at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

One person who answered (Open Thoughts) has been very free with criticisms of other answers.  To begin with, DNA evidence is only rarely available (less than 10% of all homicides have any DNA).  The defendents where DNA was present to prove their innocence are indeed the lucky ones. More often, establishing innocence involves very different evidence.  In just one example, Anthony Porter, just days away from execution, was proven innocent when it was established that he was nowhere near the scene of the murder for which he was condemned.  (The state's chief witness had lied).  He was not exonerated because of the system, but in spite of it.  A class of journalism students worked on his case while court after court had previously denied his appeals.

Actually, DNA played a role in very few of the 124 exonerations of people on death row.  What it has done is alerted us to the continuing problem of wrongful convictions, some leading to death sentences and some to lengthy prison terms.

To cast this problem as a just liberal concern does a disservice to anyone who wants our criminal justice system to be as good as it can be, given that it is (and will always be) adminstered by human beings (who are, by nature, fallible.)

Answer 11

I do and no, I wouldn't. I would be sorry for the loss but not try to change the law.

Answer 12

In that case, it would be the system that needs changing, not the punishment.  So, no.

Answer 13

No.

Answer 14

yes

Answer 15

I would be concerned that anyone be wrongly convicted of a crime, even if the punishment were just incarceration.  So , it wouldn't change my mind at all, but the judicial system would have to be held accountable and be sued for the wrongful death, with a heavy monetary penalty to the survivors, so that the judicial system is forced to make the extra effort to make sure the have convicted the right man or woman.  The bible says" Whatever ye shall sow, so shall ye reap."  Payback's a *****.  Lose your freedom for your sinning or die from your killing.  An eye for an eye.  Wether or not it was someone close to me, a criminal is still a criminal, it may be painful, but if a lesson is learned, or others learn the results from such behavior and it would prevent others from committing the same crime, then so be it.  People have little regard for others now adays , and this me, me ,me society doesn't help. If everyone helped others as much as they help themselves, there would be less overlooked and socially sick individuals in the world, because you'd have more people who felt loved instead of hating, and had self worth and the ability to share it with others , or feel help can be trusted to be there, to prevent senseless crimes from happening.

Answer 16

No, if I favored the death penalty I would have understood that there are mistakes made because there are always stories in the news about it and well documented cases in countries. http://www.justicedenied.org/

So, if I changed my mind after already making the decision to support it, reversing it because someone I know was convicted would show a lack of committal. It would be like admitting your choice wasn't serious.

If you did change it even after realizing you are admitting you were wrong, it would show you based your decision on a bet that it was ok, but as long as nobody I know is executed.

It would be better to oppose it outright or be for it outright.