THE CORRECTION OF A PARADOXICAL ENIGMA

THE CORRECTION OF A PARADOXICAL ENIGMA
OR
WHY I AIN’T PRO-DEATH PENALTY NO MORE


For years I was a good little religious zealot and obeyed all I was told to without question. I not only obeyed it, I believed it, preached it and lived it. If it was part of my religious dogma, I accepted it without reservation. Fortunately, I did begin to question things and research the validity of various doctrines. With God’s help and using the brain he gave me, it did not take long for my eyes to open to the truth.


I always found it mildly bothersome that I was pro-life and pro-death penalty at the same time. But this paradoxical enigma is standard protocol in many western religions: pro-life and pro-death at the same time. Eventually it became a conundrum I needed to solve. Over the past few years I have taken a 180 degree turn on both of these ideals. Though I find the act of abortion to be barbaric and reprehensible, and wish they would never occur, I am, nonetheless, currently pro-choice. Another permutation—I am now anti-death penalty. The variance being, my pro-choice stance was developed from both reason and the scripture; but my anti-death penalty stance was by reason alone (and self preservation I suppose).


The following are just a few of the examples I have found while doing a very brief Google search regarding overturned convictions for various reasons:


-Albert Woodfox, now 61, spent 36 years in solitary confinement. Now his murder conviction has been overturned. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5894181&page=1

-A Georgia Superior Court overturned the murder conviction of death row inmate Willie Palmer after finding that prosecutors hid a $500 payoff to the state's key trial witness, an act the judge said was "in defiance of (the state's) legal and ethical duties." The judge also threw out Palmer's death sentence on the grounds that his trial lawyer failed to investigate and present evidence of Palmer's mental retardation. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1404

-My name is Kirk Bloodsworth, and my case was the first capital conviction case in the United States to be overturned through DNA testing. I was exonerated in 1993 after spending almost nine years in prison, including two on death row, for a crime I did not commit. http://www.probono.net/deathpenalty/news/article.154127-Overturned

-“…Michael Blair was the 130th person exonerated from death row," http://www.star-telegram.com/news/columnists/bob_ray_sanders/story/1003495.html -Patrick Jeffries: On November 18, 1983, Mr. Jeffries was convicted and sentenced to death for aggravated first-degree murder. After thirteen years on appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his death sentence because of misconduct by the jury. http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/Reversals.htm

-New Jersey became the first state in the country to implement new police line-up procedures. Attorney General John J. Framer, Jr. mandated the changes because of the growing number of wrongly convicted inmates who have been exonerated by DNA evidence. -Nearly 18 months after the execution of Malcolm Rent Johnson, the expert testimony used to convict him is being called into question. At Johnson's 1982 trial, prosecutors relied primarily on Gilchrist's testimony to place Johnson at the scene. Gilchrist testified that Johnson's blood type matched sperm collected at the crime scene. However, a police department memo concerning a re-examination of the evidence shows that the slides from which Gilchrist based her testimony contained no sperm at all. The case came under review after Oklahoma City Police Department forensic scientist Joyce Gilchrist was suspended following the release of an FBI report criticizing her work.

Earlier this year, Oklahoma death row inmate Alfred Brian Mitchell's death sentence was overturned because of what the court called Gilchrist's "untrue" testimony and Jeffrey Pierce was released from prison after DNA tests disproved Gilchrist's testimony against him. (Los Angeles Times, 8/30/01 and New York Times, 9/2/01) http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-news-and-developments-2001

-Michael Lee McCormick was acquitted yesterday, December 5th, by a Tennessee jury of the 1985 murder of Donna Jean Nichols. He spent over 15 years on Tennessee's death row for this murder, which he did not commit. http://blogs.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/archive/2007/12/06/exonerated--after-15-years-on-death-row-1.htm


Some of the overturned convictions were due to new DNA evidence tools, others involved deception by jurists, jurors, prosecutors or police. Anyone could be wrongly accused of a crime—it happens. Unfortunately, simply being innocent is no longer enough to exonerate the accused. Not only do the references above prove this to be true, so does watching interviews on TV shows such as Dateline, 20/20, etc. These news programs make a habit of interviewing jurors who are involved in infamous and famous trials. During those interviews is revealed just how ignorant and down-right-stupid most jurors can be. I have heard more than one former juror say that they were not 100% confident the accused was guilty, yet they were willingly complicit in the person’s conviction. In every criminal case, the jury is instructed to only render a guilty verdict if they believe “without a reasonable doubt” the accused is guilty; otherwise they are expected to vote “not guilty.”
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Beyond+a+Reasonable+Doubt If I were ever on trial, I would never trust my life to the dimwits, morons and f***tards they put on juries these days. The Fifth Amendment guarantees me a right to a jury of my peers; not weak-minded fools who don’t know logic from lunch and reason from recess.


I am all for punishing criminals, but if an innocent person is accidently executed there is no bringing them back and apologizing for it. An innocent person sentenced to life in prison has a chance that somewhere, sometime they will be able to prove their innocence. And once they do “Katy bar the door” they better sue the ass off everyone involved!


Even the statistics proved my opinion needed to change. According to studies using U.S. Census data and information from the FBI’s “Crime In The United States” report, states without the death penalty have a lower homicide rate than states with the death penalty. See the statistics for yourself at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates.


My reason for changing comes down to this: the extinguishing of one innocent life is not worth the execution of 10,000 guilty ones. Especially if that innocent life is: my child, my wife, my parent, my sibling, my best friend, me or you. If you think the accidental execution of an innocent life is a small price to pay, I pity you, and I hope you are not the next innocent person mistakenly hanged; but if you are, I'm sure your family will rest assured in their knowledge that you stuck to your principles.