Bryan Stevenson poses a question confronting our moral values, that it is not whether “people deserve to die for the crimes they commit,” but whether we, as humans, “deserve to kill.” There is no doubt a racial disparity when imposing the death penalty. He himself even says that the likelihood of receiving the death sentence is much greater if the victim is white than if he is black. Can we really call a justice system that values certain people’s lives over others as just and fair? Locking someone up or even going so far as to torture them seems trivial in comparison to capital punishment when one’s life is at stake. The act of killing is irrevocable, so is it really only right to punish people for the crime they’ve supposedly committed? …show more content…
Atticus is someone who sees people for more than what they just appear to be, respecting them as a human foremost before anything else. When thinking about it, the whole existence of the prison system is not only retribution for one’s crimes, but also for repentance. Does the input of the death sentence suggest that the crime perpetrated is far too great for the person to reflect on their actions? Do we, as a society, have to take the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” literally to serve justice? No matter how heinous the crime is, I do think that there is some human lying in all of us. Referring back to To Kill a Mockingbird, it took someone as little as Scout to stop a lynch mob. She was able to touch Mr. Cunningham, her innocent presence ironically contrasting the despicable acts they would have committed had she not been there. He was able to realize that he also had a family, a son, something to protect as Atticus did if he had been arrested for his crimes. I certainly don’t believe that all actions are forgivable, but more than seeing the act of forgiving as mere approval from others, I see self-repent and owning up to what we’ve done that redeems our character and builds an