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Claude Jones Unethical

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On the other side, many people argue that the rate of killing an innocent is rare, and therefore, the risk is reasonable and acceptable. As a development of technology, currently, we are able to use scientific evidence such as DNA testing. With DNA testing, the chance of executing an innocent is extremely rare. Moreover, even such false accusations have occurred, and these innocent have been imprisoned, we have conducted an unethical act as equal to execution. Additionally, the current death penalty procedure gives defendants a thorough system of appeals through not only to State but also to federal courts. Clearly, even though defendants were convicted of the crime, they would have chances in the future to fight for their justice. As a result, …show more content…

For example, in Claude Jones case, a later DNA test proved that he was an innocent in a conviction of shooting a liquor-shop owner. Jones was convicted the crime in 1989 and was executed in 2000. His murder conviction was based on a piece of forensic evidence, a strand of hair, which placed at the scene. Prosecutors claimed that it was belonged to Jones. As a result, he was found guilty and had to sit on the death row since 1989. In 2000, before his execution, Jones’ attorneys filed petitions for a stay with both district court and with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, they request the strand of hair be submitted for DNA testing (in 1989, the DNA testing technology was not available for defendants and prosecutors). However, both courts, along with Governor George W. Bush denied staying his execution. He was executed a few days later. In 2007, sevens year after his execution, the Innocent Project filed a lawsuit and was allowed by Judge Paul Murphy to obtain the single piece of physical evidence, the strand of hair, for DNA testing. The result from the DNA testing indicated that the strand of hair was belonged to the …show more content…

Most people are mistaken the true cost of capital punishment. With lengthy appeals process and specialized housing and extra security provided on death rows, capital cases are significantly more expensive than noncapital homicide cases. There are dozens of studies in regards to analyzing the financial costs that are corresponded to the capital punishment system. Some of them are funded by private organizations that may or may not take a public stance. However, there are few studies have been conducted and published by government agencies at the State or Federal level. For example, in June 2011, the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles published a study by Arthur L. Alarcon, a federal judge in the Ninth Circuit of the United States Courts and Paula Mitchell, a professor at the school. They concluded the result of more than $4 billion tax dollar have been spent for the capital punishment system from 1978 to 2011 in California, where the capital punishment is technically dysfunctional. For there are only 13 executions took place during that period, the expense per execution is around $308 million. In addition, California spends an approximate of $144 million annually on housing, legal costs, and medical care for inmates who are on the death row. As a result, they complained, “billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to

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Richard Ramirez’s trials alone cost California 1.8 million dollars before coming to an end by his death. Ramirez was costing taxpayers millions for 23 years before he died ending the financial burden. Financial costs to taxpayers from the death penalty are several times that of keeping someone in prison for life (Messerli). The death penalty combines the costliest parts of both punishments, lengthy and complicated death penalty trials, followed by incarceration for life. Everything that is needed for an ordinary trial is needed for a death penalty case, only extra.

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In California, the death penalty costs an estimated $499.7 million per year, while life without parole is $11.5 million per year (Report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice). This extreme cost of the death penalty comes from paying for systems that filter the crimes eligible for capital punishment, systems that run the death penalty, and systems that give the defendants a fair trial (Report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice). In Los Angeles, each execution costs an estimated $250 million; however, life imprisonment in Los Angeles has a significantly smaller price tag (Rone). Statistically speaking, if the death penalty were removed, it would save a substantial amount of money for California. This outrageous price tag is exactly why capital punishment should be removed from the legal

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Apparently, the jury understood the evidence, because on February 27, 1982, Wayne Williams was convicted of the two murders which he was tried for and he was sentenced to life in prison, at which point Atlanta’s police commissioner closed twenty-one other murder cases. In 1998, after Williams’s lawyers argued that prosecutors had withheld evidence in the case, Judge Hal Craig upheld the conviction and termed the fiber evidence in the case, the strongest scientific link in this case. Since then, the DNA from two human hairs found inside one of the victim ’s shirt excludes ninety-eight percent of the people in the world, yet it is consistent with the DNA of Wayne Williams (Nickell, 2011). When Wayne Williams went to trial in the two deaths DNA, testing was not as a common courtroom science and now it has grown significantly.

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We know that DNA testing is giving hope to the hopeless in prison. Margret Berger (2006) comments, “Even though the number of inmates released as a consequence of DNA testing is minuscule in contrast to the two million persons incarcerated in the United States, the DNA exonerations have had an enormous impact on the fundamental assumptions about the American criminal justice system and how it operates.” Changes like the desirability of the death penalty, the growing concerns on how forensic laboratories operate alongside the increasing interest in forensic science overall. For instance, as the number of exonerations continues to rise, the number of people being placed on death row is decreasing thanks to Supreme Court rulings that juveniles under the age of 18 and the mentally ill cannot be sentenced to death. The death penalty is overall losing its appeal to society, not just because of the DNA testing, but people become aware of the wrongful convictions of other crimes as well.

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Kirk Bloodsworth was sentenced to death in Baltimore County, Maryland for the 1984 rape and murder of nine-year old Dawn Hamilton that he did not commit. The principle evidence linking Bloodsworth to the crimes were five eyewitnesses who testified to seeing him either with, or near the scene at the time the crime was committed. In 1992, Bloodsworth obtained a court approval to test biological material preserved from the original evidence, using then-emerging DNA technology test. Nearly a decade later, on June 28, 1993 Kirk Bloodsworth became the first United States death row prisoner to be exonerated by a DNA test. According to the Innocence Project, an organization directed towards exonerating those wrongfully convicted of crimes, such mistakes that eyewitnesses make like those made in Bloodsworth case are unfortunately not rare (Scheck & Neufeld 2008).

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With the presumably guilty people incarcerated, the actual guilty ones get to walk free without worrying if the police are going to come for them. This was a theme in Damien Echols’ book; Life After Death, saying many times that he was one of the individuals that was innocent. He has a different point of view than most people considering that he was in prison and he uses that to help show that there are others that are innocent besides him.

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The costs of capital murder trials are more expensive than other murder trials for many of reasons. Often in murder trials where the death penalty is not being sought, the case never goes to trial and the offender pleads to a lesser degree of murder such as second degree murder or manslaughter. Depending on the location in the country, a prosecutor may be swayed politically or by the victim’s family to agree to life in prison without the possibility of parole. What makes a capital murder trial so expensive is “the high cost of crime scene investigations, pretrial preparations and motions, expert witness investigations, jury selection, and heightened death row security and maintenance costs” (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015, p. 493). The overall

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In Randall’s article, she gives a few examples of individuals who have been wrongly convicted, in the first example she says “Kirk L. Odom was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 22 years for a 1981 rape and murder. He completed his prison term in 2003, but it was not until July 2012 that DNA evidence exonerated him of the crimes.” (Randall 1) Randall states the fact that Odom even finished his sentence before the FBI figured out he was innocent, but what good is that if 22 years of his life were taken from him. And a similar case happened, in 1978 Santae A. Tribble was convicted for murder and was not exonerated until 2012.

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Richard C. Dieter, former director of the death penalty information center says, “All of the studies conclude that the death penalty system is far more expensive than an alternative system in which the maximum sentence is life in prison.” Dieter and many against the death penalty have a problem with the expense of death penalty when life in prison keeps criminals off the streets and is much cheaper. The latest study showed cases were the death penalty cost over one million dollars as cases without cost over $700,000. This doesn’t seem like a ton of a difference until it comes out of taxpayers pockets. It cost taxpayers approximately $90,000 more each year for an inmate who is on death row.

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Another case involved Cornelius Singleton who was executed in November 1992. In 2007, a panel of white judges for murdering a white woman sentenced Darrel B. Grayson a black African American. Requests for DNA tests were denied, even if it would be effective to prove his innocence (Aronson & Cole, 2009). Another famous case was that of Holly Wood who was executed in September 2010, even if it was apparent that he had a mental disability. The law that an individual with a mental disability should be exempted from such capital punishment was not observed in his

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Since the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,

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Some people think that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive per case. Most opponents present as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive at least $2 million per case. According to Dudley Sharp, reporter of ProCon.org in his article, Does the Death Penalty Cost Less Than Life in Prison without Parole, “There is no question that the upfront cost of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent life without parole

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Cases that don’t result in the death penalty cost over $700,000 and cases that result with the death penalty cost over one millions dollars. Housing each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population. It costs more to execute a prisoner than it does to give them life without parole.

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When carrying out the death penalty process it cost the taxpayers and the state a lot of money. This is think is unfair because the taxpayers should not have to put forth so much money just because someone is on death row. On average the total amount that the Oregon taxpayers pay is 2.3 million a year. (“Cost of Death Penalty para. 1”)

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“Cases without the death penalty cost $740,000, while cases where the death penalty is sought cost $1.26 million. Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population.” (“Death Penalty Information Center”) So in California they are spending at least 900 million to these inmates to basically die, I do not support the death penalty because it is too much money and it is applied at random times.

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