Brian Keith Teller. That name probably doesn’t ring any bells for any of you. That’s because he is one out of the hundreds of innocent people that have been killed through capital punishment. And not only that, but he was my son. Today, I Barbara Teller, will inform you all on why the death penalty should be abolished. Some of you may not be aware that the death penalty still exists in multiple countries, and others may support it. But yes, it is a thing and one that more people should be involved in.

My son was put to death for the 1992 murder of 70-year-old John Watson of Covington. But no hard evidence had proven he was at the scene of the crime. In fact, 13 latent prints collected and tested by authorities didn’t match my son’s fingerprints and furthermore a testimony made by a neighbour was later found out to be incorrect. And yet on the 9th of December at 12:52 pm, my son took his last breath. And, as the woman who brought him into this world, I was completely and utterly heart-broken as the realisation dawned on me that his short life has ended.

Unfortunately, my son isn’t the only person that had been doomed to this undeserved ending. A study has shown that every 1 in 25 people sentenced to death in the US is innocent. You may not consider it to be a lot, but the families of those, such as myself, beg to differ. The worst part, the death penalty is irreversible. Misjudgements can lead to people paying for crimes they did not commit. And why is that? So “justice”