September 11, 2002
There are quite a few well-known defendants up for the death penalty at the moment. And I've realized that I'm actually against the death penalty.
It's not that I don't think some of these guys don't deserve to die. Like I said last summer, some people just need to be put down, like you would a viscious animal.
But there's the problem. How can we ever know for sure that these people deserve it? Our legal system is based on the idea that mistakes can be corrected. A new witness could come forward, DNA evidence could be examined (or reexamined), etc., and the new evidence will be heard by an appeals court. In some cases the conviction will be overturned.
Except for the death penalty. You can't exactly undo that one. Even though it takes more than a decade to execute a criminal (and a lot of states have mandatory appeals when the death penalty is handed down), we can never know 100% whether we really have the right person. Forty years from now if some new forensic technique exonerates the accused, he can't be un-killed.
And that's why I disagree with capital punishment. I know it's an about-face from a year ago, but I think I've arrived at the correct decision this time. Better late than never, ya know.
