Death Penalty and Abortion... Related?

While typing death penalty into the search box of Google, I noticed an interesting suggestion. It read, "death penalty abortion." I have never even thought about associating those two issues. After thinking about them, they do both have the commonality of killing a human being. In abortion, it is argued that that being is innocent, and most of the times there is no doubt about guilt while someone is being put up for the death penalty, but sometimes there is a question of innocence. This article that I came across (found at the hyperlink below), introduced me to the idea of hypocrisy between these two issues. Some people are against the the killing of unborn babies, while they are completely for the death penalty. While proving beyond a reasonable doubt proves guiltiness in a court room, there is still a small chance that a person is truly innocent. So how is it not okay to kill an unborn innocent baby, and kill an adult who may be innocent? How can people have two different views of killing people based on the fact of perceived innocence?

In my opinion, a baby does not know what is happening to them while in the womb, and they do set limits on how mature a fetus can be developed in order to have an abortion. I am not saying it is right to kill unborn babies, but to kill a person who knows their situation and has been living enough years to become an adult is not right either. If you have two different views on each issue, you may want to rethink the hypocrisy intertwined between abortion and the death penalty.


http://chronicle.augusta.com/opinion/letters/2011-01-31/death-penalty-abortion-expose-hypocrisy

Excuse Me.... SInce when has a Women been Executed?

Not many people have ever heard of a women being put to death through the American justice system. Researchers argue that women usually tend to commit less serious offenses than men, but many also say that courts do not convict women to the extent of the lethal injection or electrocution. Most people refuse to convict women of such a punishment due to the fact that it is proven that men have a much more violent nature. Whatever the reason, women have a much smaller conviction rate that men and the public is not aware of it. Most almost never hear of women being executed, since only about forty have been executed in the past one hundred years.

The Death Penalty states that only about two percent of the total people executed in the United States have been women. That is an extremely small number considering women are arrested for ten percent of all murders. That does not necessarily mean that the numbers should be the same for the amount arrested and the number executed, due to cases being judged case by case, but in my opinion they should closely correlate. These statistics prove that the numbers do not really match up.

Is this a coincidence, or is it the result of some time of injustice? What do you think is the cause of such possible injustice?

Insanity

Recently, I looked at an article, “Texas to execute mentally ill man in controversial case.” It closely examined a whole new aspect to the death penalty, insanity. Insanity within the judicial system is extremely controversial, and when the issue of the death penalty is brought into it, it becomes that much more complicated.

The story that the article focuses on is the case of Jeffery Wood, a man involved in a case of armed robbery. Wood’s defense attorney stated that Wood did not kill anyone in the incident, but it was rather his partner, Daniel Reneau. This past year, Wood has been appealing the death penalty that has been sentenced to him. But  according to the law, one can not be given the death penalty unless the crime they have committed involves murder.

Besides not even killing anyone, Wood was seen as mentally ill. But as I have learned in my Justice class, there is a big difference between mentally ill and mentally competent. In order to be put on trial, one must understand the situation and that they have committed the crime. As long as someone can understand that they are being put on trial, they can be tried, but this does not declare them mentally stable.

This presents quite the challenge. How should the courts determine if someone is mentally competent, and should that be determined by if they are mentally ill? Yes, most would agree it is not fair to execute someone if they have a mental disability, but some argue they are still a threat to society. Would it do the victim and their family justice to send the perpetrator to the hospital until they are mentally stable? It is hard to answer these questions, and it has been debated in the legal system, but yet a solid response has yet to be reached.

So what should happen in such cases at Jeffery Wood? Put aside the fact that he says he did not personally murder the victim, but rather that he was involved in a murder case, but is seen as mentally insane. Should the courts be able to give him the guilty verdict of the death penalty if he is “mentally competent?”