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Lilia Medina
Jim Griffis
Honors 301
2 May 2016
Final Exam
The death penalty is something that many Americans think about. Many hold different
positions of whether it is morally justified or not. Stating that the death penalty is morally
justified, one should think about of the current state of jurisprudence and the nature in which the
death penalty is applied. The states should cease the use of the death penalty because there seems
to be many problems which include false confessions, issues with the public defenders, problems
with science especially DNA testing, and issues with eyewitness testimony that can put an
innocent person on the death row.
Steven Driven, author of the article 2015: A Year to Remember in False Confessions,
talks about different cases that had to do with false confessions throughout last year. Many
people send as much as 20 years in prison before being released after discovering they were
falsely accused of a crime they did not commit. The government cannot give back all those lost
years or emotions people feel while on the death role. The idea of just knowing that someone can
be falsely accused seems to be very disturbing. Priktzer Law School states that a national study
by Steven A. Drizin of the Center on Wrongful Convictions and Richard A. Leo of the University
of California-Irvine found that 84% of false confessions occurred after interrogations of six
hours or longer.

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Wikipedia states that false confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental
disorder or incompetency of the accused. False confessions happen every day. It is a huge
problem when false confessions happen that can put in jeopardy the life of someone. It seems
that the court can basically play with a life and if they discover they did wrong all they can say is
sorry. The persons whole life was passed in the same four walls and a simple sorry cannot be the
answer to the problems.
The Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to counsel in prosecutions (Cornell
Law School). But the Death Penalty Information Center states that perhaps the most important
factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty is the quality of the
representation he or she is provided. Almost all defendants in capital cases cannot afford their
own attorneys. The appointed attorneys are overworked, underpaid, or lacking the trial
experience required.
Sometimes public offenders cannot give all their attention due to all the cases they have
in their hands. So the person they are representing is not given a fair trial. Imagine you were in
court but the person that was representing you was not worried about if the court accused you of
being guilty. As they represented you, you notice that the other side is more prepared. That is
also another thing that the judges should take into consideration. When representation is not
equal there are a lot more chances that the case is not fair. This is also where the line should be
drawn especially in death penalty cases.
There is also a problem with how science is used as evidence. Even if DNA does offer
certainty in the matter of guilt, Smith suggests that there may be independent and controlling
reasons to reject capital punishment. It is a mistake to believe that DNA gives us a key to

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determine guilt. Although we know that DNA has condemned people that are guilty we are
unsure of how many cases there have been of accused innocent people.
In the article, CSI is a lie, it notes that the admissions from the FBI and Department of
Justice "confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques
like hair and bite-mark comparisonsthat have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than
one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989." This proves that sometimes the
science used can be put to doubt. Nothing is one hundred percent true.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, an independent review of the crime lab found "major errors in
almost every area of the lab's work (Friedersdorf). Some examples included the fingerprint and
crime scene evidence processing that has continued after the lab's drug testing was stopped.
There were sloppy documentation, dirty equipment, faulty techniques and ignorance of basic
scientific procedures. The scariest part of all this is that lab employees even used Wikipedia as a
'technical reference. The lab did not have any clean area designated for the review and collection
of DNA evidence. The lab stored crime-scene photos on a computer that anyone could access
without a password (Friedersdorf). In Detroit after re-examined 200 randomly selected shooting
cases, they found serious errors in 19 because of laboratory procedures. This come to show that
sometimes even our science is not as accurate as we thing it is. There should be a wall of
separation between analysis and interpretation.
Most can say that eye witnesses are good supporting evidence in a trail. Most experts say
that as time goes by people began to forget exactly what happen or who they saw. As time goes
by their memory begins to be less accurate. Sometimes after so much questionnaires there can be

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a belief that something really happen when it did not. People can believe things with so much
faith that they are right when they are not.
A great example of this is I Was Certain, but I was Wrong by Jennifer Thompson.
Jennifer was a 22 year old college student when someone broke into her apartment and raped her.
She made sure she looked at every single detail of the rapists face to later put him in prison.
When she went to the police department to compose a sketch of the rapist she looked at different
police shots. Soon she was able to identify her attacker and she was confident. Ronald Junior
Cotton was sentenced but the case was retried because an appellate court had overturned
Cottons conviction. Another man claimed to be her attacker. She was so sure that Cotton was the
rapist but after investigation they found out that Cotton was innocent and had already served 11
years in prison.
All this from how a person is represented to the evidence is presented can always have
errors and be incorrect. The most disturbing thing is that if we know all this is happening, why
do we continue to use it? Why do we continue to go about in investigation the way we do?
The line should be drawn as soon as we know that there should be a possibility that an
innocent person can be put to death. Yes, there will always be innocent people hurt but why
should we give the death penalty to someone that has the possibility of being innocent.
Given the current state of jurisprudence and the nature in which the death penalty is
applied, the US and the separate states should cease to use the death penalty. There is many
errors when condemning a person and the possibility that that person is innocent is very great. As
soon as there is a possibility or a doubt that was is presented is wrong the line should be drown
and the death penalty stopped. False confessions, issues with the public defender, bad science,

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and eyewitness testimony are all issues that should make use rethink if the death penalty is really
necessary.

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Work Cited
Death Penalty Representation. Death Penalty Information Center. Np. 2015. Web. 27 April
2016
Drizin, Steven. 2015: A Year to Remember in False Confessions. NP. Nd. Web. 27 April 2016.
Friedersdorf, Conor. CSI Is a Lie The Atlantic. 2015. Web. 27 April 2016
Kirchmeier, Jeffrey. DNA Reminds Us That to Err Is Human. 2012. Cato Unbound. Web. 27
April 2016
Thompson, Jennifer. I was Certain, But I was Wrong. Archives. The New York Times. Print.
2000.
Right to Council. Cornell Law School. Np. Web. 27 April 2016.