The Rev Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the flaws in Allah’s case were a reminder that “the death penalty is not given to the ‘worst of the worst’, it is given to the people who are least able to represent themselves in court”
Salient words.
Wow I thought this was the one that was posted about last month… it’s not. I just looked it up and this means a 2nd person is set to die next week who is definitely innocent after seeing the video on him. So many people are trying to help him because it’s that bad…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/18/us/marcellus-williams-missouri-execution-delay-request/index.html
Execution shouldn’t be an option. At least with life in prison you can release a person if you fucked up, with significant financial compensation for their time in prison. You can’t un-execute a person. The state isn’t competent enough to be given such power. Nobody is.
The “nobody is” is the most important part to me.
Like, society can argue all they want about choosing to execute convicted criminals of certain crimes. I’m not discussing that.
It’s the “beyond all doubt” factor that matters most. I think we’d agree that for ~99.99999% of crimes it’s really impossible to be sure.
If you can’t be sure, then there’s no reason to graduate to the next step of the decision “should we”.
Giving the state the power to take life from its citizens is open to abuse when the wrong person gets into power. Not allowing it in the first place is how you go towards stopping that sort of thing.
But what is the cost of compensation for executing somebody that was likely innocent?
—Think about this. Life in prison is cheaper than an execution If the convict serves their entire sentence. –Is it still cheaper if the inmate has their conviction overturned and subsequently sues for restitution?
I genuinely don’t know the answer to the latter question but nothing about sanctioned executions sits right with me.
South Carolina executed a man on death row on Friday, days after the key witness for the prosecution came forward to say he lied at trial and the state was putting to death an innocent man.
“New evidence” seems to be underselling the matter. How in the fuck could they justify not even granting a delay??
I don’t understand how you can convict someone based on the testimony of a person getting a plea deal for turning in another person.
The last thing the person getting the plea deal would want to do is turn over someone loyal enough to them to rob a place and shoot another person with.
Does anyone think this would have happened if the accused was the son of a wealthy white couple? How about if it was the police chief’s son? Any senator’s son?
Just saying. Testimony without hard evidence shouldn’t be enough for criminal conviction, let alone a fucking execution.
