I have grown up wondering what I could do to help innocent people get off death row without being a lawyer. After I watched “Just Mercy” I felt more inspired to do some research on this topic. The film is about Walter McMillan who was unjustly put on death row, and a new lawyer, Brian Stevenson, got him out. When I saw this topic on the list for potential One World essays, I realized it was finally going to be my chance to try to make a difference.
My problem is the inhumane punishment of the death sentence and that innocent people get killed every day, especially minorities, like people of color. Most of the people who are on death row are there because they were wrongly convicted, and even if they weren’t, nobody deserves to be killed. My solution is instead of killing convicted prisoners, state governments take the money that they used for executions and use it to imprison them for life without parole.
I think that we should get rid of the death penalty because there have been many innocent people who have been put to death for crimes they did not commit. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, “Walter McMillian, who is Black, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a young white woman.” Walter was eventually able to get a good lawyer through the judicial system, and the lawyer saved his life, but not everyone is this lucky. In addition, people are less likely to receive the death sentence if their victim was Black or Latinx. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, “It is 5.9 times more likely that an execution carried out in the U.S. over the past 50 years involved one or more white victims (1,207 cases) than… Black victims (206 cases). 78.1% of executions in the U.S. in the past 50 years were in cases involving white victims. 13.3% were in cases with only Black victims. 6.5% were in cases with only Latinx victims.” This shows that the judicial system is more prone to handing out death sentences to people who have killed white people than to those who have killed people of color.
My solution to the death penalty problem is to use life imprisonment without parole, rather than the death penalty, as a consequence. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org: “Many people assume that the state saves money by employing the death penalty since an executed person no longer requires confinement, health care, and related expenses… that assumption has been repeatedly proven to be wrong.” According to the University of Akron, Ohio, ”Nationally, the death penalty costs taxpayers an average of 1 million dollars more than a life without parole sentence, making it the most expensive part of our criminal justice system.” Although you might not think it, it is more expensive to kill someone than to put them in jail for life. This matters because the main reason that people vote for the death penalty is because they think it is cheaper, but these texts show that it is actually way more expensive.
Considering how many innocent people die by the death penalty each year, I think that we should get rid of it and instate life without parole instead. I want to fix this because it is a good way to spread the word about unjust death row sentences. I envision a future where no innocent people get killed just because of their race or the race of their victims.
