By: Cheryl Tully Stoll
From 2004 Archives
Science isn’t all that is needed for an equitable death penalty. For the sake of brevity, I will not address the moral issues here just the ones dealing with equity and justice.
What good is science if EVERY defendant doesn’t have the resources necessary to defend themselves properly?
EVERY defendant deserves the SAME quality of defense that the wealthy receive. They need to be able to hire top-notch lawyers, detectives, consultants and expert witnesses of their own.
EVERY defendant deserves the SAME access to resources to run their own forensic tests in order to achieve the true parity that our justice system is supposed to represent.
EVERY defendant deserves the SAME presumption of innocence, regardless of race, gender, economic status or religion.
EVERY suspect deserves to be apprehended based on the SAME burden of facts; not misguided supposition based on a demographic profile.
The issue of the media sensationalizing cases and over-covering events, which contaminates the potential jury pool, also needs to be addressed. The only way to get a jury that hasn’t been exposed, at least subliminally to these exploitative news reports; is to find someone who doesn’t read any newspapers or magazines, watch news on television, listen to radio news or talk shows or speak with people in the cafeteria at work, at children’s activities or other social events. Most of us wouldn’t consider these isolated and uninformed people to be a jury of our PEERS.
Just because the test says the DNA matches, it doesn’t answer the questions of how the DNA got there, whether it was accurately interpreted, accidentally damaged, deliberately tampered with, etc.
Additionally, it is a known fact that many eyewitness accounts are incorrect due to the stress of the moment or deficiencies in the average person’s observational abilities. Due to this, they shouldn’t be overly relied on, but very often they are.
These are some of the reasons I am opposed to the death penalty. The entire system needs fixing, not just the science.
Our justice system is supposed to be based on rules of law and assure JUSTICE FOR ALL. Until all of the above issues are addressed, all the DNA analysis in the world isn’t going to guarantee a fair, equitable and foolproof death penalty.
Copyright Ó 2004, 2008 by Cheryl Tully Stoll
