Capital Punishment
“American Citizens know almost nothing about capital punishment and people who are informed as to the purpose of the penalty and its liabilities, would find the penalty shocking, unjust, and unacceptable”
- Thurgood Marshall, first African American Supreme Court Justice
The War on Drugs is not the only aspect of the criminal justice system that aids in the furtherance of the illusion of justice in our society. Capital punishment has also played a key role. Historically, American's were in favor of capital punishment but if you also look at who was allowed to vote then this makes sense. African American's were not legally allowed to vote until the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Before this time, a number of death penalty statutes were directed towards blacks in an attempt to control the black population through fear. For example, the first death penalty laws in New York (1712) were directed solely towards blacks. In South Carolina (1740), blacks (including slaves and freed blacks) could be put to death for destroying property and/or crops. Lets take a look at a few of the more contemporary myths surrounding capital punishment discourse...
Myths
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Facts
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As time goes on however, we have become less and less tolerant of the death penalty. This may have something to do with medical advances and the use of science and DNA as the new measure of facts in a case. This new means of proof also confirmed the racist application of the death penalty in the past...
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The Innocence Project
"The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice" (The Innocence Project - Home). More than 250 people have been saved by DNA testing since 1989. They have found that 57% of those acquitted through the use of DNA were black. This hints at the amount of racial injustice that occurs in our criminal justice system.