Final Death Penalty Blog

        Let me start out by stating that Illinois's banning of the death penalty was completely just. Capital Punishment is morally wrong and has too much room for error to be legal. The only problem with this is that the death penalty is constitutional, under the Constitution we should be allowed to have the death penalty. Even though we know that capital punishment is morally wrong, we cannot use the Constitution to say that it should be banned. Governor Ryan was completely right to have changed his mind, he was never exposed to the truth behind the death penalty and once he was he realized how arbitrary it is, before this time he supported it because he thought that it was completely just and had no bias. After taking time to consider that seventeen innocent men had been exonerated from death row anyone would be able to realize that the death penalty is wrong and there is too much room for error to allow it. The State Senate was able to make an emotional connection with the exonerated inmates and realized the negative effect the death penalty had on their lives and everyone close to them. As in our Death Penalty packet from Michigan State University they cite arbitrariness and discrimination as arguments against capital punishment, I would have to agree after reading Governor Ryan's speech, when he talks about how only 2% of murder cases received the death penalty it really stuck out to me. That is completely unfair to these people on trial, by the Constitution they are guaranteed a fair trial, and this is not fair. What makes some people more worthy of the death penalty than others? Once we get into this sticky subject we realize that there is no right answer, we as humans have too much bias to be morally right one hundred percent of the time. Going off of something Governor Ryan said, it does seem like life without parole is a really horrible punishment. These inmates have to rot in jail thinking about what they have done for the rest of their lives, this is worse than the peace that comes with death. These people are of no danger to us when they are locked up in solitary confinement for their entire lives. This also allows time for people to try to prove their innocence, therefore we will not condemn any more innocent lives.