Death Penalty Final Response

“It is better that nine guilty men be set free than for one innocent man to be convicted.” The abolishment of the death penalty in Illinois was without a doubt just. Before this abolishment, the ability for innocent people to be convicted and executed was too likely. In his speech given in regards to the death penalty abolishment Gov. George Ryan explained how seventeen wrongfully convicted men had been condemned to death in Illinois, “together they spared the lives and secured freedom of 17 men who were wrongfully convicted and rotting in the condemned units of our state prison.”
It is not fair to allow the possibility of condemning wrongfully convicted inmate to face the death penalty. According to The United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, statistically 8% to 12% of all state prisoners are either actually or factually innocent. Even though that is a low percentage when factoring in the entire population of our nation, any amount of innocent people sent to death wrongfully is too large of a number. We must do everything in our power to prevent this from happening.
While watching the film The Execution it became clear that several of the men that were on death row along Clifford Boggus believed that they were innocent. It made me wonder how many of these people who claimed innocence were actually innocent?
Our nation’s court system has a lot of loop holes and I think our main priority should be to solve the issue of wrongful convictions rather than having the initiative to swiftly convict the accused. With the present loop holes, and the margin for mistake, it baffles me that some states still have a capital punishment law instigated. It seems barbaric and completely unjustifiable.