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Mencken’s claim about the death penalty is unconstitutional and illegal. Due to the many people that are on death row and the many factors that put them there any strand of hope that will keep them fighting keeps them alive. You have seen it on the news and in the news papers were genuinely innocent people are on death row for crimes that they did not commit, you have the issue of just because I am a certain color, stay in a certain neighborhood or a certain gender also you have the incompetent defense lawyers, police or prosecutor misconduct, or misinformed and biased judges or juries.
There are many innocent people on death row today due to the fact that they had an officer on the case who just didn’t want to do their job or who was paid to plant evidence to get another off. An investigator who just assumed that he or she was guilty due to their race, sex, they are connected with another person or just because they know that certain person has been in trouble with the law before. Several law enforcers, judges, lawyers have taken bribes, lost or misplaced evidence just to see any innocent person put away. Just recently in Nebraska a group known as the “Beatrice Six” was recently pardoned for a 1985 murder after new DNA evidence excluded their participation in the crime. (Omaha World-Herald, January 27, 2009), As of August 26, 2008, 130 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. The most recent is Michael Blair (No. 130) of Texas, On August 26, 2008. (D.P.I.C Death Penalty Information Center)
Another unquestionable argument against the death penalty is racism. The Supreme Court, in the famous race-based challenge to the death penalty (McCleskey v. Kemp), found in 1987 that those who murderer whites were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder blacks, from the days of slavery in which black people were considered property, through the years of lynching and Jim Crow laws, capital...