Part 4: Charts

One of the ways in which these charts influence my previous response about the issue of equality is that there actually is some issue with this topic that I did not notice before. Even though more white people end up being executed, there are many more black people who are sentenced to death for killing white people than there are white people who kill black people. Fifteen white people were sentenced to death for killing black people, while 246 black people were sentenced to death for killing white people. Either this is because more there is more interracial killings between black people to white people, than white people to black people. Or it is because black people are punished more severely for killing white people. States are paying hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers dollars for the death penalty. It is close to two million dollars per execution, which is more money than simply sentencing someone to life in prison. The public's opinion on whether they support the death penalty or not is too narrow to change the law now, even though 48% disagree with the law and 47% prefer the death penalty. I really great fact that the Death Penalty Information Center offered is that 88% of Criminologists said that execution does not prevent future homicide rates. Deterrents of future crimes has always played a big role in death penalty cases, and her it is saying how the death penalty does not play a big factor in future crimes. This site is very convincing because it offers a variety of different information in an organized way and an easy to read many. Even though before I disagreed with the death penalty, this only made my feelings against it stronger

Part 3: State Data of Death Penalty

One of the things that I noticed after looking at the map of America and it breaking down the number of executions by state was that white men from the south are the most common executions. Black males from the south come very close to whites, however there are more white male executions than blacks. Asians, Women, Latinos, and Native Americans have the lowest amounts of executions. When looking at the state by state data about the death penalty, most states seem very similar where they started off with hanging, then the electric chair, and now use lethal injection as their way of execution. Something that I saw about Illinois is that they have more sentences than executions, which means that there have been cases where someone was first accused as guilty and then later found innocent of their crimes, or granted clemency. Another thing I saw about Illinois is that there has been a decrease of support for the death penalty, and less people are starting to think that it should be allowed in Illinois. This data does not sure any issues in equality or arbitrariness because there seems to be a solid system for executing people, and there is not an imbalance of executions for whites and blacks. Even though it is not balanced for every other race, I don't think there is an issue of inequality. I do believe though in Texas that their system must be unfair because there is no way that that state can be that much more violent than any other state. There number of executions is about four times as much as the second highest state. It seems like their system must be flawed or unfair to have that many executions.

Part 1: Stages of Death Penalty

After a person is sentenced to the death penalty there are many stages before a person is actually sent to death. However these post-trial stages don’t always seem like they give the person a fair chance. After their sentencing, they can request for a new trial to try to bring up that there was insufficient evidence in the last trial, discuss new discovered evidence, or that there was jury misconduct. This appeal is usually rejected, which seems like they just have these stages to say that they give the person a fighting chance to appeal, but in the end never grant his request for a new trial. The only way to reverse the courts initial decision for an post-judgment trial is if a higher court will review the case and allow the person to have another trial on his or her case. The defendant can bring up new issues about his or her case that were not reflected in the record of the appeal. This is reviewed by the same judge who presided over the original trial, so it seems pretty unlikely that they would change their mind after the first trial. I think that a new person should review the case so that the defendant is given another perspective. Other stages also seem unfair like the “Proportionality review,” which many states have already abandoned, and the “Petition to U.S. Supreme Court,” which is usually denied by the Supreme Court. There are many other stages like this, where the defendant is given these stages to appeal his case, however they can all be easily denied. I think that this is system could work because there are so many stages that will allow people to relook at the case. However, I do feel like new people should be looking at the case to get a different perspective, and there are many times where the stages are just there, but never end up happening because they can easily be rejected.

Part 2: Methods of Execution

After looking over the methods of execution, the only one that I can almost see as a humane way of killing someone would be the lethal injection. Even though it does have its downsides to it, it seems like a much more peaceful and less gruesome way of killing someone. The fact that it puts the convict to sleep as it kills them seems much less painful than the other methods of killing someone. In the way of hanging, there are too many factors that need to go right for this to a painless execution. If one measurement is wrong it can then lead to a very painful method. Not only that, but in a modern day society, we should not be executing people in a way that has been used for hundreds of years. It seems too outdated to be used as a method for today. The firing squad method seems very cruel because if someone does not hit the right spot, not only does the convict not die instantaneously, but it also seems like it would hurt a great amount. It also does not sound too humane by simply shooting a person. The electric chair seems very cruel because of the fact that it may take multiple tries to electrically kill someone. Not only that but the description of the after affect sounds extremely gruesome. The fact that a person's eyeballs hang down to their cheeks on some occasions, seems a tad bit too inhumane to be legal in this country. The gas chamber has been proven to be very painful and can take a very long time, this does not seem like a very good way to execute people. Even though some may argue that the death penalty for these brutal criminals does not need to be humane, I feel that the death penalty in itself is inhumane, and if they are going to have it in our country then lethal injection is the best way to go.

Times Have Changed, and so should the rules of the Death Penalty

Before watching "The Execution" my opinion of the death penalty was that it should not exist. The death penalty lowers ourselves to the criminal's standards. People should not live their life with an eye for an eye mentality. After watching the movie my opinion did not change. The film brought in many good aggravating factors that almost swayed my opinion into letting him die. Boggess killed killed two defenseless old men in a brutal way. Not only that but when in prison he threatened to kill again, which was why it seemed like he would be a threat to peoples' lives in and out of prison. This is one of the big factors for why people support the death penalty because in taking the life of a criminal, they hope that it will save the lives of innocent people that the criminal could have killed in the future. Another big reason for why people support the death penalty is for redemption. The families who lost one of their family members were extremely upset that while their family member was dead, Boggess was alive. They felt that he should pay for what he did, and the only way for him to do that was to die. In the end though, I still felt like the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors.
When put in prison, Boggess was an agressive person who was definitely capable of killing again. As time progressed for Boggess while in prison, he started to become a different person. He began drawing and writing to pen pals, who soon became his best friends. He became very invested in religion, which made him a much more peaceful man. Even though his change was so great, this does not mean that I believe that Clifford Boggess should be free from prison. It just means that he should not have to serve the death penalty and instead serve life in jail. Boggess committed horible crimes, which he should be punished for. How he decides to serve that punishment in jail, whether he wants to be an aggressive person or a peaceful person is up to him, but it does not mean that he has to die. Also it almost seemed like Boggess was happier that he was going to die because he was so invested in religion that he felt that after death he would go straight to heaven. So by forcing him not to die, it was a worse punishment for him because he would not be able to go straight to heaven, which is what it seemed like he wanted.
It is understadable for a person whose family member was murdered to want that murderer to be put to justice. In this case, Boggess would still be brought to justice by serving life in jail. Boggess did change in prison and became a much more peaceful man who would not kill again, but the fact of the matter is that he killed two men. He must pay for what he did through thinking about his actions in prison for the rest of his life, and not simply killed off. By killing Boggess, the families are just lowering themselves to Boggess previous actions. Instead they should force him to stay in jail for the rest of his life, and live with what he had done.

An Introduction to the Columbine Massacre

When I think of Columbine, right away I think of the two ruthless high school students who went on a shooting rampage and killed innocent teachers and students. The book "Columbine" brings a different perspective to the story, and provides more detail than I've ever seen on what happened on that fateful day. The book takes an in depth look at the people that went to the school and the two boys who were involved in the shooting, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The book starts out with the dean of the school telling all of the students before their senior prom to be safe and make smart decisions. This made me feel very connected to the school because a lot of times people forget that Columbine was a normal, good, high school and very similar to ours. That is what makes this incident so much scarier. When looking at the two killers Eric was definitely the more destructive one. He had always fantasized of killing and destroying people. Always was a fan and admirer of Hitler and Nazis and felt the world would be a better place if he were just alone. The book does a good job of showing how Eric feels on the inside because on the outside he had a good group of friends and was not a loner. All of Eric's friends knew he was crazy, however they liked him. Dylan on the other hand was much shyer than Eric. He was a very bright kid who also had two very loving parents who treated him very well. Erica and Dylan were a tag team duo who enjoyed playing video games, watching and making movies, and occasionally getting into trouble. From the outside, these kids did not look like killers. They looked more like teenagers that liked to cause ruckus. The author was not trying to make you sympathize with these teenagers, however he was trying to shine a different light than how the media usually portrayed the killers.