CBS News Sunday Morning featured a report titled, Waiting to Die, which addressed many of the issues regarding the use of the death penalty today. The report highlighted the cases of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who is scheduled to be executed in Utah this week, and Gaile Owens, whose scheduled execution in September would make her the first woman to be executed in Tennessee since 1820.
The video featured interviews from many death penalty experts, including Kelly Henry, a federal public defender who is representing Gaile Owens's appeals. Henry believes that mitigating circumstances of sexual and emotional abuse that were not presented during Owens's trial could have changed the outcome of the case, and that Owens's trial counsel is an example of the worst representation. Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, who was also featured in the report, said, "If we had a death penalty that only picked worst of the worst that it would make some sense, but what we have is the death penalty who got the worst lawyer."
The report also addressed the fairness of the death penalty system in America as well as its arbitrary nature. Dieter said, "The victim is always a better person to side with, but there are principles, there are fairness issues. Americans have a basic sense of fairness and they know the death penalty is contradicting that." New York Law School Professor Robert Blecher, who is a supporter of the death penalty, agrees to an extent. Blecher said, "[The death penalty] doesn't work well enough. There are many deep flaws in both directions. Many people are being condemned to die who do not deserve to die. And people are not being condemned to die who do deserve to die."
CBS News, "Waiting to Die," June 13, 2010
Source: Death Penalty Information Center, June 14, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment