Open Eyes
To have one’s name on that list is a nightmare in itself. This list- a never-ending file- paralyzes a man once the pounding gavel inscribes his name onto the page.
When Fate examines this list, it approaches each name like a ghost; those etchings on the page cower before the ominous shadow that lingers above their heads. These souls pray and beg for Fate to pass over their name.
But deaf to their desperate pleas, Fate crosses off each item one by one, preying upon the remaining victims as they wince in rhythm to the scaring of the parchment.
The death penalty has existed in every form of government ever since a people developed into a civilization. For hundreds of years, society, regardless of culture, has used the death penalty as the “ultimate punishment.” Any individual on the death row dreads the idea of experiencing this sentence; it is a nightmare that pries open their soul.
Over the years, society has adopted this horrendous form of punishment as a part of their judicial systems. In most judicial settings, the death penalty brings forth a closure to any debatable case. It is a sentence that, regardless of the scenario, fulfills the satisfying punishment: death. In a criminal investigation, the death penalty provides a sense of peace for the victim and his family; this sentence would forever silence the convicted criminal, and life would be at harmony once more.
But what if a court thrust such a conviction towards the wrong man?
When a judicial system investigates a criminal case, it seeks to locate every ounce of truth that could uncover the facts within this mystery. In modern-day courts, these truths are unearthed through the use of technology. Criminal investigations utilize technology as a key to unlocking pieces of evidence. Evidence- whether large or small- is used as a force to influence the sentence that precedes the pounding gavel. Because technology has become a part of the judicial process, courts rely upon the evidence produced by current mechanisms to construct their decisions. The technology that produces evidence has the power to sentence a man even to the harshest of punishments; it is with these pieces of evidence that deliver a man- whether innocent or guilty- to the death row.
However, how reliable are the technologies used in a criminal investigation?
In 1983, Kenneth “Kenny” Waters “was convicted [of a] 1980 murder…in his hometown of Ayer, Massachusetts.” (Perez) His conviction was based on witness testimonies “and on the blood type found at the crime scene.” (Perez) The Massachusetts State found Waters guilty, and they sentenced him to life in prison.
However, Betty Anne Waters, Waters’ younger sister, fought for her brother’s innocence. As her brother’s attorney, Betty Anne searched for and located blood sample evidence from her brother’s trial. In the late 1980s, DNA testing was introduced as a breakthrough in criminal investigation. Since this new innovation proved effective, Betty Anne persuaded the court to DNA test the samples of blood evidence against samples from her brother.
The result: the samples did not match.
Because of this small piece of evidence, Kenny Waters was exonerated and later released in 2001. (Perez)
If Massachusetts had allowed the death penalty, the court would have executed Kenny Waters long before it acquired the technology to uncover this life-saving information. He would have died in vain if technology had not produced a breakthrough innovation. But in many other criminal investigation cases, there is no “if.” Hundreds of courts throughout the United States have executed convicted suspects. But when science developed new technology, courts realized that, after reinvestigating these cases, they had sentenced the wrong man to death.
Although contemporary society has developed the most advanced technologies, courts, even in modern times, have made these similar blunders. Over the last century in the U.S., at least fifty executions were proven to be false convictions. (Turow) The judicial system may even continue to make these horrid mistakes in the future. When a court investigates a criminal case, it cannot depend upon even the most trust-worthy technologies to produce the “definite” evidence of the case. Modern technology is highly advanced, but it is an art that continues to develop day by day; science may always uncover a breakthrough that could alter the methods of criminal investigation. In situations involving the death penalty, a single piece of unfound evidence could save a life. Nevertheless, the technology used to uncover this evidence may lie just a few years away.
If a court wished to sentence a man to death, they could easily do so with the power of evidence. However, the reasons for a death sentence stretch far beyond the physical proof; it is the purpose of the death penalty that drives forth the sentence.
When the death penalty was established in the United States in the 1600s, the idea behind this sentence was for society to punish a convicted suspect for his or her actions. (Green) However, the true purpose of the death sentence expands far beyond this single idea. The death penalty is not only a punishment for the convicted criminal, but it is also a warning to others of the dire consequences for criminal actions. Yet, this warning has presented no effectiveness.
In the United States, the death penalty created a minute decrease in murder rates among the nationwide population. However, it did not influence a significant deterrence in the overall homicide rates in the U.S. In fact, when compared to states without the death penalty, “the majority of death penalty states [presented] murder rates higher than non-death penalty states.” (“Deterrence…”)
If statistics show that the death penalty falls short of its purpose, then why does the judicial system continue to allow such a horrendous punishment? What does this reflect about the U.S. judicial system?
In the judicial system, the death penalty reveals a contradictory mentality of the purpose of a court. By inflicting a death sentence upon an individual, a court no longer represents a civilized system. Instead it resembles a barbaric, ravenous government: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
The death penalty is an extremely violent sentence, both physically and mentally. In the United States, and even around the world, convicted individuals may be executed through lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and even firing squad. (“Methods of…”) It is an irreversible penalty that shreds apart any individual’s sanity and soul. Whenever a court sentences a man to such a penalty, it is responding to a case with greater violence and terror. To commit a crime is horrifying enough. But to create greater pain as a solution is unimaginable: justice lies not within this form of sentence; instead, it is hatred and revenge.
Whenever a court sentences a man to death, it does not only inflict searing agony upon an individual; it boils an entire family alongside of this human being as well. A single execution does not silence just one soul. Instead, it slashes apart hearts who mourn for a loved one, and it engulfs their world with an unsettling shadow.
For thirteen years, a father fought for his son’s innocence. His twenty-one year-old son, Chiang Kuo-ching, was convicted of murder in 1997. Later that year, the Taiwanese military firing squad executed Chiang, who was an air force baseman.
In his last letter to his father, Chiang insisted that he was an innocent man; his father took those words to heart. Thirteen years following the execution, Chiang’s father pursued in the fight towards clearing his son’s name. After years of persistence, the Taiwanese court reinvestigated the case in 2011. Within only a few weeks of examination, military investigators retrieved the truth: Chiang was innocent.
But his father never heard this revelation.
He had died the year before in 2010, stating with his last breath that his son was an innocent man. (“Officials…”)
Chiang Kuo-ching’s father will never be able to hear the reassuring words: “Your son is innocent.” Like this father, thousands of other individuals may never receive that comforting statement. They may never know that their loved one died in vain, and they will never sleep another night with peace and comfort.
Even if an apology is offered to these wounded human beings, it is not the apology they want in return. What they wish for is the loved one whom the death penalty snatched away from their pleading hands, disappearing into the abyss with that one, lonely soul.
If Fate had crossed off and executed the wrong name, those remaining victims could only weep with misery.
Even if they rush to awake him from an eternal slumber, their hopeless cries would fade away as mere, ghostly whispers. Their tears of desperation would only collapse upon his numb cheeks like beads of steel, and their anxious hands would warm not a pigment of his cold flesh.
And even if they tried, this name would just stare into the distance with those empty, open eyes, seeking for that moment in which he could, alas, rest in peace.
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