Executed on a technicality

By David R Dow

A pretty good book on the death penalty.

He starts out by saying that most people debate on whether the death penalty is “just or fair” based on the crime committed. For example he points out that Charles Manson was a very bad man and that he committed very horrible murders. And if you were going to argue that the death penalty is “just or fair” then someone like Charles Manson is a person who should get it.

He also says that when people debate if the death penalty is “just or fair” most people who want the death penalty seem to agree that it should only be used on people who commit the worst of the worst crimes. Such as the Charles Manson types committed premeditated murders. As opposed to some guy who was convicted of murder because he was drunk and driving home from the bar and accidentally killed a pedestrian.

Last he says that people who argue that the death penalty is just always assume that the person convicted of the crime got a fair trail and is guilty. People almost never argue that an innocent person convicted of a crime should get the death penalty or that a person who did not get a fair trial should get the death penalty.

He quickly says that he is not going to argue weather the death penalty is “just or fair”, that’s your job.

But he does argue that almost all people who get the death penalty do not get fair trials for a whole bunch of different reasons. And thus he argues that the death penalty is unfair and unjust for this reason. Don’t get me wrong on this. He is not saying all these people are innocent. He knows a large number of them are guilty. But he is saying that most of them don’t get fair trials, and thus get executed, as opposed to the guy who got a fair trial, was guilty, and gets life in prison.

He has done a large number of death penalty cases as pro bono work and in the book he cites all the reasons that people who get executed did not get fair trials.