uth America - more than 80 nations worldwide - have abandoned capital punishment, yet the United States remains an avid supporter in company with countries such as Iran, Iraq, and China as one of the major users of capital punishment (Death Penalty Focus). The use of the death penalty in its discriminatory and arbitrary methods "only magnifies inequalities of race that persist in the criminal justice system and in American society generally (Berger 355). Even with the death of a guilty man, innocence is lost, for even Edward Koch admits that "the death of anyone - even a convicted killer - diminishes us all." But it is a sad commentary on the state of this country when we are willing to accept the avoidable death of an innocent man and allow the "death penalty to continue to create and perpetuate injustice."...
