Once a criminal is put to death no one can bring back the human life taken if a mistaken is discovered after the fact. Although some supporters of capital punishment argue that its advantages are worth the sacrificing of innocent people. Nevertheless, there is evidence showing that from the 1980s to the 1990s innocent people have often been convicted of capital crimes as well as executed (Amnesty International). Since the 1990s there have been an estimated four cases a year in which an innocent person was convicted of murder, in addition to the many that were sentenced to death (Amnesty International). Those wrongful convictions have occurred in almost every jurisdiction in the nation. Furthermore, despite the new penalty statues approved by the Supreme Court, the numbers of wrongfully accused has yet to decline. Unfortunately, the innocent persons convicted of crimes they did not commit are not always saved from execution or released from their sentences. There are several other cases in which evidence that would have released the convicted was discovered after the execution, or evidence was blatantly ignored. These examples explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never make mistakes. To retain the death penalty and overlook the serious flaws in the system is unacceptable, especially since there are no strong overriding arguments to favor the death penalty (Glover 145-146).Among the flaws of the justice system, we must remember that the taking of a human life is immoral. The methods used to perform these violent executions are barbaric. But, prisoners continue to be executed in the United States by any one of five methods listed below. In a few jurisdiction the prisoner is allowed to choose which fate he or she prefers. The methods of capital punishment in use in mid 1997 included hanging, firing squad, electrocution, suffocation in the gas chamber, and lethal injection (NCADP). The traditional ...
