Where do you stand?

I have worked on death penalty cases in the USA for over 20 years, and watched 6 of my clients executed. I have had more opportunity than most to examine the implications of having the death penalty on the statute books.

The most inspiring person I have ever met is Lorilei Guillory, whose six-year-old son Jeremy was killed by my client Ricky Langley. After Ricky was sentenced to death for the murder, Lorilei decided she wanted to meet with him to better understand what had happened. They spent three hours alone together and by the end of the meeting she was convinced that Ricky was insane when he killed her son. In the end she appeared in court she said “I feel like Ricky Langley has cried out for help and the system has failed him …And even though I can hear my child’s death cry, I too, can hear Ricky Langley cry for help.”

When you start to examine the personal histories of those accused of horrific murders, neglect and abuse are commonly recurring themes. Of course this does not justify the terrible acts they have committed, but if you were to hear the life stories of many of the prisoners that I have represented, I suspect that fewer readers would be willing to sign their execution warrants.

But that is not the only problem with handing down sentences of death.  The other problem is the system’s inherent fallibility. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in recent years, 127 innocent people have been freed from America’s death row and there is strong evidence to suggest that innocent men have been executed. This is in no way a problem unique to the US, no system is flawless and wrongful convictions happen here in the UK too. Take for example the cases of Sion Jenkins, who had his conviction for the murder of his step-daughter Billy-Jo overturned after spending 6 years in prison.

Ultimately the question is whether you, the readers, are happy to have a death penalty system implemented in your name that will always have these inherent flaws, when it could be you, or a loved one, standing in the executioner’s shadow – guilty, innocent or somewhere in between. I know where I stand.