I was just curious why it takes so long for people to be executed once they’ve been sentenced. I feel like sometimes it takes years on years .
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Because the State wants to perform an elaborate panto play in order to convince themselves they are killing the “right” person for the crime in question. As important, they want to convince voters they are doing everything possible to ensure they are killing the “right” guy for the crime in question.
This is done by a series of appeals at the local, State, and Federal level and, only after ALL these steps have been taken to ensure they are killing the “right” person for the crime in question, will they actually kill them.
And then, they hope no one EVER discovers anything that might prove they killed the wrong person. Because there ARE several cases where that has happened.
Innocents are regularly exonerated from death row. At least 200 since 1973. In 2003, Illinois governor George Ryan–himself a proponent of capital punishment–commuted over 160 death sentences to life after something like 13 exonerations in 4 years in that state alone.
Because of this, appeals are not rushed. Still, it’s a near certainty that innocents are being executed.
More info:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence
I live in a state that used to have the death penalty but doesn’t today. I remember when the efforts were underway to repeal it. It turned out there were cases where the persons sitting on death row were innocent and DNA evidence proved it, but the state prosecutors said, “It’s our job to carry out the conviction, and that’s what we’re doing”. They KNEW they had convicted the wrong person, DNA evidence proved it, but the prosecutors kept going for it.
I don’t know. Half of the time I want the death penalty to be available again. But I remember how it was abused and that makes me say “nope”.
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