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people sentenced to life are not just quietly forgotten in some corner of a dungeon. a life sentence leaves open the possibility of having the evidence reexami
by exit 15y ago
people sentenced to life are not just quietly forgotten in some corner of a dungeon.
a life sentence leaves open the possibility of having the evidence reexamined and of exonerating evidence emerging.
from http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConviction_DNA_Exonerations.php http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConvict... :
> There have been 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.
> ...
> • 17 of the 273 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.
> • The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years. The total number of years served is approximately 3,524.
how would putting the other 256 people on death row instead have improved error rates?
- yummyfajitas 15y agoYour numbers suggest that a person's best chance of being exonerated is for them to be on death row. A back of the envelope calculation: 17 exonerations / 3251 people on death row = 0.5% chance of exoneration 256 exonerations / 132000 people facing life in jail = 0.2% chance of exoneration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unite... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_the_United... It appears that sentenced to life are considerably more likely to be forgotten in some corner of a dungeon than people facing the death penalty. This fits my hypothesis - execution forces us to think about what we are doing, whereas life imprisonment allows us to pretend nothing is wrong.